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Tom Martin and Julian Schreiber exit Cummins & Partners for Special Group

Cummins&Partners Sydney has lost its two executive creative directors and partners Tom Martin and Julian Schreiber, who are leaving to join Special Group as partners and executive creative directors.

The promotions come after James Greet recently departed Cummins&Partners as its chief media officer.

Six months ago Cummins&Partners global chief financial officer Chris Atkin also quietly departed the agency,while in March global chief strategy director Adam Ferrier and joint ECDs Jim Ingram and Ben Couzen left the independent creative agencyto launchThinkerbell.

In 2015 Martin and Schreiber returned to Australia to lead the Sydney creative team from their previous roles as ECDs at Johannes Leonardo.

New Cummins&Partners creative directors, Avish Gordhan and Mandie van der Merwe

Prior to their time overseas, Schreiber and Martin both worked as creative directors at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne for seven years and worked on the NAB ‘Break Up’ campaign and Melbourne Tourism’s ‘Remote Control Tourist’.

Special Group’s creative partners Matty Burton and Dave Bowman departed the agency in April to take on senior roles at Google.

Lindsey Evans, CEO and founding partner of Special Group, said: “Their experience, ambition and shared values are second to none and there is perfect alignment in approach to creativity, culture and commerce. Tom and Jules are creative problem solvers in the truest sense.

“We have some of the most exciting opportunities of our careers in front of us working across brand strategy, experience, design and advertising with brilliant clients and world class talent in a wonderful culture,” Evans said.

Mandie van der Merwe and Avish Gordhan are set to replace the duo as creative directors.

Joining the agengy from TBWA in 2015, Van der Merwe has been promoted from her previous role as a senior art director.

Van der Merwe said in a statement: “We are a highly motivated, diverse and creative group of people in Sydney. I’m looking forward to building on this foundation and pushing the quality of work even further.

“Personally, I’m excited to be working more closely with Kirsty Muddle, one of the founders of the business. She is intimidatingly smart and a striking example of what strong, female leadership looks like in a modern agency.”

Gordhan was a senior copywriter at the agency for just over two years.

Prior to joining Cummins&Partners Gordhan was a copywriter at TBWA.

“Upon hearing of our promotion, Mandie patted me on the back then said, ‘now, let’s get back to work.’ It sums up our approach to the role. It’s a great honour to be recognised but the real reward is not the position itself. It’ll be succeeding in it by making excellent work that works for our clients, and challenges our industry,” Gordhan said in a statement.

Sean Cummins, founding partner of Cummins&Partners, said: “The creative scene in Australia has been a bit one note for too long and there is a bigger and more diverse world that exists beyond the watering holes of Sydney’s adland.

“There has been recent excitement about agency sell-outs… but the true shift in advertising doesn’t happen because a consultancy buys a hot shop. It happens person-by-person, brief-by-brief, day-by-day. Avish and Mandie are exquisite thinkers, insightful outsiders and real people.”

Cummins&Partners’ clients include T2, HBF, AFL, Jeep and CSR.

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