Anomaly has promoted Chris Neff to global chief AI officer and Clara Mulligan to chief design officer, Europe.
“At Anomaly, we’ve always defined ourselves as a platform for exceptional talent–a home for curious, diverse thinkers who reject the industry status quo,” said Karina Wilsher, partner and global CEO at Anomaly. “Chris and Clara embody this spirit perfectly. As positive agitators who refuse to accept traditional, siloed thinking, their leadership will continue to unlock transformative ideas across our network.”
Neff, who joined Anomaly three years ago as global head of emerging experience and technology, has played an instrumental role in advancing the agency’s future-facing capabilities. He has driven innovation for brands including Ally, Diageo, Google and ABI, while establishing Anomaly’s global Gen AI council. As AI has become central to Anomaly’s offering, Neff has taken on a leadership role in scaling education and adoption across disciplines, a focus that will only grow in his newly created role.
Some of the products, services, workflows, and initiatives he’s spearheaded include: Rewire, a bespoke educational curriculum that has rolled out across offices and agencies within the network; proprietary Synthetic Persona products for research and testing purposes internally and externally; and Social Portals, using AI agents to pilot TikTok, and a series of other cultural intelligence tools and workflows to fill gaps and garner insights. GenAI is force multiplying the capabilities of teams all around the world of Anomaly but it is felt through the work and the value all of our people are bringing forth.
“AI isn’t the star of our work–it’s the amplifier,” said Neff. “At Anomaly, creativity is our currency, and taste is our edge. We use AI as a set of instruments to build bespoke applications and workflows that elevate our craft, deepen our cultural and strategic impact, and unlock new creative possibilities for our people and our clients. I’m excited to keep pushing the boundaries of how Anomaly innovates, helping to shape our future and infuse these instruments into the value we pour into our clients and our work.
Building on that momentum, Anomaly is also reinforcing its design leadership with the appointment of Clara Mulligan to chief design officer, Europe. Mulligan has served as head of design across Europe for the past three years. In that time, she has built a team across London and Berlin that defies the narrow definition of “designer,” shaping a discipline recognized as a strategic driver of brand and business transformation.
Mulligan and her team work across a broad portfolio of clients on initiatives including the foundational “Back to Starbucks” transformation set by CEO Brian Niccol, rapid product innovation for Unilever, product and packaging design for brands like Tonies, and most recently introducing a new era of women’s professional football in the U.K. with the rebrand and launch of the Women’s Super League.
“Design at Anomaly spans beyond craft. It’s a mindset, method, and mechanism for transforming business with creativity. It’s a way to unlock growth, create meaning, and animate a brands’ ethos into action,” said Mulligan. “We’ve built our team to continuously push design into new spaces, elevate its value inside organizations, and inspire teams to see creativity not just as output, but as cultural and commercial impact.”
