Colleen DeCourcy Joins Snap as Chief Creative Officer

Colleen DeCourcy didn’t stay retired for too long. The former chief creative and president at Wieden+Kennedy, who announced her retirement from W+K and the advertising industry in December of last year, is joining Snap, Inc. as the company’s chief creative officer. At Snap, DeCourcy will lead global creative efforts for the company, helping to elevate Snap's brand image and storytelling that the company hopes will generate impactful marketing efforts for the organization. She will report to Snap CMO Kenny Mitchell. Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, has been expanding its creative focus recently. It recently announced a partnership with Cameo at its NewFronts presentation, featuring a Snap x Cameo advertiser program. It is also continuing its Snap Originals programming and it unveiled its new Snap Promote initiative for content partners to boost their visibility and viewership through promoted content across the Snapchat platform. Snap and DeCourcy have already started working together, as she and her team have built several successful campaigns, including Snap’s first ad for the Academy Awards, a spot dedicated to the winning film Coda. Snap joined with SignAll to create Fingerspell AR lenses to encourage Snapchatters to use the application’s hand-tracking to learn American Sign Language. The creative was concepted and produced by Snap's internal creative team, led by DeCourcy and shot by director duo The Mercadantes from Park Pictures, one of whom—Katina Mercadante—can communicate using ASL. “My concerns about the impact of social technologies on society are pretty well known. At Snap I’ve met a thoughtful group of people with values and a mission that can make a difference. That’s 100% why I’m doing this,” DeCourcy said in a statement. “What I didn’t expect is how much fun it would be to take my advertising brain and do something completely different with it. I’m at a ten-year-old company that’s just getting started in terms of the good it can do with a camera. That’s an incredible opportunity for a creative thinker.” Snapping up new leaders DeCourcy is the latest new leadership hire at Snap. The company recently brought on Jacqueline Beauchere from Microsoft as its first global head of platform safety, Anne Laurenson from Google as managing director of global carrier partnerships, Rajni Jacques from Allure as global head of fashion and beauty partnerships and Konstantinos Papamiltiadis from Facebook as vice president of platform partnerships. “We are so honored to have Colleen join our team at Snap. Her exceptional strategic and creative leadership makes her the perfect person to help transform the way we bring the Snap brand to life around the world,” said Mitchell in a statement. “Colleen has already made a tremendous impact on the organization, and we can’t wait to see how her incredible talent, passion, and imagination continue to fuel creativity at Snap.” DeCourcy was a creative powerhouse at Wieden+Kennedy, coming to the independent agency in 2013 and leading it to numerous creative wins, including a 2019 Cannes Lions Grand Prix win for the Colin Kaepernick “Dream Crazy” campaign and a 2021 Film Grand Prix for “You Can’t Stop Us.” DeCourcy helped lead W+K to consecutive Adweek Agency of the Year wins in 2018 and 2019, and DeCourcy was named Adweek’s Creative Leader of the Decade in 2019. Adweek noted her considerable career accomplishments when she announced her retirement. In December, DeCourcy had stated that she wanted to retire to spend more time with her dogs and apply her creativity in ways that were enjoyable to her. “I am not really looking to have another big career moment,” she told Adweek at the time. “But I am still young and smart and interested in creative. So, I think I will probably do a portfolio of things.” In the same way that she helped change the ad industry, DeCourcy looks to do the same in the social and digital world. Timeline: Colleen DeCourcy's Career, From Receptionist to Global Agency President