Sid Lee Toronto has bolstered its senior leadership team with key new hires.
Jeffrey Da Silva is now co-creative director and Geoff Hardwicke was named senior account director, pushing total staff for the Toronto office to more than 70.
Da Silva was formerly associate creative director at BBDO, before becoming VP, creative director at Mullen in Boston. “Sid Lee is all about the diversity of our teams; we don’t want someone who is only good at advertising or only good at digital or design,” said Vito Piazza, president and founding partner at Sid Lee Toronto. “So he’s the right casting for us in that respect.”
Hardwicke was most recently business director at Perennial Design. Prior to that he was brand director at Hudson’s Bay Company. Hardwicke is currently working from Sid Lee’s Toronto office, but will eventually lead the Sport Chek account from the retailer’s head office in Calgary. “He has extensive agency experience, but he’s also worked on the client side,” said Piazza. “He has a different perspective that is more in tune with the realities of certain clients, for example in retail, and that brings us something extra as well.”
Hardwicke and Da Silva round out a hat trick of hires. Dustin Rideout, formerly director of digital strategy at Leo Burnett, joined Sid Lee in June as head of strategy.
The hires come on the heels of recent account wins at Sid Lee Toronto, including Mark’s and President’s Choice Financial.
“Definitely there’s a growth trajectory here,” said Piazza. “We have to expand our senior leadership to give us the extra bench strength to follow the growth of the agency. So it’s us just getting the right talent and the right attitude into the office at that level so we can deliver against what we have and continue growing.”
