Hasta La Creative!

Today in Things We Missed, the two ECDs behind Johannes Leonardo’s recent work for Playstation, adidas and other clients left the agency to return to their native Australia.

This isn’t “news” because it ran in Australian media way back in April when the pair announced plans to take partner positions with Sydney’s Cummins&Partners. But it is relevant as Johannes Leonardo gets more press and prepares to make headlining hires.

The two, who seem to come as a package deal, spoke to Campaign Live last month to explain why they left. First, they say that “we had a very similar creative approach as the [Johannes Leonardo] founders Jan Jacobs and Leo Premutico,” which lead them to move from Australia a year and a half ago.

Why did they leave JL? Martin says, “we would’ve loved another year or two living and working in NY” but the partnership offer was simply too good to pass on. He adds, “we found if you surround yourself with amazing people and have a distinct creative voice you can succeed anywhere.”

We do hear that Johannes Leonardo is very close to making an executive hiring announcement, and we assume that it involves whoever will replace recently departed CEO Mike Duda.

In the absence of these ECDs, the agency will also need to expand its creative department. Updates to come.