Amir Kassaei

His early career in the advertising business included positions as an Account Manager for L'Oréal in France,^[7] and later positions ranging from Strategic Planner and Art Director to Designer, in TBWA Worldwide and Barci & Partner.^[9] He then joined the German advertising agency Springer & Jacoby in 1997,^[7] at that point one of the major advertising agencies in Germany. He advanced from copywriter to Creative Director and finally to Executive Creative Director with the global clients Mercedes-Benz and Smart.^[10]

In 2003 Kassaei changed companies to DDB Worldwide as Associate Partner of DDB Germany^[11] and in 2011, he moved to the headquarter of DDB Worldwide in New York City as Chief Creative Officer.^[7] During this time he created campaigns for brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, Allianz, Apple Inc., Adidas, Reebok,^[12] Nike, Inc., Bosch, Volkswagen and McDonald's.^[9] In 2012 he moved the creative headquarters of DDB Worldwide to Shanghai.^[13] Between 2011 and 2019, Kassaei was the youngest and first non-American^[7] Global Chief Creative Officer to head DDB Worldwide. During this time, DDB was one of the most internationally awarded advertising networks.^[14][15]

In 2017 he founded the agency C14torce (pronounced: Catorce) in Barcelona, Spain, which he had built up exclusively for the car brand SEAT. By the end of 2019 the firm had more than 400 employees with offices in 7 countries.^[16]

In 2020, after about 30 years in the business, Kassaei retired from the advertising industry.^[17][18] Most recently, he founded the architecture and design company Buresq.^[19] The BuresQ loft in Barcelona was honored with a Frame Award in 2020.^[20] Kassaei is also working on his fashion brand H4H and is building up The Maniacs, a content production company that will supply streaming service.^[1][21]

During his career Kassaei has received (together with his creative teams) numerous awards, including 140 Cannes Lions.^[22][23] The official chart of the Cannes Lions Archive attributes 109 Lions and nominations to Kassaei personally (2020).^[24] In 2009 he was named The Big Won Report's Top Chief Creative Officer.^[25] At that time he was regarded as one of the most successful advertising creatives internationally.^[26][15] Douglas Quenqua of Campaign magazine UK lists the awards of DDB Worldwide in 2016 under Kassaei's leadership as follows: "... the network took home 101 Cannes Lions, up from 78 in 2015; it won 32 pencils at the D&AD awards, down from 40 in 2015; and it claimed the same number of pencils at this year's One Show—23—as it did in 2015."^[15]