Victoria Gray is the latest casualty of the current economic doldrums, out as general manager of Taxi’s Vancouver office. Gray joined the agency in summer 2007, and before that she was general manager at MacLaren McCann’s Vancouver office.
Gray’s departure follows shortly after that of Lara Palmer, Taxi’s associate creative director, who had her position eliminated in December.
Nancy Beattie, the Toronto-based general manager for Telus and Taxi West, said both Palmer and Gray were offered positions at head office, but declined to move.
“We took a look at the structure and wanted to make sure that we were leanly staffed to meet the business needs that we have in hand,” said Beattie, adding that the agency plans to reshuffle the responsibilities among remaining staff members.
Michael Mayes remains as creative director, while Karen Pearce becomes managing director for the Vancouver office. Pearce has run the Telus business for the past two years and relocated from Calgary to open the Vancouver office in 2007.
Rob Guenette, Taxi’s CEO said his agency remains committed to Vancouver.
“Like many other shops across the country and in the United States and in other parts of the world, we are just reshaping and restructuring,” he said. “We are not immune to what’s going on in the global economy and we are looking at every part of our organization so we are set up for sustainability.”
Telus is by far the agency’s largest client in Vancouver.
“There’s a few small clients and we do have some other small clients that we are pitching, but the Vancouver market did not take off as quickly as we expected,” he said. “We are making adjustments and we are committed and we are there to stay.”
