The White Agency makes new hires and promotions; staffers Verity Smith and Ellie Bennett accepted into AWARD School 2015

The White Agency has marked the first quarter of 2015 with a strong focus on building and retaining talent with new senior hires and internal promotions. In addition, two of its staff Verity Smith (left) and Ellie Bennett (right) have been accepted into AWARD School 2015.

Smith and Bennett overcame close to 1,000 applicants to be selected in the top 100 to attend this year’s NSW AWARD School. The ladies were selected based on a portfolio of work they submitted in response to a series of five briefs.

Says Smith: “Being accepted into AWARD School is an amazing opportunity as it will allow me to further develop my abilities in creative, conceptual design as opposed to straight production design work.”

Says Bennett: “Ideas are the backbone of design and will conquer Photoshop skills any day.”

Bolstering experienced capabilities in its account management and production teams, The White Agency has appointed Dan Ludlow as senior account director and Rebecca Merrifield as executive producer.

Merrifield brings more than 13 years of experience in digital production to White, joining the agency from Digital Arts Network where she was responsible for streamlining and improving digital production processes for agencies internally and across multiple clients including IAG, Visa and Beiersdorf.

Ludlow has moved to The White Agency from M&C Saatchi where he was senior account director on IAG (NRMA Insurance) and Optus. In his new position at White he will be responsible for managing a number of key brands in the Lion portfolio.

As part of White’s commitment to developing and retaining high quality people, a number of key internal promotions have also been announced. Grant Flannery, who joined the company last year, has been promoted to associate strategy director, Isabel Matias moves to senior art director and Philippa White to program director.

Says Andrew Davenport, managing director, The White Agency: “Over the past few years, The White Agency has worked extra hard to ensure our culture is truly team oriented, concentrates on the sum of us and is as egoless as is possible.

“That is why we are delighted to be able to recognise and reward people from within the organisation for their commitment and talent, as well as attract great new talent from the industry.”

Says Davenport on when it comes to recognising the professional needs of employees: “We understand from our team that their career development and experience remains central to what they want from the business.

“Talent is at the heart of future business success and we want to be a workplace that allows people to do great work and have a great time doing this.”

The White Agency also has a strong rewards and recognition program for its employees, including Thank you days, Summer Fridays, Shout Out Fridays, Doona Mondays, Birthday Leave.