Colenso BBDO appoints two senior creatives from BBDO New York
Colenso BBDO has announced two senior creative hires, appointing Levi Slavin as chief creative officer and Dan Wright as executive creative director.
Colenso BBDO new senior appointments Levi Slavin & Dan Wright
The two men join from BBDO New York where Slavin was EVP, group creative director and Wright was senior creative director.
They join executive chairman Nick Worthington and executive creative directors Steve Cochran and Wayne Pick to lead the agency’s creative department.
The appointments add significant fire power to the New Zealand agency, which was recently ranked the number two agency in the world, behind Adam & Eve DDB, by the Gunn Report.
The move sees the pair return to the agency, where both have previously worked. Slavin has worked two stints at Colenso BBDO, the first as a creative in the mid-noughties, then again as creative director from 2010 to 2014. He left the agency to take a global creative director role at Anomaly before joining BBDO New York.
Wright was digital creative director and creative director at Colenso BBDO over a six-year period from 2010 to 2016. He left Colenso to take his current role at BBDO New York.
The pair have worked together on a number of clients at BBDO New York, most notably the highly-awarded GE podcast Life After.
Scott Coldham, managing director of Colenso BBDO, said the appointments would take the agency to “the next level”.
“We don’t ever want to stand still as a business and these two bring a level of brilliance and experience that will certainly ensure we’re continuing to do our best work in an ever-changing landscape. We’re blessed in this part of the world with our ability to make amazing work with more ease than the larger markets, but in many ways the US is light-years ahead of us - so their exposure and experience up there will definitely benefit our approach to the work.”
The appointments coincide with the departure of creative group head Simon Vicars and senior art director Andre Sallowicz who are leaving the agency to join Adam & Eve DDB in London.
Nick Worthington, creative chairman, said, “When great people leave it’s hard to watch them go. But when great people leave to work with some of the best companies in the world, to gain invaluable experience, garner knowledge, grow in confidence and produce great work, and we know that one day they may bring those new-found skills back to us here at 100 College Hill, it’s worth it; it makes us a better agency. That’s what’s happened with Levi and Dan, and we hope it will happen in a couple of years with Simon and Andre.”