YML Restructures Creative Leadership Appointing Two New Group Creative Directors
By YML
YML has been on a hiring frenzy, with over 100 new hires in 2020. Today, YML CCO Stephen Clements announces the restructure of YML’s creative departments in their Silicon Valley headquarters and flagship Atlanta offices, under two new Group Creative Directors managing a combined creative staff of 60 digital and UX designers, copywriters and content leads.
Shannon Walters joins in the new position of Group Creative Director in Redwood City, coming directly from Salesforce in San Francisco where he was Senior Manager User Experience. Prior, Walters was Associate UX Strategy & Design Director at AKQA in London, before relocating to co-found the AKQA Gothenberg studio and help lead Volvo, and then relocating to AKQA San Francisco to help run Coca Cola, Caterpillar and Facebook, among other accounts.
Additionally, Joe Johnson is promoted to the new position of Group Creative Director at YML in Atlanta. Johnson is Co-Lead of the YML Atlanta studio where he continues to oversee the East Coast design team and accounts, including legacy client States Farm and recent new client, Omaha Steaks. Johnson has been at YML for two years, before which he was a Group Creative Director at Huge in Atlanta and the Head of UX and Service Design at North Highlands.
“We are on a rocket ship growth trajectory and we need more creative leadership to help solve our clients' toughest challenges and ensure quality delivery at speed and scale,” stated Clements. “On the back of several new business wins, now is the right time to make this change, to create the conditions and structure for our next growth stage. I’m excited to see what Shannon and Joe will do at YML.”
YML is having their best year ever with a +55% YoY revenue, an 86% new business win rate in competitive reviews and nine new clients including Thrive Market, Fannie Mae, Yeti and California Pizza Kitchen. YML’s potent mix of digital and product thinking is in hot demand, and continues to be critical as clients rapidly adapt during, and now into, a post-COVID-19 world. “YML people are not necessarily agency people,” commented Ashish Toshniwal, CEO & co-founder, YML.
“We’ve acquired the best talent across world class product and technology companies — Amazon, Sonos, Disney, Google, WeWork, AirBnB, Everlane, IBM Watson, Uber, WarnerMedia, Pagerduty, Mindbody and now Salesforce — to expand our staff by 42% in 2020, for a total of 400 employees worldwide. We look for the best talent in digital design, tech and engineering, and happily for us, many of our people come from both top agencies and today’s tech titans.”
Leaning into remote-recruiting and working, YML is bringing on talent from across the USA and around the globe, hiring from Atlanta, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York City, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Virginia, Washington DC and countries including Australia, Canada, India, Germany and Spain.
About YML
YML is a leading global design and innovation agency creating digital products and experiences that have a lasting impact. Founded in 2009, YML has grown to nearly 400 employees across five locations around the world. Born and bred in the tech entrepreneurial center of the world, YML prides itself on bringing Silicon Valley innovation and creative to the world.