Last month we posted on an executive reshuffling at Denver-based Factory Design Labs. While many of the details regarding internal changes remain unclear, founder Jonas Tempel did reclaim the CEO title (he was most recently chairman of special projects), moving former chief executive Scott Mellin into the chief brand officer role. This week we heard of another big change for the agency: a new office in San Francisco led by former Razorfish ECD Scott Larson.
Factory Design has yet to officially announce its expansion, but Larson describes the new West Coast location as an “upstart” in his LinkedIn bio — and this week would appear to be his first on the job.
Larson served as ECD at Razorfish’s San Francisco office from 2010 to 2014, leading creative for Intel, Xbox and other clients, but his background is not in digital: previous roles include nearly seven years with the Y&R organization, where he served as EVP/ECD, and more than a decade with FCB as creative director, GCD and, eventually, SVP.
Factory Labs has not yet responded to our request for comment, but it would seem that Larson was hired to lead the North Face account. In November, multiple sources told us that the client planned to review its agency options after assigning TV work to Mekanism, which created its latest ad.
But Factory continues to produce digital work for the client: in his bio, Larson writes that he will be “wearing The North Face’s gear 24/7” in the new role.