Facebook boosts ANZ creative team with four new hires

This is a supplied media release.

Facebook continues to grow its Creative Shop with the announcement of four significant senior hires to support the ANZ business. The move brings an increased level of skills and experience to the ANZ team.

The Head of Creative Shop APAC, Fergus O’Hare says, “Our aim is that Creative Shop is a catalyst for collaboration throughout the creative industry, but especially with agencies. We want to be indispensable partners, helping businesses tell the best stories on our platforms and accelerate the shift to mobile. Brilliant ideas are the result of deep teamwork, and we prioritise work centered on collaboration and learning alongside each other.”

Established in 2011, Creative Shop is a team of creative strategists within Facebook and Instagram designed to support Australian and New Zealand brands, businesses and agencies to build the most creative and innovative work on the platform.

Currently, there are more than 150 people in Creative Shop, in more than 40 locations.

Fergus announced today that Andy Simpson joins the ANZ team as Creative Shop Lead. Andy is joined by two Creative Strategists, Dan Walton and Karen O’Leary, as well as Lara Andrews who joins the Creative Shop team in the newly created role of Creative Research Lead.

On the new hires, Fergus said: “Andy joins directly from the Creative Shop team in the US. We’re excited to bring his skillset and vision to the local market. Having joined the company in 2013, he’s got a wealth of knowledge and a proven history of leading insight-driven creative programs that are focused on driving business objectives.”

Andy has a strategic marketing background and held roles in brand management at Unilever and global gaming developer Ubisoft before joining Facebook. Andy will lead the local team of five senior creatives, including the newly hired Creative Strategists Karen O’Leary and Dan Walton.

Karen is a highly awarded hybrid mind, with metal from every major award show globally including a Grand Prix in Cannes and a Grand Clio in Miami. Prior to joining Facebook, Karen has an impressive back catalogue of activities, including judging at D&AD to launching, managing and merging her own social/PR/activations agency. She also regularly creates large scale public installations for music festivals as an independent artist. Karen’s most recent role was as the Creative Director at TBWA Auckland.

Similarly Dan Walton joins with over fifteen years of global experience. Having started his career as an Art Director at McCann Erickson in New Zealand, Dan has had roles as an Art Director in the UK, Kenya, Tanzania and more recently Sydney. Prior to joining Facebook, Dan was a Group Creative Lead at Clemenger BBDO.

Lara Andrews will be focused on increasing the data insights available to the Creative Shop team both in Australia and across the wider APAC region in her role as Creative Research Lead. Lara, a three year Facebook veteran, will work across APAC in identifying projects that will demonstrate the value of data driven creative planning and development, aligning with the global Creative Research team.