Brave Spark New York Makes First Creative Hires

Brave Spark, MSQ's award-winning creative studio, has made its first creative hires in New York as the business expands its global operations.

Qianwen Huang and Eric Yoon join Brave Spark New York as its first senior creative team, to work on the agency’s existing and new clients.  

The team will be based in Brave Spark New York’s Fifth Avenue office and will work closely with the agency’s executive producer lead, Harry Smith, as well as Brave Spark’s executive creative director Juliet McLaren and MSQ North America’s chief creative officer Lisa Leone.

Brave Spark New York launched with Harry at the helm in August last year, and has since worked with creatives on a freelance basis, as well as collaborating with creatives from its London office and from other agencies within the MSQ group. 

When launching in New York, Brave Spark became MSQ’s seventh agency based in North America, with a mission to help brave brands solve modern day business challenges by bringing together the very best thinkers and makers to deliver distinctive campaigns that work in the real world.

Qianwen Huang joins Brave Spark having worked as a freelance senior art director for the past three years, spending time at agencies including Hakuhodo and CXgroup. She began her career at Daiko Advertising in Shanghai, before joining Dentsu to work on Uniqlo and Casio. She moved to Singapore in 2017, where she worked at Hogarth, Iris and Havas Worlwide, before relocating to New York in 2020.

During her career Qianwen has created multi-channel campaigns for the likes of Starbucks, Tiffany & Co, Holiday Inn and the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Eric Yoon joins Brave Spark from Dentsu Creative, where he worked as a senior copywriter for brands including Burger King, Bank of America, Land Rover, Walmart and Abreva. Prior to that he worked at Razorfish and Ogilvy across clients such as IBM, IKEA, Philips and Invisalign.

Rob Drake, founder and CEO of Brave Spark, said, “It’s so important to get the first creative hires of a new office right, and I think we can safely say that in Qianwen and Eric we’ve found the creative characters we were looking for. They’re full of energy and ambition, they care about their craft and they deliver truly multi-channel thinking. This is another important step on the Brave Spark journey and I’m delighted they’re on board.”

Harry said, “It’s already been a really exciting first chapter for Brave Spark New York and bringing a team on board with Qianwen and Eric’s talents will help us provide our clients with the fresh, innovative thinking they need to succeed. We’re intent on replicating the bold, entrepreneurial spirit that’s made Brave Spark in London such a success, and I think we’re building a team capable of doing just that.”

Qianwen and Eric said, “We’re beyond excited to join Brave Spark at a time of expansion to help shape the creative as part of the New York team. You can immediately feel the agency’s energy and appetite for great work, and we can’t wait to make stuff that stands out for our clients.”