Chad Borlase
Borlase will oversee a lot of the shop’s digital work, but as he explained to Marketing, “no one should call themselves just digital.” In keeping with Cossette’s strategy (and the overall direction of the industry as a whole), Borlase wants to make sure the skills on-hand in the creative department are as diverse as possible.
“We’ll be hiring people in the creative department,” he said. “The idea is not to build a separate digital division. That’s old-school thinking. It’s about hiring people who can work in digital across the whole agency.”
Other new editions include Peter Gardiner, formerly of Cundari, and Kenneth Fothergill, formerly of Publicis Toronto. They have been paired as senior writer and senior art director, respectively. Rounding out the hiring are Robin Soukvilay, Duncan Collis and Sebastian Lyman. Lyman arrives from Taxi where he served as a copywriter on the Telus account.
Tuesday’s hiring announcement marked the culmination of the first team building conducted by David Daga and Matt Litzinger following their appointments as co-chief creative officers for the Toronto office.
“We needed to identify who could best execute our vision in today’s communciation environment, both senior and up-and-coming,” said Daga, in a release.
Echoing statements made when he was promoted, Litzinger said he wants to “encourage a true democracy” within Cossette’s creative ranks. “That’s reflected in the people we’ve hired. They represent a real cross section of personality, creative expertise and business experience.”
