With over 30 years of experience in the advertising industry, working at agencies in Dallas, Minneapolis, New York and Portland, Amber Lavender has spent almost 20 years running the Business Affairs Department at Wieden+Kennedy. In 2019, she was promoted to Global Director of Business Affairs, working with their network of eight international offices.
Amber’s career started in television production at WFAA-TV in her hometown of Dallas, Texas in 1983. After three years and a move to New York, she landed in advertising where she worked in Account Service and Production, before making her way into Business Affairs.
Over the years, Amber has grown the BA department in Portland from eight people to a team of over 20 people who manage an ever-growing scope of business, covering every type of production, not to mention all the crazy non-traditional branding ideas cooked up in the Creative department.
The daily madness has included a deal to send a chicken sandwich into space on a bucket shaped pace module, negotiating a deal with a major celeb in 2 days, (from vacation in Jamaica, no less) and too many network clearance victories to name (including a spot for body wash featuring a bar of soap covered in short curly hairs).
With a love for travel, Amber has been around the world on shoots from South Korea to South America. When she’s not sending chicken to space in her day job, she loves to run, finishing 13 half marathons and countless 10k races in the last 10 years.
A perfect day for Amber would be a workout and meditation at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, followed by some proper Tex Mex and an ice cold Diet Dr. Pepper, ending the day at a Luis Miguel concert. You name the city, she’s probably seen him there