MRM New York expands creative bench with 11 new hires

MRM New York is beefing up its bench with 11 new creative positions, including naming a cultural anthropologist and a head of design and experiences.

The additions at the McCann Worldgroup agency come under the watch of Harsh Kapadia, who was named executive VP, chief creative officer for MRM in February of 2021. Kapadia said he spent months questioning what roadblocks need to be fixed and what gaps need to be filled. In the process, he came up with new roles that are expanding the shop's creative headcount to almost 80.

Kapadia said the new posts are aimed at future-proofing the agency. “It’s about what is our future needs, predicting where we need to be so that we can keep growing from there. That’s been super critical in how we think about this.”

The 11 roles include three executive VP and executive creative directors: Sinead Roarty; Jesse Potack and Simon Foster. Sascha Piltz and Pablo Jimenez have been named senior VPs and group creative directors. London-based Anuj Shah and Denesh Agnihotri have been appointed in the roles of VP, creative directors.

Rounding out the hires are Rob Wakeland, Stephen Winston and Danilo Villanueva, VP, creative directors; Lisa Caselnova, director of creative operations; and Alexis Gianoulis as director of creative talent. Fern Breslaw becomes VP, design director. Ronnie Ting moves into the role of head of design and experiences while Jeff Carvahlo, co-founder of street culture site Highsnobiety, has been appointed cultural anthropologist for the agency.

Everyone will report to Kapadia and will eventually move to New York, but for now, they are working on a hybrid model.

Culture first approach

Kapadia said he wanted to focus on making sure the agency was bringing in people from different cultures and backgrounds. Many of the hew hires are coming from South America, India, the U.K. and elsewhere.

“It’s all about the diverse thinking and diverse ways of working," he said. "There’s a huge conversation about diversity right now in the industry at large. For us, I think it is about how do we prove out that diverse thinking actually does lead to great and very different work?”

One key role that builds on the agency’s push to develop a culture-first approach is the hire of Carvahlo as a cultural anthropologist, a position made specifically for him. In this role, he will work with MRM’s clients to shape, infiltrate and build on culture. 

“When you mix a classic advertising person or a marketing person with someone like Jeff who speaks on culture, you get something completely different,” Kapadia said. 

"With the culture that we're trying to build here, and the vision and the ambition we have for MRM New York, it felt like the perfect time to bring something that an agency is not familiar with to put into the system. If you're gonna talk about what disrupts culture, we need to be able to disrupt our own culture first.”

Booming business

MRM has seen double-digit revenue growth year over year, according to MRM New York President and Global Chief Operating Offer Bradley Rogers, who declined to give specific figures, but said that this has allowed the agency to expand its creative teams. “We've got into this virtuous kind of cycle, where we hire great people to do great work and doing great work leads to growth, and so on,” Rogers said. 

The agency has picked up work for brands in the technology, consumer technology, financial services, crypto, and health and wellness spaces. Rogers declined to comment on all the clients but did say the agency snagged creative agency of record status for Cigna health insurance.

MRM is also working with cellphone company Motorola on a project basis, which launched its social-first #HangUpOnIt campaign at the 2022 Met Gala. Recent MRM work also includes the “Delivering for America” campaign for USPS, featuring Johnny Cash’s song “I’ve Been Everywhere.”