Rethink has promoted Tara Lawall to partner and chief creative officer for the independent agency’s New York office.
Lawall, who joined Rethink last September as executive creative director, will report to Rethink’s global CCO, Aaron Starkman.
Lawall held various creative positions at a variety of agencies throughout her career. She was most recently executive creative director at Droga5. Before that, she honed her skills at Anomaly, 72andSunny and Mother.
“This promotion was a natural fit for Tara, whose creativity has truly shone through in recent months, and we’re thrilled to see her step into this leadership role,” said Starkman in a statement. “This addition to the New York leadership team comes at a time of significant growth across Rethink and we’re confident that Tara’s creative vision will be instrumental in pushing boundaries and delivering exceptional client work.”
It’s Lawall’s first time in the CCO role, but she has been building to it throughout her career.
“I get to take a little bit of everything I’ve learned along the way and start to apply it. I’ve worked at so many different places, at so many different stages of its momentum, so being able to work at Rethink now in the state that it’s in is exciting,” Lawall told ADWEEK.
Lawall left the network agencies because she respects independent agencies, including when she was at Droga5 before it was acquired by Accenture, and Rethink had a focus on leading with creative.
A collaborative network
Rethink’s New York office is still in its relative infancy, having opened in late 2021, but it has already made creative waves for its work with Uber Eats, Uber Direct, Dove Men, and Epidemic Sound. The office has 35 employees with 12 creatives, but the Rethink network is highly collaborative, said Lawall.
“They call it the long hallway. Whatever skill sets Canada has that we might meet need in New York, we work very collaboratively. For example, it’s come up a bunch of times when they need help writing scripts, they know that we have a great talent for that in New York. Whenever there is a need, we help each other out,” said Lawall.
Lawall said that Rethink is committed to finding human insights and uncovering the truths in the work.
“Rethink is great at calling out those observations, calling out those human truths, calling out those insights, and then repackaging them in these really beautiful, fun, well-crafted ideas,” said Lawall.
Lawall came up as a copywriter and she still takes an active role as a writer, having penned two books and a short film, but she knows how to balance her job as a creative director.
“I love writing but I almost equally as much love being a creative director and love helping people shape their ideas and bring their voice forward,” said Lawall.
Lawall hopes to build her Rethink New York creative team, including people she loves to work with. One of those collaborators is already on staff, in Rich Greco, ecd of design, whom she worked with at Droga5 and shared authorship on their book, “This Little Piggy Went to Market in the City.”
“I love building creative environments for people to feel like they can do their best work,” said Lawall.
Over the past 25 years, Rethink has built a creative powerhouse agency in Canada, having earned multiple Cannes Lions, including being named the 2024 Cannes Lions Independent Network of the Year and Independent Agency of the Year, plus a Grand Prix in effectiveness for its Heinz brand platform. The agency has offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and New York.
Rethink’s New York office continues to build its creative bench with recent assistant creative director hires Jon Krippahne and Patrick French, both from Droga5, as well as Greco, who spent the last two years at design shop JKR.
