This week has seen another wave of appointments and departures at brands, media owners and agencies. The Drum has rounded up the key moves from the EMEA, APAC and North America regions below.

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Absurd

Absurd has appointed Rob Noble as a non-executive Director.

Previously, Noble held the position of founder and chief executive at Great Fridays before its acquisition by EPAM Systems in 2014, to which he became vice president until 2017. He joins Absurd as a strategic advisor to the board.

Loveurope

Loco, Loveurope’s moving image division, has appointed Tony Chamberlain as head of post production and Madeleine Evely as a producer.

Chamberlain brings experience from Channel 4 TV and Red Bee Media after running Locomotion Dusseldorf in Germany. Meanwhile Evely joins from Group IMD where she progressed from TV administration.

Because

Graham Wall has been named UK chief executive of global Creative experiences agency Because.

Bringing over 20 years of experience in the creative industry, Wall brings experience from campaigns with the likes of Unilever, Sky, Mars and Lloyds Bank.

McCann Worldgroup UK

Rob Smith has been appointed as McCann Worldgroup UK’s first chief client officer, a promotion from his current role as London executive vice president.

In the newly created role, Smith will be charged with the agency’s UK client services after joining three years ago during the entity’s formation.

Ligatus

Ligatus, has announced three hires which sees Alex Newberry, David Mensah and Matthew Larkin join the native advertising solutions provider.

Newburry joins as head of publishers bringing seven years of media experience. Mensah will bring his programmatic experience to the role of operations manager. Meanwhile Larkin, previously head of sales at Mozoo, will take on the role of head of sales.

GMR Marketing

Global experiential agency GMR Marketing has appointed Jamie Ennis as vice president.

Previously, Ennis worked as vice president of the West Coast for Mosaic, primarily leading the experiential team across various categories.

Airbnb

Airbnb's global marketing director, Alexandra Dimiziani, is to depart the business, marking the latest internal change for the brand following the exit of chief marketing officer Jonathan Mildenhall.

Dimiziani joined the business in 2014 from Coca-Cola, initially leading EMEA marketing for Airbnb. She confirmed the news on her personal Facebook page but did not say where her next move would be. The Drum understands she will continue in her role for three months before stepping down.

Chelsea Apps Factory

Martin Boyle has joined Edinburgh based Chelsea Apps Factory as digital director following the appointment of Richard Marshall who joined the company in December last year. 

Previously Boyle has built his career at Tesco, joining on the graduate scheme before leading the consumer brands digital initiatives. 

Truth

Truth, the global blockchain-enabled media agency, has appointed Oliver Southgate as chief technology officer.
 
Southgate, who joins from retail technology platform Shopitize, has more than 20 years of experience of working in the publishing, marketing and ad technology sectors. He was previously head of data and technology at Havas Media Group UK, MD at The Social Group and technology director at DigitasLBi.
 

Media iQ

Media iQ has appointed Nicole Young as vice president of marketing EMEA to drive the marketing strategy of the agency across EMEA. 

The appointment comes following her role as director of media at Estee Lauder Companies in the UK and Ireland working closely with the parent beauty company's roster of brands, which include Clinique, Jo Malon, MAC and Tom Ford. 

House of Fraser

Simon Pickering has joined House of Fraser as buying and merchandising director for apparel and accessories. 

Joining from exclusive high street brand Reiss where he served as chief digital officer, Pickering brings over 25 years' experience to the position. 

CNN

CNN has appointed Roland Nikalaou as EMEA content sales lead. In this role, Nikalaou will work to grow the content partnerships. 

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Kantar

The insights consultancy has appointed MC Lai as chief executive officer of its insights division (Kantar TNS and Kantar Millward Brown) in Malaysia, succeeding Tim Kelsall. He will take on the position in addition to his current role as managing director of Kantar TNS.

Lai will be responsible for the continued success of Kantar TNS and Kantar Millward Brown by developing the expertise of local teams and enhancing the synergies between the brands to bring the best of what Kantar has to offer to clients.

The Marketing Society

The Marketing Society has announced managing director of Uniplan Hong Kong, Darren Chuckry, as its new chair for its Hong Kong hub.

Chuckry will work alongside Tricia Weener, chair of The Marketing Society in Asia and the rest of the board to support the company’s plan to create a vibrant, leading edge society in Hong Kong with the purpose of inspiring bolder marketing leadership within the local business community. 

Iris Bangkok

Global creative network Iris has appointed Kevin Larken as executive creative director of the Bangkok office, moving him from its Jakarta office, where he was also Executive Creative Director. He will report to Graham van der Westhuizen, managing director of Iris Bangkok.

BMF

BMF has poached M&C Saatchi’s client service director, Paul Coles to run the ALDI account. He joins BMF as general manager.

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McCann New York

McCann New York has expanded its creative leadership with the appointment of three executive creative directors and a new group creative director.

Maru Kopelowicz, Jeff Anderson and Cam Hoelter have joined as executive creative directors while Holly Hessler has been named as a group creative director.

The Martin Agency

The Martin Agency has elevated Karen Costello from executive creative director to chief creative officer, filling a hole left by the controversial departure of Joe Alexander.

Costello is the first female chief creative officer in the company’s 53-year history. She came to the Martin Agency as executive creative director in September 2017 from DeutschLA to help lead the Mondelez account, both globally and domestically. She and Jerry Hoak had taken interim lead creative roles in December of last year following the departure of former chief creative officer Alexander. Hoak will continue in an elevated leadership role, with a promotion to executive creative director and managing partner.

The Abbi Agency

Michael Leonardini has joined The Abbi Agency as chief creative officer, bringing experience branding some the world’s largest tourism organizations and media companies to the Reno-based agency’s growing creative division.

Leonardini is the former design director of MeringCarson. He was also previously the creative director at Cambria Solutions, and led nation-wide non-profit campaigns such as the Got Your Six veteran support effort.

RedPeg Marketing

RedPeg Marketing, a brand experience agency whose clients include Accenture, Geico, Square Enix, TD Bank, Francis Ford Coppola Winery and more, appointed Fredda Hurwitz, as the company’s new chief marketing officer. 

Prior to joining RedPeg, Hurwitz served as global chief strategy officer for Havas Sports & Entertainment (London), where during her eight years with the group, she focused on driving the strategic growth of their offices around the world and evolving the brand into a true global player. Leveraging her 20-plus years of industry experience, Hurwitz will focus on growing and diversifying RedPeg’s current footprint, opening up new client opportunities outside of their heritage US-based clients, and expanding the company’s current service offering.

S3 Agency

The S3 Agency has promoted Stefanie Fernandez to vice president of client services. In her new role Fernandez will be responsible for spearheading the client experience, further cultivating the positive results she has helped the agency generate for over a decade.

Fernandez joined The S3 Agency in 2006 and has been an integral part of the agency’s growth ever since, with clients such as BMW of North America, Tata Global Beverages and Wyndham Worldwide. 

The Escape Pod

Blagica Bottigliero has joined The Escape Pod as director of social strategy to oversee the social media work for each client.

Bringing experience from Orbitz, where she was a founding member the eMarketing team, Bottigliero has worked with clients including Target and Motorola.

Work & Co

Work & Co has elevated Caleb Yarian to associate partner of strategy, based in the company’s Portland office. In his time at Work & Co, Caleb’s led strategy for engagements in the US and Europe, for clients such as Lyft, Alaska Airlines, Breastcancer.org, and Rapha.

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