• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, April 12, 2016

So as far as agency new hire promo photos go, this one from BMF is pretty good. It’s outside and not in the office. Four out of the five are smiling rather than sporting a pompous smirk and even the guy who isn't smiling doesn't have the whole pompous thing going on. There's two, yes, two women in the photo! But first, it's a selfie! Yes, the five new hires at BMF posed together for a selfie for the press announcement. 

As for the new hires, Tim Bishop has joined the agency as associate creative director as well as two creative teams: creative duo Jess Roberts (art director) and Justin Butler (copywriter), together with Nadia Ahmad (art director) and Tom Johnson (copywriter). 

Bishop joins BMF with a 14-year career at agencies in Melbourne, Amsterdam and Sydney. He most recently spent three years at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne working across Carlton United Breweries, Bonds, Origin Energy, Dulux and NAB. His award haul includes three Silver Lions, Finalist Titanium, Silver and Bronze Euro Best, plus several AWARD, Clios and One Show wins. 

Jess Roberts and Justin Butler became a team in AWARD School in 2013 and have been working together since. Jess has a Bachelor of Visual Communications and Justin has a Bachelor of Journalism. Before joining BMF, they spent two years at OgilvyOne creating and executing campaigns for a number of businesses, including IBM, American Express, Coca-Cola, Optus and KFC.

Nadia Ahmad joins from Wieden + Kennedy Shanghai, where she worked on Nike. Throughout her career she has been in agencies such as DDB, Naked and Droga5. Outside of adland, she has created her own product, Handvas, and also runs an Instagram account, Put A Rang On It. Nadia’s work has been recognized by The Huffington Post, Time, Business Insider, Vogue, Perez Hilton, BuzzFeed, Mashable, MTV, Brown Cardigan, TrendHunter, Core77, Design Milk and Young Guns. 

Tom Johnson will team with Nadia. He started his career at Whybin/TBWA Auckland, where he worked predominantly on ANZ and picked up a handful of awards (D&AD Nomination, D&AD In-Book, One Show Design Merit, Adstars Bronze) for a Minds for Minds (Non-profit autism research organization) print campaign. More recently, Tom worked at DDB Sydney on McDonald’s, Volkswagen, Telstra and Carefree. 

Of the hires, BMF Executive Creative Director Cam Blackley said: “We continue to strengthen our team and having Tim on board to add to the creative leadership is massive. It has paid off already and he’s also a terribly nice bloke. I’m also excited to have persuaded Nadia, who’s fresh from W&K, to sit alongside the immensely talented Tim. We’re developing new ways of working and having a team with different perspectives and creative specialties is critical. The arrival of Jess and Justin will help us continue to push to be the best creative offering around. They have a bright future.” 

On joining the agency, Tim Bishop said, “BMF consistently does excellent work and we’ve got some exciting campaigns in the making. I’m looking forward to playing a part in future successes and working with Cam and Alex to ensure the creative output of the agency is of the highest standard possible.”