McCann Expands Creative Leadership in New York

McCann today announced that is has added two senior creatives to the New York team, and has promoted two current creative directors to senior leadership positions. The moves represent an ongoing expansion of McCann’s creative talent pool in New York as the agency continues to grow. 

Executive creative directors Dan Donovan and Wayne Best have been promoted to the role of deputy chief creative officers. Andrea Gustafson has joined as design director and Gabrielle Shirdan has joined as creative director. Donovan, Best and Gustafson will share creative oversight of the agency’s dedicated Verizon unit. 

Sean Bryan and Thomas Murphy, co-chief creative officers, McCann New York, said: “We are thrilled to have talent of the level of Wayne, Andrea and Gabrielle become part of our McCann creative family, and to promote Dan into his expanded role. Dan has been behind some of our most award-winning work in recent years, from Lockheed to Army to the most recent Verizon work for First Responders. We could not be prouder to watch him turn into such a great creative leader.” 

Design director Andrea Gustafson brings 18 years of experience in design and advertising to McCann from agency roles in six countries. Gustafson held lead creative/design positions at JWT Metro, R/GA, Havas, Co:Collective, Johannes Leonardo, and Anomaly. In 2010, she was awarded the opportunity to design the Canadian Olympic team uniform and retail collection and won a Cannes Grand Prix for her creative direction and design of Diesel’s “Be Stupid” campaign. 

Creative director Gabrielle Shirdan most recently served as a creative director at 72andSunny New York, working on brands such as New Era, Nature Valley, Adobe and Smirnoff ICE. In her previous role as associate creative director at Spike DDB Brooklyn, she worked with cultural icon Spike Lee. Shirdan has helped to build culturally relevant campaigns for brands such as Cadillac, JBL, NYPD, AARP and the Ad Council throughout her career. 

Dan Donovan, who rejoined the agency four years ago as an executive creative director, has been working on Lockheed Martin and The New York Lottery. He previously spent five years in senior creative roles at CPB, which he had joined after 13 years at McCann. Donovan holds honours from the Cannes Lions, Clios, Effies, The One Show, D&AD, Facebook Awards and others. 

Wayne Best, who joined McCann New York as executive creative director in September, most recently ran his own creative shop, cog nyc, where he served on the creative leadership team on Walmart, working with Saatchi, Publicis, and their partner agencies on the retailer’s brand. The series of short films that Best and his team created for Walmart ran during the 2018 Oscars, winning Cannes Lions and numerous other awards.