Josh Mandel has been named managing director at R/GA’s new Los Angeles office, moving to the Interpublic agency from 72andSunny, where he’s had the same role for the last two and a half years.
R/GA said it also hired a new L.A. team, Dan Maxwell and Stuart Parkinson from Wieden+Kennedy in Amsterdam, as associate creative directors. The L.A. office is moving to the Samitaur Building in Culver City and has grown to 24 employees, up from four staffers when it opened in January.
Under Mandel’s leadership at 72andSunny, the MDC Partners agency doubled in size and business and won Gold and Grand Effie recognition for work like Activision’s Call of Duty, ‘The Vet and the nOOb’ campaign for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
Prior to 72andSunny, Mandel served as marketing director for Nike Mexico and other previous jobs include global brand manager at Nike, planning director at W+K and head of planning at 180 Amsterdam where he led and globally consolidated the Adidas business.
At W+K Amsterdam, Parkinson served as global planning lead and Maxwell, interactive copywriter, on the agency’s Heineken account. Their work on the brand includes the recent Heineken James Bond sponsorship and the ‘Legendary Journey’ campaign which was awarded the Cannes Grand Prix Lion for creative effectiveness this year.
Elsewhere within R/GA’s network, the agency said it hired Kathryn Worthington as head of planning and strategy in Chicago. Worthington had been vp, discipline lead for brand, communications and experience planning at DesignKitchen where she worked with clients like Best Buy, Hewlett-Packard, TD Ameritrade, Wells Fargo and several Coca-Cola brands. At R/GA Chicago, she will be responsible for managing key client relationships, new-business development and talent recruitment. The agency has been growing practice areas like social, where recent work for Capital One and other existing clients is resulting in organic business growth, in addition to work for new clients like Home Run Inn Pizza.