Colin Schleining, president of EDC North America, says the search is on to find new leadership for EDC’s Dare Vancouver office following the departure of Sandy Fleischer and John Hall.
Schleining said that while Hall has stepped down as managing partner, he remains with the agency as SVP planning.
“Planning is key to our offering at Dare, and so we’ve really beefed up the planning expertise and that’s where John comes from,” said Schleining, adding that he has stepped in as interim leader until a replacement is found. “What we really need is a strong individual leader who is passionate, entrepreneurial and really has some vision for the future and where we can go.”
Fleischer, formerly senior vice-president and managing partner at Dare, has left to become managing partner at Vancouver-based Pound & Grain Digital where he joins three former co-workers – managing partner Tara Steinberg and creative directors/partners Jackson Murphy and Graham MacInnes – who all worked at Dare Vancouver (or Fjord West, its previous incarnation).
Fleischer was with the EDC family of agencies for nine years and took over the running of Dare with Hall in December 2010.
“I’m really proud of what I accomplished in that time,” said Fleischer. “When I joined Fjord, we were four people and we grew that to 35 people and developed an excellent reputation as a digital marketing agency.”
Pound & Grain has 12 full time staffers and works with clients such as Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and recently YYoga.
Dare Vancouver has 50 staffers. The agency recently re-won the Tourism BC account after a mandatory government review, added BC Children’s Foundation to its portfolio and won the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, which it will share with Dare’s Toronto office.
EDC Communications is a division of Vision 7 International, which also owns Cossette Communications.
