LOS ANGELES — Social media agency Coolr has made its first two senior hires in the US, after expanding out of London last month on the back of winning ride-sharing company Lyft’s social account.

Rick Albano joins Coolr as executive creative director from Swift Agency in Portland, Oregon, where he was part of the founding team in 2008 and led a 50-strong creative department as chief creative officer.

During his time at Swift, Albano helped build the agency to over 100 people with a client roster than included Nike, Google, Starbucks and YouTube. In his new role, Albano is tasked with building the creative proposition and team for Coolr in the US.

Albano said: “Coolr shares many of the values, creative aspirations and passion for internet culture that I do – and the energy reminds me of my early days at Swift. I already knew much of Coolr’s iconic work and I am looking forward to helping produce work of a similar standard for US clients”.

Coolr has also hired Lizzie Fillo as senior account director to lead the Lyft account – its first US client win – and to help build out its US offer.

Fillo previously spent four years in-house at Pepsico in the UK, working as the digital lead and senior connections manager across the Pepsi and Walkers Crisps brands, for which Coolr was social agency of record. She has also worked at Unilever as global digital brand manager for the Axe brand and as a strategist at fashion, beauty and lifestyle communications agency Spring Studios in London.

Coolr founder and CEO Adam Clyne said the agency was continuing to recruit in the US: “Our goal for Coolr is to replicate the success we have had elsewhere and we need a world class team to achieve this; I believe we have found that with Lizzie and Rick. I am very much looking forward to all they will bring to the agency and know they will achieve great things with us”.