Gavin McLeod joins Emotive as its first chief creative officer

Emotive has appointed its first-ever chief creative officer, Gavin McLeod.

McLeod has held a series of prominent roles in Australia’s creative agencies, including as executive creative director of RGA, AKQA and Ogilvy Australia. Most recently, he was the national chief creative officer at CHEP Network.

Simon Joyce, the founder and CEO at Emotive, said ‘founding’ an agency never really stopped, and the company needed to find a creative partner to help drive what comes next.

“Gav is that person,” he said. “Smart, open, culturally tuned, a digital and AI native, and someone who genuinely cares about people and the work.”

Joyce said McLeod will work closely with Jessica Cluff, head of earned creative, who came on board earlier this year.

He also noted how much the Emotive team had embraced its tricky moments and “pushed to elevate every part of what Emotive does”.

“After 10 years of running Emotive I am loving it more than ever, and feel super grateful for a team and partners who care so deeply about creativity,” he said.

Emotive recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, and spoke to Mumbrella about finally nailing its ‘fame offering’.

“We’ve absolutely nailed it, I feel so comfortable saying that now after getting it wrong,” Joyce told Mumbrella.

“What we learned throughout that process is we knew we needed more conceptual strength through an earned lens. But we couldn’t quite figure out how to get there. Each time, it wasn’t quite right until we decided to bring earned into the core. That was the difference. And doing that with a genuine conceptual leader like Jess, it’s been incredible. We weren’t far off each time, we just couldn’t get it there.”

Joyce and COO Ben Keep also recently bought back a majority stake in the business, which was previously held by ARN.