Peter Mayer hired Desmond LaVelle as vice president, executive creative director.
LaVelle joins the New Orleans agency from Facebook Creative Shop, where he has served as creative lead, global accounts for over a year and a half. He first joined Facebook Creative Shop at the beginning of 2014 and formerly served as a creative strategist. Before that he spent a little over a year and a half as senior vice president, creative director at Leo Burnett Chicago, where he worked on Esurance. Prior to Leo Burnett he served in the same role at FCB for nearly two years, working on Dockers, and then freelanced with CP+B, mcgarrybowen, FCB and Leo Burnett for around a year.
So why did Facebook’s global creative lead leave to join an independent New Orleans agency?
In a statement published in MediaPost, LaVelle cited the agency’s “perfect” size, which will allow him “to make a difference in the creative world,” adding that “the City of New Orleans is a big cultural draw that inspires my creative passion.”
LaVelle will be tasked with overseeing the agency’s creative, development and studio departments and report to chief creative officer Josh Mayer, according to the publication.
As you may recall, the agency lost its eponymous founder last year, when Peter Mayer died at the age of 86.