Yanni Pounartzis to CD on Telstra at Ogilvy

Ogilvy & Mather Sydney has hired Yanni Pounartzis as creative director for Telstra, specifically charged with leading the creative team on the Telstra business account. 

Pounartzis was most recently CD at Brave, during which time he made a significant contribution to the agency’s profile. Under his leadership Brave won pitches for The Daily Telegraph, NSW Cricket, Drambuie and the Air Pacific global account. Unfortunately, he was a victim of the GFC and left in early July.

Pounartzis has also worked in some of the most reputable agencies in Australia including Leo Burnett, The Campaign Palace and Publicis Mojo. Throughout his career, he has developed campaigns for high profile brands such as Red Meat, Heineken, Bonds, 3 Telecommunications, Sunbeam, Kia and The Daily Telegraph, has directed a video clip for Josh Pyke and won two Silver Lions.

Last month the agency snared Chris James (left) to head up digital creative, first reported by CB.Considered to be one of the most awarded and experienced Interactivecreative directors working in the Australian market, James brings morethan 16 years experience to the role. James turned his interactiveskills to advertising in 2000 when he became the Creative Director andone of the founders of  TEQUILA\Sydney (the digital arm of TBWA).During his 4 years at TBWA and TEQUILA, he built one of the moststrategic and creative digital offerings in the Australianmarketplace. 

In July 2004, James left to set up his ownagency, The Farm, a specialist digital agency, established tocomplement brand agencies and their work. After selling his business hethen joined BMF as the Creative Director of Interactive. As thefounding digital specialist at BMF, he was instrumental in the successof both its interactive and integrated offerings and over the course ofonly 2.5 years, successfully built a multi award winning team of over25 art directors, designers, developers, strategists and producers.

Ogilvy Sydney CEO Stuart O’Brien commented on the hires: “Both Yanni and Chris have

incredibletrack records, and further boost our senior creative capabilities,” hesaid. “This is about us always looking for the greatest talent in theindustry, to work with an already outstanding team.”

AddsOgilvy Sydney’s executive creative director, Bruce Matchett: “At Ogilvywe recognise that all ‘great work that works’ is born from the verybest ideas,” he said.  “To generate the best ideas, we need the bestpeople. We’re excited to have two of the industry’s finest join our

talented team.”