Snap Adds Gareth Leeding and Haran Ramachandran to APAC Creative Team

Snap has announced the appointment of two senior creative leads for its ANZ and wider APAC operations, further adding to the brand’s team tasked with creative campaigns on the Snapchat platform.

Gareth Leeding joins Snap as Head of Creative Strategy, APAC – Snap’s first dedicated creative leader in the APAC region. Leeding brings over 18 years of experience, most recently as Executive Creative Director at We Are Social’s UK office where he built a creative department, co-founded WAS Sport, and won over 70 global awards for work across leading brands including Adidas, Audi, Google, YouTube, Lego, Lidl, PlayStation to name a few.

The brand additionally announced Haran Ramachandran joining Snap to lead Creative Strategy for Australia & New Zealand. Ramachandran has also relocated from London where he was most recently the creative lead for Three Mobile and PR agency, The Academy.

“The creative output across the APAC region is already world-class, and certainly business-critical for many of the brands we work with at Snapchat,” said Snap’s General Manager APAC, Kathryn Carter.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome both Gareth and Haran to our APAC and ANZ teams. Their visionary creative strategy will continue to help our partners create campaigns at scale that millions of Snapchatters across the region love.”

Leeding added: “I am excited to be joining the Snap team at a time when the APAC community is experiencing such growth. As Snap continues to push the boundaries with AR and the camera, there is immense creative opportunity, so I’m pumped to be leading the APAC region as we redefine what’s possible.”

In the past year  Snap has harnessed the power of the Snapchat camera to launch a first-of-its-kind environmental pledge in AR to protect Australia’s Great Barrier Reef; brought the Hyundai Kona small SUV into millions of Australian living rooms and even partnered with Common Ground to create a series of immersive sleep stories from First Nations storytellers using AR.

“Australia and New Zealand punch above their weight when it comes to world-class creativity,” said Ramachandran.

“We know local consumers are typically cynical of brands, which is why we need to look at ways to engage them in new and exciting ways. The chance to do that on a platform like Snapchat with a great audience and great tech is super exciting.”