EXCLUSIVE: The White Agency has made a raft of changes to its strategy department elevating James Keeler to the new role of strategy director, replacing Brian Dargan who has joined 303Lowe.

Other changes see Havas Worldwide’s former head of user experience Sam Court  join as principle UX architect, and TP’s Julia Aitken take on the operations manager role.

Six other new recruits have been added to the creative, technology and production teams in the last six months, following the promotion of director Andrew Davenport was also promoted to General Manager, and Brendan Fearn as head of marketing, after co-founder Craig Galvin left in February to join News Corporation.

303Lowe today confirmed the appointment of Dargan, who has worked on brands such as Lion, Nestle, The Commonwealth Bank and Lexus, and has experience at digital shops including AKQA and JWT/XM in London and Singapore.

He said: “The digital future for brands all boils down to harnessing data and relationships to deliver growth.

“The more brands create and exploit digital platforms effectively, the stronger the consumer relationships and the more valuable the data they capture.

“The businesses that will win this future are the ones that understand it is dialogue that drives these digital connections. 303Lowe understand this and that excites me."

His recruitment has been hailed by 303 chief executive Nick Cleaver, who told B&T: “When we started the agency in 2007 it was always to be an agency with digital at its heart. We already have a good team of specialists in place, and Brian will come on board with a good general knowledge of digital strategy.”

303 has emerged as the agency behind the government’s recent National Disability  Insurance Scheme awareness work from the Federal Government.