40 Under 40 2021: Sascha Kuntze, BBH

Sascha Kuntze

Chief creative officer 
BBH
Singapore

Promoted to the chief creative officer of BBH Singapore in 2020 when the pandemic hammered the world, Sascha Kuntze achieved the agency’s best year. Commercially, the agency exceeded all previous results in revenue and profit.

On the creative side, BBH Singapore won multiple Effies this year, including a US Effie, and was named a 2020 Global Creative Agency of the Year finalist by Campaign UK, next to Mother/London and Adam&Eve. During the same year, the agency also received countless other awards including more Webby awards than any other agency; a pencil at D&AD; a gold, a silver, two bronzes and four merits at One Show; one gold at ANDY; one winner in the Campaign Tech Awards; three site of the day awards at FWA: three gold, two silver, and two bronze at Caples; a gold, three silvers, and six bronzes at Ad Stars; and a silver at Creative Circle.

Even before moving to Singapore, when he was at Memac Ogilvy Dubai, Kuntze won over 400 awards at all major award shows in all categories, including nine Grand Prix.

However, award-winning is not the only tag for Kuntze. He retained all creative staff in 2020 and adopted a more open hiring policy and a wide range of diversity initiatives. Under his leadership, the number of women in the creative department rose from 24% to 45%, and rose at the senior level from 14% to 36%.

He also stands out in the industry by launching a series of innovative firsts, including but not limited to, BBH’s augmented audio-reality entertainment platform ‘Running Stories’, the world’s first interactive RomCom on TikTok for global restaurant chain Jollibee, and the first interactive YouTube livestream powered by comments for Riot Games.

Kuntze is passionate about mentorship programmes for junior staff and high potential female leaders. He is also a frequent jury member and guest speaker for awards and industry events.
Because of his infectious enthusiasm and creative power, Kuntze was also appointed to the Publicis Groupe Creative Council for APAC and MEA and the BBH Global Creative Council.

Having worked many jobs—newspaper delivery boy, math and english tutor, bank teller, barkeeper in the German military, assembly line worker at Mercedes Benz producing SLK engines—the lifetime job that Kuntze enjoys most in the world is being a father to two sons and one daughter.