W&K Amsterdam bolsters creative team with five hirings

Jamie Kim and Dave Smith join the agency from Canada and South Africa respectively, Patrick Almaguer and Blake Kidder join from the US, while Christiano Abrahao and Rodrigo Saavedra come from Brazil.

Kim joins the interactive production team at W&K Amsterdam from AKQA in San Francisco where she has managed projects for Nike Asia Pacific and Latin America since 2005. She said: "I felt the draw to move back to Europe and Amsterdam seemed like the most logical place as the creative industry here is doing so well."

Smith joins as a copywriter from neighbouring agency Strawberry Frog to work on the Coca-Cola business, beginning with Coke Olympics.

Almageur and Kidder join as a creative team from TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles to work on the Nike and Coke Zero business. Their work on PlayStation 3 brought them to the attention of W&K Amsterdam. Kidder said: "It was the second project that we had ever worked on and the first campaign of ours to be bought by a client, so naturally, I'm really proud of it."

Abrahao joins as art director for the Nike creative team from Ogilvy Advertising in London, where he worked on campaigns for Ford, Hellman's and most notably the "Real beauty" campaign for Dove.

Art director and copywriter Saavedra joins as one of W&K Amsterdam's youngest creatives at just 24, working on the Sharp business. After a placement at Mother, Saavedra moved to WCRS where he created 118 118 bumpers for Channel 4 and worked on a campaign for Sky TV.

W&K Amsterdam employs 150 people of more than 24 nationalities. Keith White, W&K Amsterdam's recruiter, said: "We look for people from various backgrounds both professionally and culturally so that we get a good creative spread."

Earlier this month, W&K Amsterdam appointed Boyd Coyner, previously at Fuel Europe, as creative director on its Nike business.

This article was first published on brandrepublic.com