Yang Yeo confirmed as new executive creative director at Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai

Following Campaign Brief Asia’s breaking news on Sunday that Yang Yeo was to leave JWT China comes the official word from Wieden + Kennedy on the changes to it’s Shanghai agency.

As rumoured Yeo is to take up the agency’s executive creative director role.

Yeo most recently served as the North Asia Executive Creative Director and China Chairman of JWT. He will join W+K Shanghai on August 1, 2014 and will fill one of the offices’ top creative leadership roles. Michael Simons and Achilles Li currently serve as the office’s executive creative directors. Simons will leave the agency July 1, 2014 and Li later in the summer.

“Yang represents a new kind of leader for us, in that he is deeply immersed in the business and creative communities of the region,” commented Mark Fitzloff, W+K’s global co-executive creative director. “His experience in the region including the last 8 years in China expands the possibilities for W+K and our Shanghai office. I am incredibly excited to see his impact not only in China but around the W+K network”

Yeo’s creative reputation and leadership garnered international attention when he led his team to win the Cannes Gold Lion for the adidas Olympic campaign in 2008. He then followed up that performance by leading JWT Shanghai to win the coveted Cannes Grand Prix in 2011 with the Samsonite ‘heaven & hell’ work. Both wins where the first of its kind for mainland China and demonstrated China’s entry into the global creative stage. Yeo was named ‘Creative of the Year’ by Campaign at the end of 2011.

“Yang has a tremendous range of talents beyond advertising, including architecture and spacial design” added Colleen DeCourcy, Fitzloff’s partner and W+K’s global co-executive creative director. “Both his commercial and residential design projects were simply inspirational, no wonder his work won at the World Architectural Festival, International Architecture Award, Chicago Athenaeum Good Design Award, and the Architectural Review House Award.”

In 2012, The President of the Republic of Singapore presented the ‘Designer of the Year’ award to Yeo at a ceremony held in the residence of the President. Yeo’s ‘Lucky Shophouse’ project also won the President’s Design Award the following year.

“I’ve enjoyed my time at JWT, and am please that we’ve built a strong team that went on to win the ‘Agency of the Year’, ‘Network of the Year’, and for our clients the ‘Brand of the Year’ accolades,” said Yeo. ” But I feel now is the right time to return to an independent setup where the creative product is at it’s core, and Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai is possibly the best place to take China’s creativity to the next level.”

Yeo grew up in Singapore and graduated in 1989 with a Diploma in Design & Advertising Arts. He served in the Army for the next 30 months as national service, where he was awarded the Military School’s ‘Best Marksman’, ‘Best Section leader’, and was the ‘Officer Cadet Sword’ winner, presented by the Chief of Army. Yeo worked in Singapore’s creative industry for 8 years before moving to BBH London in 1999. He returned to sunnier Singapore and Hong Kong to start up Fallon Asia in 2002 as Managing Partner & Executive Creative Director. Yeo moved to Shanghai in 2006.