The new director of planning at Wunderman's New York office comes from the brand consultancy world.
Before joining Wunderman, Nelson Freitas was chief strategy officer at Creative Realities in New York for more than a year. Before that, he ran his own consultancy, which was called Clear Skies Ahead.
That's not to suggest that Freitas lacks big agency experience, however. Earlier in his career, he held planning roles at Ogilvy & Mather, TBWA\Chiat\Day and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Freitas' brand experience ranges from American Express and Levi's to Genentech and Macy's. Wunderman New York's accounts include Citi, Microsoft, Land Rover, Novartis and Lufthansa.
In his new role, Freitas, 48, steers a department of about 10 planners and reports to managing director Chris Loll.
The New York office's last planning chief, evp of strategic services Margie Chiu, left in 2011 to become an svp in Merkle's client advisory group. Since her exit, Slavi Samardzija, evp of marketing intelligence at Wunderman subsidiary KBM Group, had overseen the planners at the main agency.
