Saatchi & Saatchi London
Saatchi & Saatchi London has made two key management changes, promoting Richard Huntington, currently Chief Strategy Officer, to the role of Chairman and Sam Hawkey, currently a Managing Partner, to Managing Director. The creation of the new London roles follow the recent promotion of Saatchi & Saatchi London CEO Magnus Djaba, who has added the title of Global President Saatchi & Saatchi to his remit and the arrival of Danny Josephs as COO in December. Huntington will continue as Chief Strategy Officer in addition to his new responsibilities as Chairman. He will focus on representing Saatchi’s unique brand and culture inside and outside the agency and in particular with clients. He has led strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi London since joining in 2008. He works across most of the agency’s clients from HSBC to EE to Direct Line as well as looking after its thought leadership programme. Hawkey has worked at Saatchi & Saatchi London since 2012 on both global and local clients including Guinness, Kerry Foods, T-Mobile and Weight Watchers. Before joining the agency, he worked at Glue Isobar and Dial Media Group. He will now oversee the day-to-day management of the agency whilst continuing to head up the EE business and driving the Publicis Communications integration internally. Both Huntington and Hawkey will work with Josephs to bring world-class creative solutions to clients and accelerate business growth.
dock10
Leading media services business dock10 has announced the appointment of Darren Deans as its Head of Marketing. Deans has more than 25 years worth of experience in the broadcast industry, having held key marketing roles in organisations including Babcock Media Services, WRN Broadcast, Arqiva and Kingston Inmedia. dock10 is the UK's largest television studio facility, where major productions including ITV's The Voice and BBC's A Question of Sport are filmed. The recent acquisitions of vfx businesses Edit 19 and 422 have made dock10 the largest post production business outside London and also taken it into the creative services market.
Karmarama
Multi award-winning UX designers Amardeep Shakhon and Gurmit Singh Shakhon will be joining Nik Studzinski, Chief Creative Officer at Karmarama to fuel the creative offering across the customer journey. The pair will be joining as Executive Experience Directors working alongside Studzinski on creative output, as well as leading the Experience Design unit within Karmarama’s team focussed on mobile-first digital products. The pair have worked globally across three continents for an array of clients, including Sony Playstation, Coca Cola and Carphone Warehouse. They have won numerous awards for UX and design, including winning a BIMA award for reinventing the TV experience in both the physical and digital world of Sky Q, a Yahoo! Revolution Award for their work with BT.com and Tradespace, and a Webby for transforming how customers plan, book and travel with TFL. The Brothers both graduated from Brunel University, where they now act as advisors helping to engage with and mentor the next generation of digital designers.
Proximity London
Following on from the promotion of Gabrielle Ludzker to CEO, Proximity London has hired Joe Braithwaite, current General Manager of BBDO Singapore, as its new Managing Director. Joe, will take up the role in April and will be responsible for driving dynamic agency growth, through an unwavering focus on delivering outstanding, innovative and brave work for Proximity’s enviable roster of clients. Braithwaite joined BBDO Singapore back in 2008 as a Regional Account Director and rose rapidly to become General Manager in early 2015. He has been pivotal in generating organic growth with the agency’s largest clients such as Diageo, Visa and P&G, whilst winning new accounts like Tiger Beer, Smirnoff and Tourism Australia. He has also helped BBDO become one of the most awarded agency in Singapore, securing multiple Golds at both the Effies and Cannes, as well as personally being named Campaign’s Account Person of the Year for South East Asia.
Dentsu Aegis Network
Dentsu Aegis Network US has announced that Carat US CEO Doug Ray has been named its first President of Product and Innovation. In this newly created role, Ray will drive Dentsu Aegis’s holistic product agenda, helping clients to access the breadth and depth of capabilities across the network and lead the development of integrated, tailored client solutions. He will also have a particular focus on developing data and data-led products, including working to leverage the full suite of data and people-based marketing capabilities on behalf of clients across the group. Additionally, Michael Epstein has been promoted to CEO, Carat US. Most recently Carat’s President and Chief Client Officer, Epstein has been responsible for all US-based client leadership, and ensuring consistent delivery of best-in-class strategy and plans that drive tangible business results for clients. Since joining the agency in 2013 as Chief Strategy Officer, Epstein has also played an active role in new business and helped propel the agency’s strong, double-digit growth. Under Ray and Epstein’s leadership, in the last six years, Carat has more than doubled agency revenue and has also garnered numerous awards, including Adweek’s Agency of the Year, MediaPost Agency of the Year and Advertising Age’s Agency A-List.
