Leadership changes continue at Taxi
Taxi Canada has announced major changes at the top of its Canadian operations. Nancy Beattie has been made president, while former president Jeremy Gayton was named chief development officer for North America.
Gayton, who had been president since mid-2010, moves away from day-to-day operations and will develop new clients and agency offerings for all the company’s North American operations.
“Having been part of Taxi’s success over the last 10 years, I’m very excited to develop and execute Taxi’s growth plans as we begin our next chapter,” said Gayton, in a release.
Beattie, who was previously general manager of the Toronto office, has been involved with all Toronto-office clients and new business pitches, but has primarily led the agency’s relationship with two of its largest clients: Canadian Tire and Telus (she was hired in 2004 to oversee Telus).
Beattie told Marketing the new role is really a “modification” of her existing duties and that no one will be needed to fill her previous position.
“The Toronto office is the largest in our network, and a lot of the talent we have here operates across all the other offices. There was a big part of my job that was working with the [other] general managers, ” and the new title “formalizes” her place atop that reporting structure.
Gayton’s chief development officer title is a new one at the agency, which has gotten into the habit of creating new executive titles lately. Former chief creative officer Steve Mykolyn was named chief brand officer following the hiring of Frazer Jelleyman as chief creative officer in October 2012. More changes followed Jelleyman’s arrival when Mark Tomblin was named head of planning in January.
Beattie said the changes emerged from some introspective meetings last year when Taxi was celebrating its 20th anniversary. “It’s a nice moment to look back a little bit on where we’ve been, but now we’re looking forward and setting ourselves up for where we need to be to get to that next place. We’re not short on ambition right now.”
Taxi’s North American offices include Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, New York and two in Toronto. There is also an international office in Amsterdam.
It has been just over two years since Taxi was acquired by WPP.
