Brand consultancy Wolff Olins announced the naming of Tim Allen as its first North American president.
He joins Wolff Olins from Amazon, where he served as executive creative director for product experience for the past year. Prior to Amazon, he spent two years at R/GA as senior vice president, global executive creative director, experience design. He began his agency career at R/GA back in 2007 as creative director, Nike brand, leaving for a yearlong stint as creative director, head of experience design at SapientNitro before rejoining the agency in 2012. He has also served in product design roles at IBM and Adobe and has been an adjunct professor at New York’s School of Visual Arts since January of 2013.
Allen told Adweek that Wolff Olins’ decision to hire its first North American president now was “mainly an impetus from customers,” adding, “Clients’ customer bases require more from brands than what they say; it’s more about what they do experientially, and our clients are asking for that across the board.” He called his appointment “more an insertion of leadership rather than a complete reorganization” and claimed that the consultancy would be adding a technologist, user-experience designers and a design strategist to its team in the near future, but would not change the management structure it currently has.
“With his generous leadership style, his infectiously optimistic personality and his depth of expertise in technology, product and experience design, you couldn’t find a more suitable person to lead our North American business to even greater success,” Wolff Olins global CEO Ije Nwokorie said.