MAURO ALENCAR has joined AKQA as creative director, San Francisco. He will be leading the creative strategy for Xbox. Prior to joining AKQA, Alencar was the executive creative director at Blast Radius, in Vancouver, B.C. While there, he developed Web sites, mobile interfaces, interactive TV, films, print, and interactive advertising campaigns for clients such as Nike, Nintendo, DIRECTV, Heineken, BMW Canada, and Electronic Arts.

Wunderman New York named KEREN PERRY-SHAMIR as senior planner, and LAURA CROW as project manager supervisor. In addition, BRYAN LEHNER joinsas information architect on Microsoft. Lastly, Wunderman Chicago has added BRETT MCCALL as creative director.

Hill, Holliday named TIM CAWLEY (pictured) as senior vice president and group creative director for the agency's Boston office. Cawley will partner with TIM FOLEY, executive vice president and group creative director on the Dunkin' Donuts and Anheuser-Busch business. Prior to joining Hill, Holliday, Cawley served as senior vice president and group creative director at Mullen Advertising overseeing work on XM Satellite Radio, Department of Defense, and The Ad Council.

Hard Rock International has named ANNIE BALLIRO as regional director of marketing. For the past five years, Balliro has been senior director of marketing/product management for the Island Def Jam Music Group. Balliro will be spearheading Hard Rock’s marketing efforts for the Eastern region.

GM Planworks, the full-service media division within Starcom MediaVest Group, has named media director BRIAN ELWARNER a senior vice president of the agency. Prior to Planworks, Elwarner worked as a media supervisor for Cadillac at D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles.

180solutions has named MARK IPPOLITO as vice president of sales. Ippolito is responsible for all aspects of advertising sales for the company’s MetricsDirect division.

People en Español has named MICHAEL MILLER to national advertising sales director. In his new position, Miller will be responsible for spearheading the magazine's national advertising sales efforts, in addition to managing and directing the national ad sales team. Most recently, Miller was the Northwest sales manager for Business 2.0 magazine.

AdSpace Networks has promoted MARC GALIANO to director of national accounts and has hired MIRIAM ANANIA as a local sales manager.

Real Branding has added KRISTIAN SCHWARTZ as group account director and GREG BERMAN as media director. Schwartz comes to Real Branding from Avenue A/Razorfish where he was client director on the Visa account. Berman joins the agency from Beyond Interactive/Grey San Francisco, where he held several account, media management, and supervisory positions.

Discovery Networks has promoted JOSEPH CZARKOWSKI to vice president/national sales manager to oversee advertising sales efforts for Discovery Health Channel and BBC America. Most recently, Czarkowski served as account executive for Discovery Networks, representing advertising sales efforts for Discovery Channel and Travel Channel.