Today we learned that Matt O’Rourke, who once had his bike stolen in the East Village and landed on our list of unofficial finalists for 2014 Headshot of the Year, has accepted a new job at Grey New York as ECD and lead creative on the Volvo account.
We last mentioned Matt directly in the summer of 2014, when he moved from Wieden+Kennedy to Deutschland as part of Pete Favat’s attempt to build “an ‘A Class’ of creative talent across all disciplines.”
Since that post ran, he spent just over a year working on Taco Bell, Mophie and Sprint, or the account that may have inspired the threat of a lawsuit against this blog. Chief creative officer Andreas Dahlqvist calls him “an outstanding leader for our accomplished Volvo creative team in North America.” He previously spent time with CP+B as well as two stints at McCann in both New York and San Francisco.
The new hire follows a couple of changes on both agency and client sides: back in May, Grey shifted to a new “five portfolio group” setup with divisions determined by clients’ industries and revenue totals. The reported plan for all ECDs to report to GMs rather than chief creatives, however, doesn’t apply to O’Rourke, who will speak directly to Dahlqvist. Volvo also recently ghosted on Grey London, revoking that shop’s global AOR status after signing AKQA for digital work. (Grey remains the client’s agency of record for North America.)
Contrary to what some of our tipsters seem to think, we hear from inside sources that O’Rourke’s time at Deutsch did not end badly. He and his wife relocated to New York from L.A. earlier this summer (because who wouldn’t) and he freelanced for a quick spell before going Grey-side.
We are slightly disappointed by his new headshot, though.
And did you hear that Grey was recently named the Cannes North American Agency of the Year for 2015? Here’s the pic from Tor.
