Chaka Sobhani has been named chief creative officer at Leo Burnett London. She comes over from Mother.
As CCO, Sobhani becomes part of a Burnett London sr. leadership team which also includes CEO Paul Lawson, chief strategy officer Josh Bullmore and deputy CEO Sarah Baumann.
Sobhani brings with her 20 years of experience from both the advertising and broadcast industries, notably setting up ITV Creative and becoming their first creative director.
She started her career as a comedy and performance writer in the broadcast arena which led to her joining US network Fox, creating their branding and advertising as they successfully launched their kids channels across Europe and the Middle East.
Sobhani went on to write and direct film and content for ITV, becoming the creative director of ITV Creative, ITV’s in-house agency. She built up ITV Creative to over 100 staff, overseeing innovative multi-platform ideas in every channel from TV, film, digital, experiential and social.
While at ITV Creative, Sobhani was responsible for creating campaigns for many of the channel’s top drama, entertainment and sport shows as well as the branding for all the ITV channels and platforms. As an award-winning director, she directed campaigns for Jonathan Ross, Ant and Dec, The Brits, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Girls Aloud during her time at ITV Creative.
From ITV Creative, Chaka moved agency side to join Mother in 2013.
Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide, said, “Chaka is a rare talent, a different flavor of CCO, whose non-traditional mix of experience is perfectly matched to the transformational needs of progressive clients.”
