Ogilvy & Mather imports eight global talents for Shanghai base

Reflecting a vast set of interests and backgrounds, among the eight creatives are a taekwondo enthusiast, a yogi, and an artist who dabbles in printmaking.

"This eclectic diversity should produce the right mix for great work, hopefully resulting in gold," chief creative officer Graham Fink said, referring to the industry's chase for creative awards, although he added that the agency does not place creativity higher than clients' needs.

The new recruits are not replacements for any recent departures. "These new people are to reinforce our creativity, mainly due to new accounts we have put on in the past year," Fink said.

Appointed as head of art for Unilever and Lee Jeans is Stephane Delgado Hunziker. Of Swiss descent, Hunziker speaks English, French and Spanish.

Commenting on Hunziker's Vogue experience, Fink said he has cultivated fashion sensibilities and a knowledge of artistic layouts, making him the right fit for the beauty-oriented clients under his care.

Simond Chew, from Singapore, has been hired as a creative director and will start work on Unilever from 1 April. Chew moves to Ogilvy from Saatchi & Saatchi, where his last role was creative group head of activation. Before that he worked at TBWA Tequila from late 2007 as an integrated creative group head for ResortsWorld and Sentosa. 

During his 13 years in the ad business, Chew has won metal at a range of awards shows including Cannes, D&AD, Spikes Asia and AdFest. 

New creative director Rocky Hao, a Shanghai native, now oversees the Philips account won in December last year from DDB after a four-month global review. He has been duking it out in the ad industry for 12 years, racking up accolades at Cannes Lions, One Show, Effie Awards, China Advertising Festival and Longxi Awards. 

In Hao's previous job at Grey Shanghai, he led teams for Sony and Allianz. Earlier at Dentsu, Bates and BBDO, he served Pepsi, Visa, Tiffany, New Balance and Vanke.

Su Jin, a Swedish-Chinese fluent in Mandarin, English and Swedish, has been named senior art director, also for Unilever. She leaves her freelancing days in London for Nokia, Diageo and Novotel behind. Before that, Su worked for JWT London from 2010 on HSBC, Johnson & Johnson, Rolex and Huggies. 

Joining as associate creative director is Davide Rossi from Italy, working on Kraft, BP, Castrol and Victoria Tourism. Most recently, Rossi spent a year at DDB Milan as senior conceptual creative supervisor on projects for Volkswagen, Audi, Hasbro and Fujitsu. Rossi also completed creative and copywriting stints at DLV BBDO Milan (2009-2011), FP7 McCann Doha (2008) and Leo Burnett Milan (2005-2008).

A former colleague of Fink at M&C Saatchi London, UK native Martin Latham, has signed on with Ogilvy as associate creative director for clients such as Lee Jeans, Coca-Cola, Burn and DFS Galleria. At his previous gig, he worked since 2007 on campaigns for RBS and Transport for London. In 2011 Latham was the recipient of awards including Creative Circle (Silver), Campaign Big Award (Silver) and four D&AD In Book Awards.

A Chinese-American duo fills the last two slots in the string of new positions. Aaron Yuan and William Goh, joining as associate creative directors for the Unilever account, were at Plan.net Middle East since August 2009 as art director and copywriter, respectively. Before that they also worked in partnership at Saatchi & Saatchi Dubai.