Jim Elliott, who joined Arnold Worldwide as global CCO in January after a stint at Y&R, has made his first new hires to boost the agency’s creative department this month.
Dylan Bernd will be SVP, group creative director in Boston and Chris Chao will be SVP, creative/design director in New York, effective immediately (they’ve already started, in fact).
Bernd joins Arnold from Mullen, where he also worked as GCD and drove creative on the JetBlue, truTV, and US Cellular accounts (here’s JetBlue’s recent “Fly It Forward” campaign). Prior to joining Mullen, he spent more than a year at McCann’s New York offices leading the MasterCard work.
He also freelanced at CP+B and David&Goliath, where he worked on the Kia Super Bowl spot (making of clip here). After beginning his career as an art director at Cole & Weber and Mother New York, he spent three and a half years as CD at BBH and helped create campaigns for Johnnie Walker, Ally Bank, and AXE.
Chao most recently spent seven years in the Saatchi organization in New York as an art director/SVP and ACD on Olay (which he “helped grow…from a $1B brand to a $2.5B powerhouse”) after working as ACD at Deutsch NY on Westin, Sheraton, and Tylenol.
In the new role, he will be a member of the KAO creative team working on John Frieda and Jergens.
Bernd will report to ECD Pete Johnson in Boston and Chao will report to EVP/ECD Kate Murphy in New York.
Bernd, who worked with Elliott at Cole & Weber, says:
“To have the opportunity to work with him again at Arnold is a dream, as he’s one of the nicer human spirits in advertising.”
From Chao, who spent several years as an art director at then-Arnold/McGrath in the late 90s/early 00s:
“I’m thrilled to be returning to Arnold at such an exciting time in the agency’s development…I look forward to working with Kate and her talented team to evolve the beautiful work they have done on John Frieda and Jergens.”