Gyro appoints Curzon ECD as Dave Harris steps down

Gyro has recruited Saatchi & Saatchi Pro’s David Curzon to head up the creative team and succeed Dave Harris, who has stepped down to pursue “his own creative projects”.
Harris, who has been an executive creative director for over 20 years, took on his first senior role at sales promotion agency IMP in 1995 but quit four years later to join forces with Lisa Thomas to launch M&C Saatchi-owned Lida.
In 2007, Harris took up the role of ECD at Wunderman, where he stayed for over six years before switching to DraftFCB. However, within months he had quit, along with London agency boss Kate Howe.
Harris joined Gyro in June 2015, after a spell as a consultant, reuniting him with Howe, who had become managing director in 2014.
Harris was promoted to chief creative officer in January 2018; Howe became UK chief growth officer for parent Dentsu Aegis Network, and chairman of Gyro in November. Harris stepped down last month.
Howe said: “After three and a half years helping build the agency from around 15 people to over 100 and winning prestigious accounts like HP, Vodafone, Fujitsu, Santander and Square, Dave felt that this is the right moment for him to move on and pursue his personal creative projects. We are sorry to see him leave the Gyro family but sincerely wish him all the very best with his future plans and thank him for all that he has done over the past years.”
Curzon will take up the role of executive creative director and report directly to new Gyro UK president Emma Rush. He has held senior creative roles at DigitasLBi and Gyro’s stablemate, 360i, where he established and led the creative department at the digital agency’s European HQ.
He has also held a number of creative roles at agencies in London and LA, including WCRS, Fearlessly Frank and The Viral Factory, working on Capital One, Enterprise, Eurostar, AstraZeneca, NatWest, E.On and Sky.
Curzon has been at the Saatchi B2B2C agency since January 2017. As well as leading the creative output, he has worked with other Publicis Group agencies on integrated campaigns for clients including Vaillant, Edwardian Hotels, Visa and Oracle.
Rush said: “David has a deep understanding of B2B marketing plus a passion for data, tech and media collaboration. He will play a key role in both evolving our creativity plus growing our full-service capabilities including content and dynamic.”
Curzon added: “As a full service B2B agency, Gyro is phenomenally well placed to accelerate the benefits of integrating media, data, tech and creativity for clients.”