Ikea names agency veteran Linus Karlsson as chief creative officer

Ikea has hired Linus Karlsson in the new role of chief creative officer, to work across both product development and marketing and communication.

Karlsson, who starts on 1 April, began his career in his native Sweden at Paradiset DDB, going on to work at Fallon Minneapolis before co-founding Mother New York in 2003.

He was chief creative officer of McCann’s London and New York offices in the early 2010s as part of a stint in the Interpublic-owned network, and hired the current CCOs of McCann UK, Rob Doubal and Laurence Thomson.

Erika Intiso, marketing and communication manager at Ikea, said: “Creativity sits in the DNA of Ikea, but we constantly need to boost it and feed our imagination to assure that we capture people’s needs and dreams in our future range, in new and diverse ways of communicating and in how we share our offer with the many people. The chief creative officer will play a key role in this.”

Fredrika Inger, range and product development manager at Ikea, added: “We want to strengthen how we cater for creativity in our daily work with design, product development, marketing and communication. As chief creative officer, Linus Karlsson will be an accelerator, bouncing board and source of inspiration and experience.”

Karlsson has worked on several Ikea creative projects since 2012.