Paul Hastings was promoted to executive vice president, director of account services at Y&R San Francisco.

Optimedia US promoted Greg Kahn and Keith Mackay to executive vice presidents, and Chris Pyne to New York head of planning.

BBDO New York hired Mathias Appelblad, Toygar Bazarkaya and Ralph Watson as executive creative directors.

Firstborn hired Sandy Bell as planner & strategist and Justin Young as a motion designer. Bell joins Firstborn from Poke NY, where she was a project manager & strategist on clients like Sephora, Stella Artois and Dyson. Young comes from Domani Studios in NY, where he was a senior motion designer.

Mark Nicholson and Mat Fox have joined AKQA as a senior creative team; they previously worked at TBWA London and WCRS. The duo will be working across all AKQA client accounts.

Keith Pape joined Ayzenberg Group as vice president of social, mobile and emerging media.

Digitas named Joe Lin as creative senior vice president for the agency's Stamford office.

AMP Agency named Jamie Graham as vice president, creative director. He joins the agency from Arnold Worldwide.

Lotame Solutions opened a research and development office in Cambridge, MA to be headed by John Thomas, PhD, in the newly created position of Director of R&D. Previously, Thomas was a senior scientist at Crimson Hexagon.

Erwin-Penland promoted Andy Mendelsohn to senior vice president, executive creative director; Roger Beasley to senior vice president, director of strategic planning; and Renee Roberson to vice president, director of human resources.