Paul Stechschulte has been appointed to the role of executive creative director for Arnold Amsterdam and will report to the agency’s Boston-based managing partner and chief creative officer, Pete Favat.
Stechschulte will be responsible for creative development in the Amsterdam office, as well as the global lead on the Volvo account.
An art director by trade, Stechschulte most recently served as executive creative director at Pereira & O’Dell in San Francisco. Prior to that Paul was a group creative director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners for nearly four years where he was key in creating the international award-winning Sprint “Now Network” campaign. In addition, Stechschulte has served in various creative capacities with W+K Amsterdam, 180 Amsterdam and Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami. Achievements include reintroducing the MINI brand to the US for BMW. The highly successful launch did not include a single television ad, which is unheard of in the US automobile category. He has also developed award winning work for clients like Nike, Adidas, Glenfiddich, Sprint, Nextel, Geek Squad, Virgin Atlantic, Burger King, EA Games, Carlsberg, IKEA and Method Home, Beats by Dre, Google and Twitter.
Stechschulte’s work has been honored by every award show in multiple mediums, from One Show “Best of Show” to the Titanium Lion in Cannes. More importantly his work has constantly received recognition from the “judges” of pop culture – being spoofed on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and mocked in pages of the UK’s Sun. Stechschulte also serves on the board of advisors at the Creative Circus in Atlanta.
Stechschulte replaces Sean Thompson, ECD and managing partner who left the agency in September after leading the creative output that established the Arnold Amsterdam office and the Team Volvo business.
“Expanding the agency’s creative offering by hiring outstanding talent with fully integrated creative and technology expertise is one of our most important areas of focus,” said Favat. “Paul is that next generation of cross trained thinkers – a digital native with amazing brand building expertise.”
Review: Director Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag”
If you're hosting a dinner for half a dozen British intelligence agents with the aim of ferreting out a mole, what should you cook?
For George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), who's preparing for four colleagues, plus himself and his wife, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), who, like him, is a high-level operative, it's chana masala with a few drops of truth serum.
"Will there be any mess to clean up?" Kathryn asks her husband as they're getting ready.
"With any luck," he responds.
So goes much of the crackling patter of "Black Bag," Steven Soderbergh's delicious marital drama cloaked as a sleek spy thriller. Lean and taut, the 93-minute "Black Bag" is more a sizzling amuse-bouche than full-course meal, but it's simmered to perfection.
George and Kathryn, as fellow agents at London's National Cyber Security Centre, don't seemingly have what you might call a traditional marriage. Each has their own secret ops, leaving large swaths of their lives off limits to the other. When George asks where Kathryn is flying off to on Wednesday, she shrugs with a smile, "Black bag."
In the movie's opening scene – a slinky tracking shot that trails George into and out of a nightclub – an agent named Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgard) gives him the assignment to track down the mole, with the added wrinkle that Kathryn can't be dismissed as a possible suspect. A cyber-worm device called Severus that's capable of hacking into nuclear facilities has gone missing. The fate of the world, as it so often is, is said to be at stake.
But, really, the state of George and Kathryn's marriage is what interests us. Extreme though their situation is, their union is one that, like any couple, is built on trust and devotion, even if their professional... Read More