Leading South African brand and communications agency Penquin has announced the appointment of Albert De Andrade as Chief Creative Officer and Lerato Moleko as Strategy Director, strengthening its leadership team as the agency continues to evolve its integrated offering.
The double appointment marks a significant milestone in Penquin’s growth trajectory, uniting decades of combined industry experience across creative excellence, business consulting, brand strategy, and commercial growth. Together, De Andrade and Moleko will lead the agency’s creative and strategic engines, reinforcing Penquin’s commitment to being a growth challenger partner to clients.
“We are incredibly excited to welcome Albert and Lerato to the Penquin leadership team,” says Veronica Moleele, CEO at Penquin. “Both bring an exceptional depth of experience, but perhaps more importantly, they share our belief that the best work happens when strategy, creativity and business thinking come together from the very beginning.”
She adds “Our industry is changing rapidly, and our clients are navigating increasingly complex business and communication challenges. Albert and Lerato strengthen our ability to bring different disciplines together around those challenges, helping us create work that is not only creatively powerful and strategically sound, but genuinely capable of moving businesses forward.”
A new chapter for creativity at Penquin
With more than two decades in the advertising and marketing industry, Albert De Andrade joins Penquin as Chief Creative Officer. An award-winning creative leader, De Andrade has crafted memorable, high-impact campaigns for iconic global and local brands including Anglo American, Castle Lager, Coca-Cola, Discovery, DStv, Ford, Gillette, PepsiCo, P&G, and Vodacom.
De Andrade’s leadership philosophy rests on the conviction that powerful creativity happens where business ambition, strategic intelligence, and human imagination meet. In his role as CCO, he aims to cultivate an agency culture where creativity serves as a catalyst for business growth and agency-client relationships evolve into genuine, long-term commercial partnerships built on trust, courage, and measurable impact.
Strengthening the agency’s strategic capability
Bringing 14 years of experience across business consulting and brand strategy, Lerato Moleko steps into the role of Strategy Director. A seasoned communications practitioner, Moleko specializes in inter-agency collaboration, leveraging digital marketing, and harnessing deep media insights to unlock new growth opportunities for brands.
Moleko has spearheaded strategic planning at many of Africa’s largest agency networks, including FCB Africa, Wunderman Thompson, Edelman Africa, and Ogilvy South Africa, managing key accounts such as South African Tourism, Telkom, Unilever, and Mondelez.
The appointments reflect Penquin’s broader ambition to build an agency where strategy and creativity work in closer partnership, with both disciplines connected to the commercial realities facing clients.
Moleele believes this integration will become increasingly important as brands navigate a rapidly changing marketing landscape.
“Great creative work starts with a deep understanding of the challenge it needs to solve, while great strategy only becomes meaningful when it is brought to life through ideas that people can genuinely connect with,” she says. “Albert and Lerato bring two incredibly important perspectives to our business, and we’re excited about what becomes possible when those perspectives work alongside each other and the exceptional talent already within Penquin.”
With both leaders stepping into their roles, Penquin continues to solidify its reputation as an agency that blends creative agility with strategic depth, helping brands move from simple visibility to true market memorability.