Quenneville to lead Taxi Montreal

Taxi Montreal has added another key piece in the makeover of its senior leadership team with the hiring of Christian Quenneville as general manager.
 
Quenneville leaves his current post as vice-president and executive director at Montreal’s Nurun to join Taxi Feb. 7. He fills the role vacated by Yves Blain last November.
 
The move reunites Quenneville with Dominique Trudeau, executive creative director at Taxi Montreal. The two previously worked together at Cossette’s Fjord Interactive.
 
“I like what [Taxi] stands for,” said Quenneville. “The way they question how marketing communication happens, that’s something that always resonated with me. So the opportunity to join the leadership team and make sure that keeps happening in the Montreal office is something that spoke to me from the get-go.”
 
Quenneville said he was looking forward to re-establishing Taxi’s pride of place in Montreal.
 
“The past couple of years in Montreal they’ve been fairly quiet, which is not very natural for Taxi,” he said. “Perhaps item one on my list is getting back to defining what the Taxi approach is for Montreal and being more vocal about that approach.
 
“We need to take the stage again. We need to make sure our point of view is out there.”
 
Quenneville’s hire is the latest personnel development in what has been a frenetic few months for Taxi Montreal. Trudeau rejoined the agency in December after a stint at BleuBlancRouge, after former creative director Stephane Charier moved to Nolin BBDO. Taxi co-founder Jane Hope had been filling in as interim general manager in Montreal since Blain’s departure.
 
With Quenneville and Trudeau now in charge, Taxi president Jeremy Gayton said the shop’s leadership situation has stabilized.
 
“When we look at leadership at Taxi, we look at three fundamental tenets: someone to uphold our creative standards, someone who’s going to foster harmony within our agency and with the clients, and financial acumen,” said Gayton. “(Quenneville) rang true on all fronts.
 
“With Christian and Dominique at the helm, we see definite future potential for that office.”
 
Gayton added that WPP’s acquisition of Taxi last fall was unrelated to the recent spate of personnel moves at the agency’s Montreal shop.