• by Amy Corr  @MediaPostOTL, December 5, 2016

FRUKT created a new U.S. senior leadership team. Shirley Richter Hughes was hired as managing director, FRUKT US; Hap Deneen was promoted to senior vice president, FRUKT US and Jesus Gonzalez was named vice president, music partnerships.

Hughes is charged with leading all U.S. partnership and marketing operations and growing the agency's entertainment strategy and activation services for brands like Mastercard, Cisco and Sprint. Most recently, Hughes led global client engagement efforts at Branded Entertainment Network (Corbis). Prior to that, she worked at Wasserman Media Group, EastWest Creative and Paramount Pictures.

Deneen, who has worked for FRUKT for the past five years, will lead the NY office and client teams.

Gonzalez is a former artist turned label executive with more than 10 years of business development, marketing and strategy experience. He was most recently the director of brand partnerships for Universal Music Latin Entertainment, where he cultivated strategic partnerships for the company as a whole and UMLE's roster of talent.

"We are thrilled to have our U.S. leadership team in place. Their collective experience, coupled with the brilliant creative and consumer experiences generated by our team, will be the standard for how brands approach entertainment partnerships," said Dom Hodge, managing director, FRUKT Global.