Fold7-owner Miroma Group has hired Jonathan Burley, former chief creative officer at Y&R London, as its chief creative officer.
Miroma has handed Burley the task of “supercharging” the group’s output. He will report to the group chief executive of its agencies division, Marc Nohr, and work alongside the agencies’ creative leaders, including Fold7’s chief creative officer, Ryan Newey, and creative directors John Yorke and Adrian Lim.
Other creative leads in the group include Chike Newman, Rebecca Winch and Geoff Oki at the entertainment comms agency Way to Blue; Paul Reid at the creative production shop Contented; and OJ Deady at the content agency Twelve A.M.
In the new group role, Burley will hone Miroma Group’s creative direction and work alongside founder Marc Boyan to develop the creativity of the start-ups that receive investment from Miroma Ventures, such as Pinterest, ClassPass and SBTV.
A key part of the group is Miroma Outcomes, which it describes as its group commercial engine and is more commonly known as a media bartering company. Outcomes works with Sky, McDonald's and NatWest, among other brands. Miroma's investments often take the form of equity for media or media alongside agency services.
Nohr became group chief executive at Miroma last October when the group bought a majority stake in Fold7, the agency he was running at the time as chief executive. Nohr has been building up the group-wide services and hired Hannah Liu Sherman, a former Fold7 business director, as a group business lead to look after accounts handled by various agencies.
Since last year Burley has worked with Fold7 on three pitches, including two for Asics, and as a creative consultant on its existing clients.
Nohr said: "Part of my job was to bring the best of what the industry has to offer to the Miroma Group. There's still nothing quite as powerful as a big creative idea, so it makes complete sense for us to look to one of the best creative directors."
Burley has worked as a freelance creative consultant since September 2018 when he was ousted from Y&R London as part of its shock merger with VML. He had been at the WPP agency for two years, during which time it won Centerparcs, Tui and the government’s Think! road-safety campaign.
Prior to Y&R London, Burley ran the creative department at CHI & Partners (now The & Partnership) from May 2010 to June 2016, first as executive creative director and then chief creative officer, overseeing work for brands such as The Sunday Times and Lexus.
He was executive creative director at Leo Burnett London between 2007 and 2010.
Other agencies in the Miroma Group include Fab, a TV format company; brand experience agency Hyperactive; data-led influencer specialist New Stance; Raven, a consultancy specialising in brand and fashion; and The Project Factory, a digital development studio.
Burley said: “I’ve always been passionate about combining disparate talent from a properly diverse pool of creative minds, and this is a unique chance to put some of my more provocative ideas into play.”
At the time of the Fold7 deal, Miroma Group had revenues in excess of $200m, offices across 11 countries and more than 350 employees around the world.
