John Rowe joins Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo as MD

Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo has appointed John Rowe as their new Managing Director. Rowe will join executive creative directors Tota Hasegawa and Mike Farr to complete the management team for W+K Tokyo, and replaces Blake Harrop who moved to W+K Amsterdam as the new managing director.

Rowe (pictured left) joined W+K Portland in 2005, serving in a lead account management role for some of the world’s most respected and innovative brands, including Starbucks, Heineken, Target, and most recently, Powerade (part of The Coca-Cola Company) and Facebook.

As Account Director of Facebook for the past three years, Rowe has partnered with senior executives at the social network to help develop the brand’s first communications platform for both national and global advertising campaigns.

In addition to helping Facebook find its voice in the US marketplace, he also partnered with senior leadership at W+K Tokyo last year to bring the account to the agency.

Dave Luhr, W+K President and Partner, said,”John is a strong and inspirational leader who fully appreciates the strengths and values of W+K. Over the past years, W+K Tokyo has build up a very strong position, and John’s skills will help build upon the already strong momentum we have in Tokyo and help us all further realize our full potential in Japan. On top of all this, John is just a smart, fun and humble man. And I can’t wait to see what our trio of Tota, Mike and John are going to do together.”

On his new role Rowe said,”W+K Tokyo has been on a roll. There are some really talented people in the office and I can’t wait to help Tota, Mike and the entire W+K family to continue the momentum. I had the pleasure of working with Blake and the rest of the team when we re-launched the Facebook brand in Japan last fall and was really impressed with the quality of thinking and creativity. And personally, as an adventurer, I’m beyond excited to move to Tokyo and immerse myself into the extraordinarily rich and unique Japanese culture.”