Joel Clement returns to the USA to take up writing role with McGarrah Jessee, Austin Texas

Former Saatchi & Saatchi ECD Thailand and Asia Regional Creative Director, Joel Clement is calling Austin and McGarrah Jessee Texas his new home, where he will focus primarily on writing.

“We’re fortunate to find someone with the depth and breadth of experience and talent that Joel brings,” said agency co-founder Mark McGarrah. “We don’t care how far we have to go to find people like him.” 

Clement (pictured) comes to McJ after eight years with Saatchi & Saatchi Bangkok, where he served as Executive Creative Director as well as Regional Creative Director for all of Saatchi & Saatchi Asia, which includes offices in Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Singapore. While at Saatchi Joel worked on brands such as Guinness, Electrolux and Procter & Gamble. Clement resigned from Saatchi & Saatchi Bangkok in August 2013.

Clement, who has worked as both an art director and copywriter in a career that has spanned half the globe, has also studied architecture, using those skills as part of the team that redesigned the Saatchi & Saatchi office in Bangkok into a much talked-about and highly collaborative space. He’ll find those talents welcome at McGarrah Jessee, which recently restored a 1950s bank building into their mid-century modern Austin headquarters. 

Before returning to the US, Clement considered a number of options. “Repatriating to the US I had a pretty specific ideal in mind,” he said. “I wanted to be part of an independent shop for the creative license it would afford, and I wanted to be part of an agency with a strong positive culture. I found it all at McGarrah Jessee.”

Clement began his advertising career at DeVito/Verdi in New York and also spent time in Minneapolis at both Carmichael Lynch and Fallon.