Interbrand today announced a number of new hires; David Sutherland and Sally McDonnell who join the Interbrand Retail Branding Team as Client Director and Client Manager and Mikey Hart as Design Director.  
 
Dominic Walsh, Managing Partner of Interbrand Australia, said: “Following the launch of Interbrand’s Consumer and Retail Branding offering in Australia last year, it’s encouraging to see that the market place has taken enthusiastically to our unique offer. Rather than a convention offer we have built a complete retail capability that provides clients with strategic and commercial insights on driving business and brand value.”
 
The new hires come off the back of significant growth for the Retail business in the last year with a client base that now includes: McDonald’s, George Weston Foods and Reckitt Benckiser.
 
Previously at Landor Associates, David Sutherland joins as Client Director having worked in the industry for 8 years on brands including Westfield, Vodafone, Citibank and BP.
 
Sally began her career as a Fashion Buyer acquiring exotic fabrics from the Far East before working with brands including Freedom, Nestle and Blackberry. Sally was previously at M&C Saatchi, where she worked as a Senior Account Executive.
 
Mikey also joins from Landor Associates where he worked on Arnott’s, George Weston Foods and Diageo. He is an award winning designer and photographer having recently being shortlisted for NME Live music photographer of the year 2010.
 
Mike Rigby Creative Director at Interbrand said “Mikey is a young, passionate, award winning packaging designer, already operating at the top of his game. He is one of those rare creative’s that manages to balance high level conceptual and strategic thinking, with a real eye for craft and aesthetics. He is the perfect addition to an already talented retail and packaging team.”
 
“Interbrand’s retail approach offers a unique mix of shopper analytics, packaging and portfolio design, retail positioning and brand innovation which will allow clients to better understand shoppers and drive differentiation.  Over the past year we have been able to take the best of Interbrand’s shopper insights experience from the US and apply it to the Australian marketplace and will continue to build the team further with Retail specialists in strategy and design in the coming months,” added Walsh.