VMLY&R has expanded its experience design (XD) division with two executive appointments. Kaleeta McDade joins as chief experience design officer, North America, to jointly lead the agency’s growing experience design team alongside Eric Looney who has been a leader on the XD team for the last five years. In her new role, McDade will bridge creative storytelling, technology, design and user experience for clients across VMLY&R’s client portfolio. The agency’s XD team currently supports major clients, including Ford, Colgate, Walgreens, Sherwin-Williams, and T-Mobile. Both McDade and Looney will report to Debbi Vandeven, VMLY&R’s global chief creative officer.
McDade joins VMLY&R from Ogilvy, where she served as global executive creative director and was responsible for defining, shaping, and driving the creative vision and strategy across the agency’s experience offerings. McDade also spent six years at Deloitte Digital, where she served as group experience director across studios in the U.S. and India. Over the past 17 years, she has also held senior design and creative roles with leading digital companies like Google Brand Studio, Apple, Sapient Shanghai, and Sapient Atlanta.
In addition to McDade and Looney’s executive appointments, VMLY&R has promoted Craig Elimeliah to chief experience design officer, T-Mobile. Elimeliah is an award-winning creative leader who has been a catalyst for creativity and innovation at VMLY&R for seven years, working with companies such as Google, New Balance, Amazon, Dell and more. He brings over two decades of specialized expertise in designing and architecting solutions for brands and delivering new products and services. Elimeliah is based in New York and will report to McDade.
The appointments follow on the heels of Walt Geer’s recent appointment to chief experience design officer at VMLY&R Health, rounding out a XD leadership team across the global agency.
