R/GA New York hires senior New Zealand creative team Thom Darlow and René Van Wonderen

NZ expat creatives Thom Darlow and René Van Wonderen have been hired as a team at R/GA New York.

Darlow was previously working at TBWA\Tequila, Auckland whilst Van Wonderen has spent the last few years freelancing at hot New York agencies such as Johannes Leonardo, Anomaly NY and TBWA/Chiat Day.

Says Darlow: “We’d love to tell you about the shelf our awards sit on, the shitloads of campaigns we’ve sold, and the millions of Youtube hits we’ve snagged, but there’s not much to talk about on that front. We simply got introduced to a recruiter at the agency through a friend of a friend, and it just snowballed from there.”

Says Van Wonderen: “I teamed up with Thom because he had a friend whose mate worked at R/GA, and I knew that would be a good in.”

When asked about the team, R/GA’s global chief creative officer and Aussie expat Nick Law said, “Never heard of them. What were their names again? I thought we had a policy of not hiring Kiwis.”