Matt Willifer, chief strategy officer at Engine’s newly created Creative and Brand Experience division, is leaving the company after eight years of service. Willifer joined WCRS in 2011 as executive planning director. Three years later his remit extended to became chief strategy officer of Engine's social agency DF.
Kyoko Matsushita is to be the new global chief executive of Essence, replacing Christian Juhl who is becoming global chief executive of parent company Group M. Matsushita was born in Japan and raised and educated in America and the UK.
Juhl has also promoted another lieutenant, Jennifer Remling, from global chief talent officer of Essence to global chief people officer of Group M.
Airbnb has appointed Edward Vince to head up the EMEA region of its in-house agency Airbnb Creative. He joins from Facebook, where he was associate creative director in San Francisco for three years. Prior to that he was art director at Apple.
Former And Rising executives Andrew Barnard and Will Thacker have launched 20Something, a creative company dedicated to relieving pressure on marketers and simplifying the "over-complicated" process for buying advertising. Barnard and Thacker were managing director and executive creative director respectively at And Rising, until leaving the agency in March.
David "Shingy" Shing has left his role as Verizon Media’s "digital prophet". The Australian joined AOL in 2007 as marketing director and remained with the company after it was acquired by Verizon and merged with Yahoo to form Oath, later renamed Verizon Media. Shing wrote on LinkedIn it was "time to explore new territories within our industry, to travel less and laugh more".
BMB has appointed Melanie Arrow as head of strategy, with a brief to "put the agency’s strategic capability on steroids and bulk it up to new levels of henchness and perspicacity". Arrow will join on 1 September from Bartle Bogle Hegarty, where she is group strategy director.
R/GA London has hired Bruno Di Lucca as creative director. He was previously head of design at Saatchi & Saatchi London, where he creatively led campaigns for brands including Lurpak, Budweiser, Visa and Toyota. He will report to R/GA’s EMEA chief creative officer Andre Le Masurier.
Harley Johnson has joined Jungle Creations as head of new business from Lad Bible, where he was client partnerships account director. He replaces Will Hamnett, who has relocated to New York to develop and grow the company’s commercial strategy in the US.
Media Chain, the social-first publishing arm of Social Chain, has hired Jon Edwards as head of sales. Edwards was previously brand partnerships account director at Lad Bible Group, and worked at Unilad prior to its acquisition by Lad Bible in 2018.
Brand design agency Vault49 has appointed Jonathan Bateman as design director at its London office, which opened this April. He previously held the same role at Design Bridge.
Flexible workspace brand London Executive Offices has appointed Justin Skinner as director of brand and marketing. He was previously marketing director at fintech firm Contis, and before that spent 11 years as senior vice-president of marketing at Cineworld.
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