Today McKinney announced the latest in a series of changes to its executive team, promoting longtime copywriter and creative director Liz Paradise to the ECD position.
Paradise will continue to lead creative on Nationwide in her new position in addition to working on new business. The release notes that she “looks forward to furthering the agency’s partnership with Nationwide” in addition to contributing to all of its other accounts and “putting practices in place to highly motivate [the rest of McKinney’s creative teams].”
January will mark Paradise’s 25th year with the agency, and on her site she writes, “I’ve been in the business a long time…if you took my mental age and averaged it with my physical age I’d be about 22.” She was promoted to EVP in 2011 after earning the GCD and SVP titles in 1997 and 2004, respectively. In 2012 she appeared on AMC’s short-lived reality show The Pitch (which we hear was actually pretty good).
Regarding her promotion, CCO Jonathan Cude says, “Liz is one of the most kick-ass creative leaders in the business,” adding, “I am regularly impressed with her ability to lead the creative process in a way that delivers smart solutions to complex business problems.”
From Paradise herself:
“I want to keep the energy up so that people are pumped to do great work day in and day out. Part of that is finding ways to mix it up—to work more nimbly, try new approaches to ideation and experiment with team structure.”
The promotion follows several changes within the agency’s creative department, most recently the departure of GCD Philip Marchington and a new freelance role for Ellen Steinberg. Both had been partners.
In August, McKinney CEO Brad Brinegar became chief executive of the larger Cheil Worldwide North America organization, and he made his first big move in September by promoting account vet Walt Barron to chief strategy officer and hiring 72andSunny/kbs+ veteran Kerry Fitzmaurice as managing director of its New York office.
During her time at McKinney, Paradise has won a slew of awards, judged Cannes/One Show/Art Directors Club and spoken at the 3 Percent Conference.