After a decade in the city, The Martin Agency hired Amber Guild to serve as the first managing director for its New York office, Adweek reports. Guild began the position last week, reporting directly to The Martin Agency CEO Matt Williams.
The office’s client roster includes Kayak (for which it won creative duties back in February), Sunglass Hut and Optimum.
“Martin New York has grown dramatically in the past couple of years, but we’ve been eager to find just the right person to help lead that office to an even higher level, and Amber is that person,” Williams said in a statement. “She will bring her extensive expertise and be a great partner to executive creative director James Robinson and director of brand strategy John Gibson as they grow and shape Martin New York.”
Guild joined The Martin Agency form brand consultancy Collins, where she served as president since December of 2014. Prior to Collins she spent five years at full-service agency T3, rising to managing director of the agency’s New York office after joining as a group account director in September of 2009. Before that she spent two years as a senior account director with Swift Integrated Marketing, following a year as an account director with Y&R. She has also held account management positions at Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy & Mather.
“I’ve had a crush on Martin since my early days as an account executive,” Guild told Adweek. “When I was growing up in account management, my job was to become a trusted adviser to our clients by understanding their business, building and creating affinity for their brand, and creating an environment for my team that inspired great, effective work,” she said. “If anything, as I’ve become more senior, I put even more attention to building environments and cultures that allow for people from different backgrounds (diversity!) to thrive—it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s business critical.”
“It’s important to point out that Martin New York has already been here for several years and has steadily grown since it first opened its doors,” she added. “We live in one of the most diverse cities in the world—a city I was born and raised in—and our opportunity is to make sure our talent and our work reflect the creativity, diversity and complexity of the world we live in.”
Guild’s arrival follows the office expanding its creative team with a series of new hires at the beginning of the year, about a month ahead of the Kayak win. The office added executive creative director James Robinson in March of 2015.