Todd Waterbury has resigned as co-executive creative director of Wieden+Kennedy New York (W+K NY) effective May 1.
Waterbury is leaving the W+K network to start an as-yet-unnamed creative/strategic consultancy.
“After sixteen years at W+K and a lifetime of creative accomplishments that I cannot begin to list, now is the time to find unexpected ways to realize the business and creative potential that exists at the intersection of design, media and technology,” said Waterbury.
During his nine years as co-executive creative director of W+K NY, Waterbury expanded the size and definition of the New York creative department, introducing architects, industrial designers, playwrights, curators and technologists to the context of advertising, product design and filmmaking. He was also instrumental in the integration of interactive into the mind-set and organization of the creative department, including the hires of the director of user experience, information architecture and experience design, which have led to recent work for ESPN and its interactive storefront, and Nike’s campaign for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
“Todd and I go back a couple of careers. He has been a wonderful creative leader for us at W+K,” said John C. Jay, W+K global executive creative director. “Opening his own independent shop was inevitable, and despite our many offers to start one together, he decided to go it alone. I guess he learned the independence thing all too well here. We will miss him.”
Waterbury will be working closely with W+K founder/CEO Dan Wieden and Jay to name Waterbury’s successor. Kevin Proudfoot remains W+K NY’s co-executive creative director.
A Nomination Tradition: DGA Award, Best Director Oscar Discrepancy Continues
The awards season norm has seen the nearly annual occurrence of at least one difference between the lineups of Best Director Oscar and the DGA Award nominees. In only five of the 77 years of the DGA Awards have the Guild nominations exactly mirrored their Academy Award counterparts. This time around Edward Berger and Coralie Fargeat are in line with the predominant history. Fargeat earned a Best Director Oscar nomination this week for The Substance (MUBI). Berger, who didn’t make the directorial Oscar cut, earned a DGA Award nomination for Conclave (Focus Features). Four of the five directors vying for the DGA Award and the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Oscar are in sync this year: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Sean Baker for Anora (Neon), Brady Corbet for The Brutalist (A24), and James Mangold for A Complete Unknown (Searchlight). On the flip side of tradition, if Fargeat were to win the directing Oscar, that development wouldn’t be aligned with but rather bucking history. Only eight times has the DGA Award winner not gone on to win the Oscar. That happened most recently in 2020 when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for 1917 while Bong Joon-ho scored the Oscar for Parasite. Fargeat has already made a bit of history, scoring just the 10th Best Director Oscar nomination ever for a woman. The Substance is up for five Oscars--the other nominations being for Best Picture, Leading Actress (Demi Moore), Original Screenplay (Fargeat), and Makeup & Hairstyling (Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stephanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli). Even without a Best Director nomination, Conclave tallied eight Oscar nods--for Best Picture, Leading Actor (Ralph... Read More