A recent string of creative changes within the AKQA organization continued this week as the agency parted ways with London-based ECD Jason McCann.
His departure follows those of several New York executives: ECD Sung Chang left the agency last month to become CCO at MRM//McCann after AKQA’s global chief creative officer Rei Inamoto and New York general manager Rem Reynolds resigned to launch their own, as-yet-unnamed venture in Manhattan. ECD Stephen Clements also left AKQA’s San Francisco office earlier this year to launch a startup called Junior with fellow veterans of AKQA, Argonaut and Razorfish.
McCann was one of three CDs hired to work under Inamoto in New York in 2011, transferring to London at a later date. This April, AKQA promoted him, along with Chang and Masaya Nakade, to the ECD role; at the time, Inamoto cited “tremendous growth that we’ve had in our New York office in the last couple of years” and “stronger partnerships with various clients such as Verizon” as the reason for the move.
Prior to joining AKQA, McCann spent six years at Toronto’s TAXI and six at ICE (Integrated Communications & Entertainment).
AKQA had no comment on the latest news. We hear, however, that several other creatives have left the London office in recent months and that the agency is currently planning a rebranding of sorts for its global creative operations in the wake of Inamoto’s departure.
Sources say that no successors have yet been named in either the New York or London offices, but AKQA is currently hiring for various creative positions in Washington, D.C., New York, Portland, San Francisco and Shanghai.