The Brand Union named Deborah West as senior client director.

DDB Chicago hired Penn French as senior vice president, group business director in charge of the State Farm business. Prior to joining DDB, French was vice president of marketing at The Morton Arboretum.

G2 elevated Dr. Rita Wheat to the role of group director, emerging shopper & marketing technologies, across the entire G2 North American network. Previously, Wheat served as group director, strategy & research, for the interactive marketing practice.

Jeannette Trout was promoted to vice president, operations at Razorfish Health.

Bill Oberlander joined JWT New York as executive creative director, where he will oversee the Microsoft Commercial business. Most recently, Oberlander served as the chief creative officer and executive vice president of Cossette New York.

Wieden+Kennedy Portland hired Jeff Gillette as integrated creative director, and promoted Karl Lieberman and Ryan O'Rourke to creative directors. Gillette joins the agency from Google Creative Lab, where he was creative director working on Chrome, Search, YouTube and other Google properties.

Two Wunderman offices in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) will report directly to Wunderman Asia region president, Stephane Faggianelli. Previously, Wunderman's operations in Australia were under the aegis of Young & Rubicam Brands Australia. The move increases Faggianelli's role in the region, expanding his portfolio to 27 offices in 13 countries.

iris launched an office in Atlanta, to be headed by managing director Jon Wright.

Doron Wesly has been named leader of business science and planning for Mindshare North America, a new position. Prior to joining Mindshare, Wesly was global media director for Cheil Worldwide, Samsung's in-house ad agency, based in Seoul, South Korea.

AKQA hired Julie Edwards as client services director in New York. She previously worked at Digitas as vice president and group director.