Landor China leaders depart for start-up

Composed of Subha Hari, former director of strategy at Landor Hong Kong, Yvonne Yu, previously client director at Landor in Beijing, ex-Landor Hong Kong creative director Toby Johnston (pictured) and Zoran Svetlicic who until now has held a regional strategy role at the WPP-subsidiary, Shift will be based out of Hong Kong, although the agency retains a regional focus

"Shift is a new breed of branding agency - especially in that we have a real bias toward practicality", said Svetlicic. "If you look at large, holding company-owned branding agencies, their solutions are very much constrained by the skills they happen to have available," said Hari, noting that the four founders of Shift combine both agency and client-side experience. "This gives us insights into a lot of the problems that arise between traditional agencies and companies - especially in Asia," she added.

Accordingly, Shift will focus on providing companies with workable branding solutions, attuned to the ambitions and impatience of many Asian corporates. "We make sure that we work on Saturdays, for example, because that’s what our clients do," said Yu.

A Shift spokesperson could not reveal details of the agency’s client roster ahead of the launch date, but claimed that it had an encouraging pipeline of new business.