After spending the last four years as senior integrated producer at Mekanism, Manjula Nadkarni has joined up with fellow Bay Area operation Venables Bell & Partners as director of interactive production. The hire is part of a move by the indie agency to bolster its content studio dubbed Lumberyard, which was launched at the end of last year. Nadkarni is teaming up with VB&P director of content development Deva Ferar, who manages the Lumberyard space, and will work on interactive production assignments for clients including Intel, Google and ConAgra.

In addition, Venables hired Team One alum Aiden Bordner as director of experience design, Aaron Clinger as technical director and former Isobar SVP. director of client service  Katie Acosta as group account director.