LONDON — Edelman UK has made a number of hires within its Edelman Deportivo creative practice, which now has 29 creatives, content strategists, and producers in the UK working across all the agency’s teams and practices.

The roll call of joiners includes new creative director Lex Di Benedetto (pictured), who will lead creative projects for some of Edelman’s largest clients and drive forward the UK’s new creative content studio. She has held senior creative roles in London and New York at agencies and digital and media companies including HighSnobiety, Refinery29, B-Reel and Perspective Pictures.

Also joining the agency are two new creative duos: copywriter Olivia Jaffrey and art director Irene Pineda, who were previously at Grey London and The Brooklyn Brothers, and senior B2B copywriter Chris Kirk and senior B2B art director Andy Wyton, who have worked together at advertising agencies including Saatchi, Publicis, O&M, BST, Geometry, and McCann.

Edelman Deportivo has also appointed Emilie Verlander from Adam&eveDBB as lead experiential and events producer, and Elena Vela Rey, who has worked at Publicis Sapient, London and Havas Worldwide in Madrid, as a conceptional designer.

The hires follow a year in which Edelman UK has won awards for creative campaigns including ‘Asics, Eternal Run’, the world’s first race without a finish line; ‘Text for Humanity’ which took a consumer-facing creative approach to a B2B brief from Sinch and strove to tackle online negativity, and IKEA’s #BuyBackFriday campaign, which saw the retail giant buying back customers’ old furniture.

Edelman Deportivo is led by Edelman EMEA’s co-chief creative officers, Mattias Ronge and Stefan Ronge, who said: “We are thrilled to bring in creative talent of this calibre and it’s a reflection of the type of work we are producing for clients. As audiences shy away from traditional marketing we need talent that understand the new landscape and think differently.

“We have a diverse creative bench who offer an alternative approach, using earned creative to connect with audiences across multiple platforms, channels and devices. We have ambitious plans to continue to grow the team over the next year to pave the way for more game-changing creative work.”