Hasta La Creative!

Ronny Northrop is now ECD at Y&R California. Northrop, who will report to CCO Mimi Cook in the agency’s San Francisco office, previously spent extended stints as a copywriter at CP+B and creative director at GS&P. Before joining Y&R, he spent time freelancing for 72andSunny, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners and others. While Northrop’s resume indicates that he joined Y&R in February, AdAge mentioned the change for the first time today.

Hawthorne Direct promoted John Pucci to the position of Chief Marketing & Creative Officer. Pucci, who joined the agency in 2011, has served as SVP/CCO since 2013; in his new role he will oversee all “marketing, publicity and promotional activities.” Prior to joining Hawthorne, Pucci served as ECD at Havas Edge in Hollywood, and his recent agency history includes SVP/ECD stints at Publicis and RAPP. Earlier in his career, he worked as art director at Saatchi & Saatchi, held the GCD position at DDB LA, and served as a partner at TracyLocke.

He has also worked in-house for organizations as varied as Walt Disney World, E! Networks and Mattel.

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Grey London announced yesterday that Chief Creative Officer Nils Leonard is being promoted to the role of chairman. Leonard will continue on in his previous role while also being tasked with driving innovation across the company.

Leonard first joined Grey London back in 2007, becoming an executive creative director and then chief creative officer at the agency. Prior to Grey London, Leonard served as head of art/creative director at United and senior designer/art director at Abbot Mead Vickers BBDO. Prior to that he spent five years as head of art/design at Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R. Among his best-known work at Grey London is Vodafone’s “Kiss” and McVities recent campaign featuring kittens and puppies, which Time magazine called “the cutest thing ever put on television.” (more…)

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Thanks to a tipster and our friendly neighborhood LinkedIn, we can confirm that an ad industry veteran has moved to either the dark or light side (depending on your perspective).

Zach Canfield, who has nearly fifteen years of experience in creative recruiting and director of talent roles with GS&P and Wieden+Kennedy, is now global creative recruiting lead at Google.

We have no details regarding his move, but it would appear that the West Coast’s tech titans are now actively poaching talent from local agencies (not that this is a new development). While Canfield doesn’t have creative credits on campaigns, he does have many recommendations for “creative direction.” On his profile he writes, “I’ve been lucky enough to work with and hire some of the best creatives in the world,” so we assume he played a role in hiring a few of the creatives mentioned on this very blog.

His only appearance on AgencySpy to date came back in July, when we shared an image of GS&P’s new reception area. The critical response was…divided.

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Wunderman isn’t the only New York agency to name a new chief creative officer today. This morning, principals at Grey NY announced the hiring of Andreas Dahlqvist.

Dahlqvist, who founded DDB Stockholm in 2004 and served as ECD/managing partner there for several years, most recently held the titles of vice chairman, McCann New York and deputy global CCO for brands within the larger McCann organization, which he joined in 2011.

He also served as global CCO at the GM-focused Commonwealth//McCann, and his name appears atop all of that agency’s latest campaigns. His most memorable AgencySpy appearance to date occurred as part of the dress-alike project “Partnerganger,” which may or may not have been inspired by the Ogilvy tumblr “Work Twinsies.”

The release tells us that the new CCO, who has won “every major creative award,” will oversee Grey’s entire 500-strong creative department. President/Worldwide CCO Tor Myhren writes:

“Few people in this industry have done what Andreas has…started his own agency from scratch and built it into the best digital agency on the planet.”

Dahlqvist will report to/work closely with Myrhen and North American CEO Michael Houston.

Memo from those two after the jump.

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Last month, we broke the news that key Hill Holliday client Cadillac was “quietly talking to other agencies” before the account officially went to Lowe Campbell Ewald.

Tips about pending cuts began arriving soon after the news went live, and today we can confirm that the agency has let some staffers go over the past few days. Following a string of wildly inaccurate tips, we received a call and an official statement from an agency spokesperson, who placed the number of layoffs at less than five percent of the total Hill Holliday workforce.

Here’s the statement:

“We have recently made some necessary staffing adjustments to ensure the future success and growth of the agency. While it’s never easy to make hard decisions like this, we are confident these changes will better position us for continued success. Our industry is changing at a rapid pace, and like any responsible business we must adjust accordingly, and embrace that change as opportunity.”

According to Glassdoor, that “less than five percent” total includes between 25 and 50 employees, many of whom presumably spent time on the Cadillac account.

Tips vary on specifics: one reader tells us that cuts began in the HR department last week and another claims that management officially announced creative layoffs today. The latter also writes that a majority of those affected worked in the creative department.

