Executive creative director Antonio Navas is departing Saatchi & Saatchi for the US after three years with the agency.
Corey Chalmers and Guy Roberts are being promoted to joint executive creative directors, effective September 1.
Saatchi & Saatchi chief executive Nicky Bell says Mr Navas was a great leader for the agency but he needed to be closer to his family.
“He played an instrumental role in the transformation of the agency and, frankly, he helped us bring back the soul,” she says.
Mr Navas arrived in New Zealand from Ogilvy & Mather New York in 2011 and has an impressive portfolio of agencies.
“This has been a planned succession we’ve been working on internally since the beginning of the year," says Ms Bell, "and I know all our people and clients are thrilled that [Mr Chalmers] and [Mr Roberts] are taking on the ECD roles.”
The two new executive creative directors best known work is for the Tui account; namely the Catch a Million and Beer Plumber campaigns, which respectively won a Cannes Gold and Bronze Lion this year.
The duo has won multiple awards since 2006. They teamed up in 2007 and joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 2012.
Mr Roberts says the days of the TV agency approach are gone and that is why he loves working at Saatchi & Saatchi.
“Whether it’s plumbing houses with beer, turning stadiums orange, or creating powerful experiential and digital ideas, we’re enjoying the innovative work that our clients rightly demand,” he says.
ASB Bank, Sanitarium, Tui and Telecom (soon to be Spark) are among Saatchi & Saatchi's New Zealand clients.
The agency is owned by Publicis Groupe, a French-based advertising and public relations company.
Campbell Gibson
Mon, 04 Aug 2014
Mon, 04 Aug 2014
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Executive creative director exits Saatchi & Saatchi
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