Production house Chelsea has added Mel Fong as its U.K. sales rep. This comes at a time when Chelsea, with offices in NY, L.A. and London, is gaining momentum in the U.K. market with such work as the lauded “#Wombstories” and most recently “Dear White Parents” with the Brooklyn Brothers. Born in Singapore and raised in London, Fong fell into advertising at Tomboy Films representing leading British comedy directors Armando Iannuci, Kirk Jones and Declan Lowney. After taking a break teaching refugees and asylum seekers in London and traveling the world, Fong returned to advertising at 2AM Films where she repped an eclectic roster that included Harmony Korine and signed talentt–most notably Becky Martin (Peep Show, Veep). Seeking a different challenge, Fong moved to Rokkit to help showcase some of the best young directing talents of the time. Simultaneously, she co-founded Higher Pitch, a platform for women in advertising to show their personal artworks. Higher Pitch turned into a very well received exhibition in Soho. The Art Sells exhibition followed a year later and was held in a massive warehouse in Shoreditch due to a higher number of submissions. It was visited by over 600 ad people on opening night and was sponsored by Absolut Vodka. The idea then went to the Cannes Advertising festival and repeated the exhibition. After a stint working at Absolute Post as the marketing director for London and New York, Fong missed working directly with artists and she took on a range of independent production, post, and art companies as well as launching a new fine art concept: Not By Committee, which found brand sponsors for large scale art projects. Now she joins Chelsea which maintains a directorial roster which includes Amir Bar-Lev, Anna & Ewan, Jack Cole, Glenn F. Clements, Alex Gibney, David Gordon Green, Dumas Haddad, Adi Halfin, Nadia Hallgren, Bruce Hunt, Gregory Jacobs, Nadav Kander, Johan Kramer, Stacy Peralta, Alan Poul, Caroline Suh and Kevin Wilson, Jr….
Design-driven creative company Brand New School (BNS) has brought Zack Kortright on board as head of business development, EP and partner. Kortright’s focus is enhancing client experience on both the direct to brand front as well as in the agency space. Kortright joins BNS from The Mill, where he was an EP and head of brand partnerships. Before his tenure at The Mill, Kortright was an EP and head of business development with Hornet. Over the course of his career, he has collaborated with brands such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Squarespace and Spotify via roles at The Mill, Hornet, Passion Pictures, and Not to Scale. Kortright’s work has garnered recognition from Cannes Lions, SXSW, Sundance, AICP, Clio and The One Show. Recent work at BNS includes projects for Slack, RayBan, Snap, Google, Facebook, and Adobe….
