Robert Rodriguez teams with Virtue

Director Robert Rodriguez ("Sin City," "From Dusk Till Dawn") and his television network El Rey have partnered with Vice's agency Virtue to form La Reyna, an agency that will connect brands with the Latinx market. Based in Austin, Texas, the new company will offer creative and strategic services and lean on Virtue for analytics, production and technology. Rodriguez will be creative chairman of La Reyna. Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer Omar Quiñones joins from Anomaly, where he was group strategy director. Chief Growth Officer Theresa Vargas Wyatt and Chief Operating Officer Josh Stein both join from El Rey. La Reyna's first client is Estrella Jalisco, AB-InBev's Mexican beer brand. Former Airbnb CMO Jonathan Mildenhall has launched TwentyFirstCenturyBrand, his branding and marketing consultancy. He is joined by co-founders Alexandra Dimiziani and Neil Barrie. Previously, Dimiziani was Airbnb's global marketing director and Barrie was chief strategy officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day. The company offers five verticals: Company Mission and Values, Brand BluePrint, Go-to-Market Planning, Marketing Org Design and Outsourcing Agency Management and is currently working with Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global, Sean Parker's Airtime, Pinterest, GoDaddy and WeWork. Rapha Vasconcellos is the new head of Facebook's Global Creative Shop. Over the last six years, he led the organization in Latin America and then the Asia Pacific region. Andrew Keller, who was interim head, continues as global creative director. Vasconcellos began his career in Brazil at traditional agencies and started working on digital advertising and interactive projects in 1998. The Media Kitchen named Bonnie Barest managing director of the New York office. Most recently, she led her own consulting firm. Prior to that, she was executive vice president at Havas Media and spent 10 years as evp, managing director at Optimedia. She was also executive director of media services at Publicis and has managed accounts for brands like L'Oréal, Volvo and OppenheimerFunds. Carissa Ranelycke Berlin joins 360i as head of production beginning next week. During her 15-year career, she has held positions at a number of agencies, including AKQA, BBDO, Translation, 180 Amsterdam and Grey Stockholm, working on clients like Coca-Cola, Lowes, the NFL, Adidas and Visa. She led production for Translation's music label United Masters and worked at digital luxury and lifestyle boutique Syrup. Independent agency Mistress hired Art Director Michelle "Miche" Sieg and Copywriter Rose Chirillo. The creative duo is known as "Mister," a play on their initials and the sad state of gender parity in the industry. The two have worked on brands like Grubhub and Taco Bell and collaborated with the agency for Chambord and Spindrift with Kristen Bell. Sieg worked on Lady Gaga's 2016 Grammy's performance with Intel and for clients like Hyundai and Pacifico. Chirillo had worked with brands including Amazon, Staples, Panda Express, HBO and Netflix. Periscope hired Heath Pochucha and Jason Bottenus as executive creative directors. Most recently, Pochucha ran the Volkswagen America account as a group creative director at Deutsch L.A. He has held positions at Butler Shine Stern & Partners, Fallon and Carmichael Lynch and has worked with brands like Harley-Davidson and Mini. Bottenus joins from Fallon, where he was a creative director. He has held roles at Mother London and BBH NY and worked for clients including Beck's, Axe, Woodford Reserve, Cheerios, Larabar and Loctite. Chicago-based creative agency Leviathan hired Associate Creative Director Branded Environments Stephen Killion, Senior Art Director Taylor Brinkman, Account Supervisor Liz Yardley, Motion Designer Dmitry Fedorov, Producer Madeline Miller and Front End Developer Matt Greenberg. Derek Weglarz was promoted to experience design strategist, Gareth Fewel becomes associate creative director and Reese Murdock is promoted to junior software engineer. Killion joins from architectural firm Valerio Dewalt Train. Brinkman was senior designer and art director for Critical Mass in Chicago. Yardley joins from Ogilvy & Mather in Chicago, where she was account executive on the Jimmy Dean account. Josh Fell, Anomaly's chief creative officer in Los Angeles, is now a partner at the agency. Before joining Anomaly earlier this year, he spent six years at 72andSunny, working on brands like Activision, Adidas and Carl's Jr., for which he introduced the Carl's Sr. character. Previously he worked on PlayStation at Deutsch L.A.

Robert Rodriguez teams with Virtue; Mildenhall's consultancy is live

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