Con Williamson and John Cornette hail from global shop Saatchi & Saatchi
Erwin Penland’s new hires at the top of its creative team hail from global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The agency announced last week that it appointed Con Williamson as chief creative officer. John Cornette was named senior vice president and executive creative director.
Williamson’s appointment is considered a major win in advertising circles. The company said Williamson would be responsible for driving creative ideas across the agency and for clients, he would “be integral to bringing a new generation of thinking to the organization.”
The company said these and other recent hires would increase capacity to serve some newly acquired accounts and allow for future growth. Williamson will work from Erwin Penland’s New York office unlike his predecessor, Andy Mendelsohn, who had worked in Greenville and for whom the chief creative officer position was created two years ago. Mendelsohn will leave Erwin Penland and his plans are yet unknown.
President Joe Erwin said staffing up in New York was important to the company’s growth.
“At Erwin Penland, we’re very proud of our South Carolina heritage and believe that is one of the things that sets us apart from so many other agencies,” Erwin said. “While we continue to focus our energy on the Greenville office, to achieve our long-term goals of becoming an even bigger player on the national scene, we felt we needed to add some top talent and fresh thinking to increase our creative offering as well as expand our presence in New York in order to better serve future and current clients.”
Cornette will work in Greenville in a position that was newly created for him. He had just been promoted to executive creative director at Saatchi New York in July.
Saatchi hires are nothing new at Erwin Penland, which has 375 employees. Cofounder Gretchen Erwin had worked at Saatchi before opening her own shop. Williamson’s predecessor, Mendelsohn, had also spent time at Saatchi before moving to Greenville in 2000.
Another recent hire, managing director John Dunleavy, most recently served as executive vice president and managing director at Saatchi New York. He will lead operations and growth for the agency’s New York office in addition to overseeing and integrating account management best practices across teams and offices.
