More than six months after Y&R New York swiped Leslie Sims from McCann to fill its chief creative officer position, the shop has further expanded its creative department with the addition of three ad industry veterans.
Perhaps the most significant of these hires is that of Christian Carl, who joins the agency from Havas Worldwide and will serve as global ECD overseeing the Dell account.
Carl–who by his own account loves making “a lot of things” because he loves “seeing what happens when I do”–spent the last three years at Havas’ New York office leading creative on various accounts including Dos Equis, New York Life, Ritz and the sex brands K-Y and Durex. Prior to joining Havas in 2012, Carl spent more than seven years as an SVP/CD at Arnold, where his Volvo work earned a few mentions on this blog.
Regarding Carl’s hire, Sims writes that she knew Y&R needed “a creative leader with not only a fantastic talent, but also the ability to oversee creative for a global enterprise, ensuring consistency and cohesiveness across both BtoB and BtoC efforts” to handle the “dynamic” Dell account.
In addition to Carl, Hamish McArthur will now be head of 
design for Y&R. The Australian native has spent more than two decades in the agency world, most prominently serving as VP/head of design at Saatchi & Saatchi New York from 2000 to 2009. He began his career at McCann’s Sydney office and spent the last several years freelancing at twofifteenmccann, Ogilvy, FCB and others, and in his new role he will be responsible for “setting the design vision for the agency.”
Finally, Greg Lotus is now Y&R’s executive director of integrated production. Lotus, who the release describes as a pioneer in his field, spent nearly two decades at McCann, rising from assistant producer to SVP/EP before leaving in June. During those 18 years, he worked on MasterCard, Sony, Nikon, Verizon and General Mills (among others).
In a longer statement, Sims paints these new hires as symptomatic of the industry’s move toward emphasizing imagery over language:
“Consumers are accustomed to speaking in visual language, and they recognize and expect high quality production. That’s why it is so important to cast the right people in those roles – and why I am thrilled that Hamish and Greg are part of our team now.”
This point is further supported by March’s hiring of Juan Charvet (formerly with 360i) as Y&R’s first “director of experience strategy.”
The agency’s renewed focus on design, technology and user experience follows the May 2014 promotions of Jim Radosevic and Sean Howard to the New York president and North American COO positions, respectively.