Updates as we receive them.

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JWT announced today that Lucie Greene has been appointed as worldwide director of JWTIntelligence. She will be responsible for “driving JWT’s consumer insights and trends-focused initiatives, adding bench strength to the agency’s trends unit, JWTIntelligence.” She will be based out of New York and report to JWT Worldwide Planning Director Guy Murphy.

“Lucie’s experience is a strong complement to JWT’s longstanding and highly respected trends unit. She will deepen our understanding of cultural shifts and drive innovation possibilities for our client brands,” said Murphy in a press release.

Greene joins JWT from LS:N Global, the forecasting division of London-based trends consultancy The Future Laboratory, where she led a team of researchers that forecast trends for clients such as Nike, Google, Marks & Spencer, H&M, Estée Lauder and Westfield. She also presented for organizations including Estée Lauder, Virgin, Rolls-Royce, and Ralph Lauren on trends, and led strategic content partnerships with Retail Week Live and Cosmetic Executive Women. Prior to joining The Future Laboratory, Greene was a regular contributor to The Financial Times, Women’s Wear Daily, Vogue UK, Elle Decor UK and The Telegraph, while working with clients such as Richemont Group, LVMH and Space NK on branded content projects. (more…)

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Edu Pou will move from old Amsterdam to New; beginning November 3rd, the former head of creative innovation at W+K Amsterdam will served as ECD at The Barbarian Group in Manhattan.

The Group’s new top creative will lead all accounts and report to CEO Sophie Kelly while working with Kelly and co-founders as Benjamin Palmer and Keith Butters in order to “diversify the agency’s existing portfolio.”

Prior to occupying the head of innovation role, Pou worked as creative director in the same office; he also spent time as a senior copywriter at CP+B, working on Domino’s Pizza, Volkswagen and Nike among others. His portfolio includes work for Heineken, Coca-Cola and EA sports, among others.

Before you ask: yes, he mentioned the desk. He also takes great headshots.

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RPA hired Jason Tarantino as its newest VP/strategic planning director.

Tarantino is an agency veteran whose previous role was that of group planning director at TBWA’s Media Arts Lab. The release tells us that he “co-managed a team of more than 30 planners and researchers and directed strategy” on various Apple initiatives. Prior to that gig, he spent a year as SVP/GPD at the Martin Agency and more than two years as GPD at R/GA’s San Francisco office (his second stint with the agency).

He also worked as a senior strategist at W+K and spent several years as an independent contractor for various brands after beginning his agency career in Razorfish’s strategy department. Tarantino will report directly to David Berne, SVP and director of strategic planning, who writes that the hire will “will further enhance RPA’s ability to unlevel the playing field for our clients.”

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New York/South Carolina-based Erwin Penland announced three new additions to its creative team.

Steve Rodriguez will serve as SVP/creative services director. He will help CCO Con Williamson run the creative department and contribute to hiring, staffing allocation, work assignments and other general operations concerns. He most recently served as director of creative services and talent at Saatchi & Saatchi and has worked in similar production/project management roles at Anomaly, BBH and KBS+.

Kristofer Delaney and Danny McHatton will both serve as VP/creative directors, effective immediately. The two will work primarily on the Denny’s and Verizon accounts, reporting to SVP/ECD John Cornette. Delaney joins the agency from Digitas New York, where he worked on the American Express account as a freelance CD. Prior agency experience includes a three-year stint as ACD/art director at BBDO NY as well as time spent in design at Ogilvy, Publicis, W+K and Starbucks.

McHatton most recently worked as a freelance ACD at Publicis; his past positions include copywriting gigs at mcgarrybowen, TracyLocke and Energy BBDO.

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Portland, Oregon-based agency Pollinate today announced the appointment of Simeon Roane as executive creative director tasked with leading innovation, creative and design.

Roane most recently served as group creative director at Razorfish, where he led work on the Netflix account and was also selected onto the judging panel for the 2014 American Advertising Awards. Prior to Razorfish, Roane spent around a year as a freelance writer/creative director, working with brands such as Microsoft, AT&T, Embassy Suites, Dollar Tree and Kia Motors. That followed an almost six year stint as executive vice president, executive creative director at Publicis New York, where he worked with brands including Coca-Cola, BMW, Heineken, T-Mobile, Nestlé, Lens Crafters and TGI Friday’s. Roane first joined Publicis all the way back in 2003 as a group creative director, following four years as an associate creative director at 180 Amsterdam. (more…)

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