Four senior hires bolster Havas London creative team

Havas London has hired two new senior creative teams who will, in the words of chairman and UK group chief creative officer Mark Whelan, “bring different shaped thinking to the agency”.

Lily Linford-Hurst and Emma Penz and Jonny Durgan and James Rooke will report directly into executive creative director Dan Cole and global executive creative director of Reckitt, Kate Pozzi, and will work on a variety of Havas London’s accounts, and across the agency’s pitches.

Both teams join Havas London’s creative department on a permanent basis after a brief stint of freelancing at the agency.

Linford-Hurst and Penz joined forces in 2024 to take on the world of freelancing together. Since then, they have worked at Ogilvy, Mother, FCB Inferno and NCA, across a variety of clients such as Škoda, Google Pixel and Snapchat.

They have over 13 years of experience between them and have worked separately at some of the industry’s top agencies including Adam & Eve DDB, Droga5, and BBC Creative; on accounts including Walkers, The BBC, John Lewis, Paddy Power, P&O Cruises, Lloyds Bank and Amazon.

Throughout their careers, they have earned recognition at major industry awards, including Cannes Lions, D&AD, the British Arrows, and the Clios.

Durgan and Rooke also partnered up as a creative duo while freelancing in 2022. During that time, they have worked at Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis Groupe, FCB, VCCP and Grey.

Prior to freelancing, Rooke was a creative director for six years at Karmarama (now Droga5) working on Confused.com, Auto Trader, Kenco and the British Army – where his “Your Army Needs You” campaign scooped a Cannes Lions.

Meanwhile, Durgan honed his craft at BBH, RKCR and Ogilvy. He won coveted D&AD pencils for his work with Yeo Valley at BBH and Sipsmith at Ogilvy.

Mark Whelan said: “Lily, Emma, Jonny and James bring different shaped thinking to the agency – both as individuals and as creative teams. They’ve already made their mark on the creative department, and seeing the work in the pipeline tells of good things to come.’’