The event and communications agency follow red is strengthening its leadership team: Effective November 1, 2026, Patrick Schmidt has assumed the position of Chief Creative Officer (CCO). Schmidt will be responsible for the agency’s strategic creative output and will expand experience design to become the core of its creative offerings. His key responsibilities include establishing a Creative Operating System that coordinates AI-supported processes in creative work and agency operations, as well as playing a leading role in follow red’s international expansion.
Patrick Schmidt brings over 15 years of experience in live communication, brand spaces, and experience design. A trained architect, he served as Creative Director at LIGANOVA, where he was responsible for the concept and design of retail spaces and international trade show booths, and subsequently headed the visual merchandising department at HUGO BOSS. In 2015, he founded The Sane Company in Stuttgart, a studio specializing in event and exhibition design, architectural planning, motion design, and storytelling, which has carried out projects and pitches for clients including Bosch, MINI, and Porsche. In 2022, the studio was acquired by George P. Johnson, one of the world’s leading agencies for experience marketing. Schmidt most recently served there as Executive Creative Director for Germany.
Creative Operating System: Creation, Technology, and Agency as a Single System
With its integrated Creative Operating System, Schmidt combines concept development, design, experience, and technology into a seamless flow. AI-powered tools are designed to coordinate processes from briefing to implementation, make ideas visible and tangible earlier on, and give the team more space for the actual creative, individual work. At the same time, Schmidt is intensifying collaboration between the creative team and Live Experience, Brand Communication, and its digital subsidiary, smart7. In the medium term, follow red aims to design more spaces, platforms, and experiential worlds directly from within the agency, drawing on the departments’ current expertise.
International Expansion Through a Curated Partner Network
Drawing on his experience working within a global agency network, Schmidt brings expertise in international projects, service providers, and brand relationships. The goal is to build a core team with the capacity to execute projects on an international scale: modular experience systems that function simultaneously across multiple markets, supported by a network of specialists, production partners, and technology partners.
“With Patrick, we’re gaining a creative professional who thinks holistically about spaces, brands, and people—and who has worked internationally in this field,” says Sebastian Wiese, CEO of follow red. “Our strength has always been authentic execution right down to the very last touchpoint. Patrick turns this into a creative offering that combines technology and experience, enabling us to grow beyond Germany’s borders.”
“follow red has something that can’t be copied: forty years of experience in bringing brands to life for people,” says Patrick Schmidt. “My goal is to combine this expertise with new technologies and a strong international network to create a comprehensive, scalable offering. That can only be achieved together with the team. I see myself as someone who listens, generates new ideas, helps develop concepts, and empowers talented individuals to surpass their own limits.”
Following Cornelia Moor and Antonis Carl Iliadis, Schmidt is the third new addition to the executive team in 18 months. The agency, which recently expanded with an office in Munich, is thus also restructuring its creative leadership.