OLIVER
OLIVER is boosting its senior creative team with the appointment of ex-R/GA group creative director Andrew Ferguson to the role of Executive Creative Director for a selection of key accounts. Ferguson will lead the global creative capability for his client portfolio with a remit to drive a future-focused creative approach that embeds OLIVER’s tech and digital capabilities. He will report in to Brian Cooper, chief creative officer for OLIVER Group UK. Ferguson joins from R/GA where he was a group creative director. Notably he delivered the Facebook chat bot ‘Little Brush, Big Brush’ campaign for oral care brand Signal Pepsodent. Fergusson is an award-winning creative with more than 18 years’ experience; he has spent his career working at some of the biggest agencies in ad land including AKQA, Tribal DDB and Blast Radius. In that time he has created a selection of notable campaigns including Philips’ “Carousel” ad, which won a Film Grand Prix at Cannes in 2009, and Nike Grid, which scooped multiple accolades including the Media Guardian Innovation Award.
Buffalo 7
UK-based presentation design agency Buffalo 7 has appointed a Client Services Director. The new role has been created to strengthen the firm’s client relationships with a view to developing more repeat business and to support its ongoing growth. Appointed to the position is Gary Corrin, who brings with him 20 years of experience in commercial and marketing leadership roles within a variety of industry sectors. Corrin has previously worked with and advised brands such as InterContinental, Hilton, David Lloyd and Molson Coors. The PowerPoint design specialist has added 12 new staff members over the last year, bringing its current number of employees to 24. As a result, it is looking to expand its presence in Manchester and London, as well as to set up operations in the US and Asia by 2019 and 2021, respectively. Buffalo 7 works with clients including UEFA Champions League, Samsung, Facebook, PlayStation and Red Bull. The firm is exhibiting at ProlificNorthLive on 15th and 16th February, with CEO Lyndon Nicholson speaking twice at the event.
Maxus UK
WPP media agency Maxus UK has announced the promotion of Alex Steer to the newly created role of Chief Strategy Officer, as part of its move to further integrate technology into its wider strategic decision making. In his new role, Steer will take responsibility for developing and executing the agency’s strategy, working closely with UK CEO Nick Baughan. His remit will be focused around continuing to drive Maxus’ data-driven and technology-led approach which has been instrumental in the agency’s current growth trajectory. Previously in his career, Steer led the product and analytics division at WPP technology company Fabric Worldwide. Steer joined Maxus in 2015 as Head of Data & Effectiveness before taking charge of Maxus’ new TED Division (Technology, Effectiveness & Data) in 2016. As Head of TED, Steer launched Maxus Pie, the agency’s ‘plug and play’ personalised marketing technology service.
DigitasLBi
The Publicis.Sapient’s boss for Europe, Middle East and Asia, Nigel Vaz, has been given an expanded remit that will see him take on responsibility for DigitasLBi as Global President. Vaz replaces current global chief executive Luke Taylor, who is departing the agency after a three year stint. It comes two months after Publicis merged digital agencies Razorfish and SapientNitro to form SapientRazorfish. Maurice Levy, chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe, said that this completes the reorganisation and the governance of its digital and technology assets. Vaz will continue to report into Wexler and Register as he oversees the global strategy and growth of DigitasLBi.
RAPP
RAPP has appointed Hiten Bhatt as associate creative director of design. Previously design director of OgilvyOne, working with brands including American Express, British Airways, BT and IBM, Bhatt will report to Adrian Whatman, RAPP’s creative director of design. Cathy Crocker has also joined RAPP from TBWA as a digital designer. Armed with a 2016 D&AD New Blood award, as well as having been shortlisted for a Cannes Young Lions earlier this year, Crocker will play a pivotal role across Rapp’s digital-led clients. RAPP’s clients include Virgin Media Business, L’Oreal, Mothercare and PayPal.
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