Cundari has a new chief creative officer.
Andrew Simon is leaving Blammo Worldwide and moving to the Toronto agency. He fills the top creative position left vacant by Brent Choi who joined JWT last month as chief creative integration officer.
Agency chair Aldo Cundari told Marketing that nearly 30 people from “Canada and abroad” applied for the position. Cundari credits the agency’s recent successes for drawing in such a healthy number of unsolicited applicants.
“We tentatively interviewed about eight or nine but quickly [Simon] bubbled to the surface. He was one of our first interviews, so he quickly became the benchmark,” said Cundari. “I’m a big believer that the CCO position is more of a leadership position, he certainly has the history and the credentials to be that leader.”
Cundari said he also brings an entrepreneurial spirit. “That’s a perfect combination in today’s age of a really complicated creative process versus the old traditional team pairs,” he said. “Now you’ve got technologists and all these other individuals, so managing the business side of the business is important.”
Cundari said Simon’s goal will be to spearhead the growth of the “creative group and maintain its quality and levels we’ve been doing over the last year or so.”
“I have nothing bad to say about Blammo,” said Simon. “It really has more to do with Cundari.”
Cundari has been one of the hottest agencies in Canada the past couple of years, producing breakthrough work that earned kudos on the world stage and made the shop a finalist for Marketing’s Agency of the Year. “It was not a fluke,” said Simon. “They have really invested in the right areas. They have amazing digital, amazing dev, amazing design.
“They have set up quite an impressive agency that I saw as a great opportunity to take to the next level.”
“This is not a flash in a pan, every year Cundari will be on top.”
Simon has another week at Blammo and plans to join Cundari by the end of the month.
