The Chicago offices of R/GA have officially announced the hiring of the agency’s newest creative leader: ECD and design specialist Dinesh Goburdhun.
Goburdhun–who actually joined the shop several months ago–isn’t just about UX, though. In the new role, he leads all experience/visual design and copywriting work at the Chicago office.
This is the first news we’ve heard from R/GA’s five-year-old Windy City outpost in some time.
Last April, the office hired MDavid Low (his real name) for what is effectively the same position now occupied by Goburdhun. He spent about a year in the job before leaving to go clientside, and he’s now design director at–you guessed it–Nike. Jeff Brecker of Digital Kitchen and Leo Burnett took over the lead MD role in Chicago back in 2013, and he remains in that position.
Regarding the decision to hire Goburdhun, Brecker writes:
“I’m excited to have Dinesh on board as his experience combines the power of business strategy and design thinking to give our clients distinctive approaches that are built to thrive in a world offering so many touch points to consumers.”
The new ECD says:
“R/GA is an organization I’ve respected since its days designing film titles. I’ve admired the work for decades, and the agency’s ability to take risks in creating that work, and in reinventing the business, time and again.”
Goburdhun has held a number of high-profile strategy positions at various organizations. He has also long specialized in design and experiential work, working at Boston’s Continuum and Agency.com before becoming an associate partner at Chicago’s “innovation consulting firm” Gravity Tank and then moving to a partnership role at design-driven agency VSA Partners, where he spent nearly seven years handling “senior digital and brand strategist” duties. He has recently worked on such projects as BMW’s X1 concept car, IBM’s Smarter Planet campaign and the XBox 360 system.
After leaving VSA, Goburdhun worked as an independent consultant and taught at Chicago’s IIT Institute of Design before joining the R/GA team full-time over the summer.