Siren Communications, a Toronto-based PR firm specializing in travel and tourism, has appointed Deborah Belcourt (née Lewis) as its vice-president. She joined the agency Jan. 4.
Belcourt has more than 20 years of communications experience, most recently as vice-president of communications at Canwest Broadcasting (now Shaw Media) from 2007-2010. She has also developed communications programs for notable brands including Microsoft, Hugo Boss, Nissan and Shangri-La Hotels.
Much of Belcourt’s time will be spent managing and developing Siren’s client team and accounts, although she will also help agency president Ann Layton with an aggressive new business mandate.
Belcourt considered a return to corporate communications after Canwest, but opted for Siren after doing some consulting work with the agency last year.
“Professional services is what makes me happy, and to be perfectly honest, no corporate situation could ever follow Canwest, because it was such a great team and company,” said Belcourt.
She called the new role with Siren an “incredibly exciting opportunity,” noting that the agency has enjoyed tremendous success by sticking to the sector it knows best. “They do luxury travel and luxury lifestyle–they don’t do all sectors,” she said. “Because they’ve decided to stick to that and do it very well, they’ve been enormously successful.”
Layton said that the 10-person agency is embarking on a “significant growth year” that will see it expand from a boutique agency to a mid-sized firm, seeking out clients in other markets including Latin America, Asia and India. New client additions this month alone include Golf Town, Silversea Cruises and TradeWinds Cruise Club.
“We had a lot of success in 2010 and we’re looking for a lot of new clients this year,” said Layton.
“It’s really exciting to have someone of Deb’s calibre join the team,” said Layton. “It represents a big step because it’s the first time we’ve been able to have a senior management person in the company.”
