NEW YORK Fernanda Romano, executive creative director at Interpublic Group's Lowe here since 2005, is transferring to the shop's Madrid, Spain, office in July to become a global creative director at Lowe Latina.

Romano, 32, will work with clients such as Unilever. She also becomes part of a Lowe Latina leadership team that includes CEO Jean-Louis Roche, executive director Fernando Vega-Olmos and chief strategy officer Alex Pallete.

Launched in the fall, Lowe Latina aims to reach Latin consumers with common values in markets where Spanish is spoken, including Spain, Central America, South America and the U.S.

Lowe New York chief creative officer Mark Wnek plans to fill the ecd role, preferably with another executive who has digital experience. Before joining IPG's Lowe, Romano was an interactive creative director at Omnicom Group's DM9DDB in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Wnek hired Romano in September 2005, along with Peter Rosch and John Hobbs, who were creative directors at Bartle Bogle Hegarty here.

Collectively, Romano, Hobbs and Rosch functioned as day-to-day leaders of Lowe's creative department. In September, however, Rosch and Hobbs left to join commercial production company Furlined, leaving Romano as Wnek's sole No. 2.

Among Romano's projects was a 2006 documentary film for Nokia that David Bowie narrated and Wim Wenders directed. The 29-minute film profiled independent music store managers around the world in a bid to spark interest in an online service that Nokia started to cultivate sales of its music-enabled N series phones.

Romano also helped develop a milk-moustache smiley face emoticon for the agency's "Got milk?" client, and recruited creatives with interactive experience to work in the shop's 45-person creative department.

"I had a fantastic time here in New York," said Romano. She said developing a creative process was her most satisfying takeaway from the job: "It taught me a lot. It's so liberating to know that no matter where you go or how crazy it gets, the process" will pull you through.

Said Wnek: "Fernanda is like my little sister and I'm glad she's staying in the family."