Paco Conde, newly named CCO of fiercely independent agency, LERMA/ is building out his team as he shapes the agency’s next era of creative ambition. His first major hire is José Julián Acosta as head of production. Acosta will lead the agency’s integrated production practice, partnering across creative, strategy, brand leadership and operations to expand what’s possible for LERMA/ and its clients.

This hire is part of a broader evolution of LERMA/’s leadership and capabilities. In the past year, the agency has established and hired its first chief creative officer, chief strategy officer and chief data & intelligence officer. These additions reflect LERMA/’s continued investment in the talent and infrastructure needed to deliver on increasingly ambitious creative ideas as technology rapidly changes how work gets made.

“Extraordinary ambition requires us to keep evolving how we bring ideas to life,” stated Paco Conde,chief creative officer at LERMA/. “José isn’t simply coming in to lead production as we know it today. He’s here to help us imagine what production can become. His combination of creative instinct, production craft and fluency in emerging technology makes him the right person to build this capability for where LERMA/ is going next.”

Acosta joins LERMA/ from Monks, formerly Media.Monks, where he served as AI solutions director and executive producer. Previously, he was SVP, director of production at FCB Chicago, where he led integrated production across some of the agency’s largest brands. He has led integrated productions for global brands including Stellantis, Walmart, SC Johnson, Pfizer, Amazon and Target and his work has been recognised by Cannes Lions, D&AD, The One Show and the Effies. Among those honours is Caption with Intention, that received the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix and an honorary mention from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Scientific and Technical Awards for its contribution to accessible storytelling.

Throughout his career, Acosta has produced work spanning broadcast, digital, social, experiential and emerging platforms. At LERMA/, his mandate will extend beyond execution. He will bring production thinking earlier into the creative process, helping teams unlock new possibilities, simplify complexity and explore how emerging technology can enable more ambitious ideas without sacrificing the craft and human judgment behind them.

“Production is experiencing its biggest transformation since our industry moved from film to digital,” Acosta commented.“That creates an extraordinary opportunity to rethink its role in the creative process. The question isn’t simply what technology allows us to make faster or more efficiently. It’s how we use these new capabilities to make better work and, ultimately, work people care about. LERMA/ has the independence and ambition to ask those bigger questions, and that’s exactly what drew me here.”

As generative AI and other technologies reshape creative development and production, Acosta will focus on building an integrated practice that brings creative, production, operations, finance, technology and client teams closer together. His goal is to create systems that remove friction and give creative teams more space to focus on ideas while ensuring technology remains in service of creativity rather than the other way around.

“Technology has its greatest value when it enables talented people to do the best work of their careers,” Acosta added. “My ambition is to help LERMA/ build one of the industry’s most progressive production organizations while preserving the collaboration, care and craft that make extraordinary creative work possible.”

Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Acosta studied Music Production & Engineering at Berklee College of Music before beginning his career in advertising. His career has included roles at Monks, FCB Chicago, MONO and Publicis Sapient.