Ogilvy ANZ has lured highly experienced creative and strategist, Ant Simmons, to its Melbourne team as group creative director.

Simmons brings more than 20 years’ experience in creative leadership and branding roles, and joins from Heartland where he was founder of the independent agency, working with an international client base that includes Mecca Brands Australia and Heineken Asia Pacific. He also worked on the launch of sexual consent advocacy campaign, Teach Us Consent, led by Chanel Contos.

Before Heartland, Simmons was creative director at Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne, responsible for the delivery of awarded work for Myer, Deadly & Proud for Treaty. He also led the rebrand of Belong and the launch of AFLW. His other senior roles include Asia-Pacific regional creative director at global branding agency, Elmwood, and strategy director at Passport Brand Consultancy.

Ogilvy Melbourne executive creative director, Hilary Badger, stated, “Ant brings world-class platform thinking teamed with global ambition. As well as his exceptional ideas, we’re thrilled to have his craft skills within our strong team. Ant is also an outstanding creative leader, who can create growth not only for our clients, but for our team. As a mentor, he’ll have an eye on career development for both our existing rising stars and new joiners to Ogilvy.”

Simmons added “I had the pleasure of working alongside Hilary for many years at Clemenger Melbourne and it’s great to have a strong working relationship already in place. Hil has created a great space to do good work on arguably Australia’s and indeed the world’s most notable clients.”

In addition to his agency experience, Simmons’ passion for innovation led him to be selected for the US Embassy Entrepreneurialism & Innovation program. As the only Australian representative for the IVLP International Leadership Program, he spent time in the US connecting with leaders in the entrepreneurial community, giving him access to start-up ecosystems across San Francisco, Austin, Chicago and Washington DC.

Ogilvy ANZ has made several other senior creative appointments this year. In May, it announced that Clark Edwards would be joining as joint Sydney executive creative director with Bridget Jung, while Ogilvy PR promoted Miriam Wells to chief creative officer, and Nina Eastto newly created role of group creative director of Ogilvy Health.  Hilary Badger was also appointed as Melbourne executive creative director in January. 

Simmons starts as group creative director immediately.