Aussie expat creative duo, Lisa Fedyszyn and Jonathan McMahon, have been promoted to become joint-CCOs of Special Auckland while founder Tony Bradbourne, moves up to the position of creative chairman, CEO.
The creative pair’s two-decade-long creative partnership has resulted in highly effective campaigns in Australia, New Zealand, and North America, at Droga5 New York, DDB Aotearoa, Colenso BBDO, and Special. Fedyszyn and McMahon joined Special in June 2020 as executive creative directors, following two-and-a-half years at Ogilvy NZ. Prior to moving to New Zealand to join Ogilvy, the pair spent two years at Droga5 New York as associate creative directors.
Bradbourne commented, “Lisa and Jonno have had an incredible impact at Special over the last three years, created world-class work and results that truly live up to our promise and name. From Meddle in the New Zealand Election for Every Kiwi Vote Counts, and David’s Unusables for MND NZ through to Summer Never Sleeps for Kathmandu and Last Performance for Partners Life, and the Grand Effie for Kiwibank’s This is kiwi as well as taking out Australia’s favourite commercial at the Mumbrella Awards for our work on Optus – these are just some of the many achievements that Lisa and Jonno have been pivotal in.
“Creating the most effective, popular and progressive creative work in our industry is a pretty impressive achievement. But it’s just what Lisa and Jonno do, all with their usual humbleness and humour, and their constant drive to be better. Special has grown considerably over the past few years, in New Zealand and internationally, and the promotion to CCOs will allow them to take on more responsibilities in step with that growth.”
Fedyszyn stated, “After 21 years of working together, we are now legal to drink in the US and old enough to become CCOs. We’re extremely thankful to Tony and continue to learn from him. We are excited to continue to work closely with all our brilliant clients to produce the best work in 2024 and beyond.”
McMahon added, “We love it here at Special. Tony has set up something really (looks up a thesaurus in order not to say “special”) exceptional, and we’re honoured to work with such a brilliant team and all our clients, day in, day out. We’re looking forward to continuing to take the agency and our clients from strength to strength.”
Over the past year Special was named Global Creative Agency of the Year by Campaign UK, the first time an agency from the Southern Hemisphere has been named The World’s Best. It was also awarded New Zealand Agency of the Year Campaign Brief, Campaign Asia and B&T and won Best in Show at all the New Zealand award shows – Axis, Effies, Beacons as well as Grand Prix at Cannes, Spikes and WARC.
