You really have to love tennis to hit the courts on Dec. 24, but that’s where former AAPQ president Yanik Deschênes and Sid Lee president Jean-François Bouchard were on Christmas Eve. In fact, it was on that court that an enticing job offer was proposed.
“I would run into Jean-François on the courts since we belong to the same club,” Deschênes said. “That day, after our match, he told me about his vision [for Sid Lee] for the next few years. I was obviously aware of and admired Sid Lee’s work, an agency that is a prominent member of the [AAPQ]… He then asked me if I wanted to contribute to Sid Lee’s international development by accepting the newly created position of vice-president of global communications.”
Deschênes accepted and soon announced his resignation as president of the Association des agences de publicité du Québec.
Starting at Sid Lee on Jan. 30, the new VP is now familiarizing himself with the inner workings of an agency that Forbes ranked among the best performing of 2011, and Marketing picked as its Agency of the Year for the third year in a row.
“My mandate will be to promote Sid Lee and its DNA to major brands… and the marketing industry as a whole at the international level, where the agency is not as well-known as in Quebec and English Canada,” he said.
His new responsibilities also include all internal communications. The agency recently created “Quick Lee,” a social intranet that allows employees on both sides of the Atlantic (Sid Lee has offices in Amsterdam and Paris) to interact and work together. Deschênes will be collaborating with Marie-Ève Chaumont, the agency’s communications director, on various projects.
