Aussie expat Samira Ansari departs Deutsch NYC for Chief Creative Officer role at Ogilvy New York

After 15 months as CCO of Deutsch New York, Aussie expat Samira Ansari has been lured to the chief creative officer role at Ogilvy New York, effective November.

Ansari will partner with Darla Price, president of Ogilvy NYC, overseeing blue-chip clients including IBM, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Ikea, Nestle, Verizon, H&R Block, Ikea and Audi.

Ansari told Campaign Brief: “So many giants at the helm at Ogilvy. I’m super humbled to team up and make work that wins in culture.”

Ansari has over 20 years experience working in the ad industry across three continents. Her career began at Cummins & Partners in Australia, working on planes, trains and automobiles. She was part of the team that successfully launched Virgin Airlines in Australasia. This campaign was so successful, it forced Qantas to launch its own low budget airline to compete with the new sassy Virgin brand.

She then landed at Saatchi and Saatchi Paris where she led the agency’s P&G laundry business across EMEA for four years.

In 2008 Ansari arrived in New York. While at JWT NY, she created the brutally honest, award-wining campaign for U by Kotex, revamping the female sanitary product market. At Chiat Day NY she produced a multi-award winning campaign for Wheat Thins. And at Grey, Ansari and team took Pringles to the Super Bowl for the very first time. She spent a year at Johannes Leonardo as Group Creative Director in charge of Mass Mutual and Gap. The agency was ranked #3 on Adage’s Annual A-list that year.

Ansari joined FCB New York from Johannes Leonardo in April 2020 as Executive Creative Director responsible for the agency’s ABI portfolio creating Michelob Ultra Courtside with NBA & Microsoft to bring fans into the NBA bubble in Orlando. Her team also launched Michelob Ultra Organic Seltzer at the Super Bowl with great success. FCB was named Adweek Global Agency Of The Year in 2020 and Cannes 2020/2021 Global Network of the year. Ansari was also the most awarded ECD in NA at The One Show.

In 2022 she brought home the only Cannes Gold Lion in Innovation for a world-first physical vs. virtual tennis match between real-life John McEnroe and his digital avatars from the past for Michelob Ultra. ‘McEnroe vs. McEnroe’ also received a 2023 Sports Emmy Award in the Best Digital Innovation category. In 2022 she was recognized on Adweek’s Creative 100 list.

Ansari joined Deutsch as chief creative officer in May 2022.

Over the years, her work has been recognized by local and international award shows including Cannes Lions, D&AD, Clio, The One Show, ADC, and the Effies.