Andy Macaulay has been appointed managing partner at Rethink.
Effective July 2, Macaulay will join the agency’s Toronto office. In the new role Macaulay will focus on new business while managing director Caleb Goodman focuses on existing clients. Goodman will report to Macaulay.
Recent growth at the agency has demanded it take this “divide and conquer” strategy within its senior leadership, according to Chris Staples, Rethink partner and national creative director.
“Caleb has done a great job of growing and maintaining relationships we have, but we’re now at a size where we do need to divide and conquer,” Staples told Marketing. “Andy knows the market so well and is great at getting out and beating the bushes for new business.”
Staples called Macaulay “one of the greats in Canadian advertising,” citing his history as a partner at Roche Macaulay and Partners and after that as co-founder role in Zig (which later rebranded as Crispin Porter + Bogusky Canada before a reinvention as Union in late 2012).
In fact, the relationship between Macaulay and Rethink dates back to the very early days of Zig. Both agencies were founded in 1999 with a goal, as Staples describes it, of shaking up the industry and creating a new approach to advertising. At the time, the senior teams from both agencies met for dinner to discuss the new path they were mutually on.
That was the start of long relationship, with Staples describing Macaulay as a “good friend and adviser,” over the agency’s 15 year history.
When Zig merged with Crispin Porter + Bogusky in 2010 to create CP+B Canada, Macaulay stepped aside as CEO and into a chairman role. He stayed on with the agency after MDC rebranded it as Union before quietly leaving and taking on consulting gigs early this year under the banner Metapurpose, a private company Macaulay describes as a “passion project.”
At that point Macaulay said Rethink contacted him to gauge his interest and jumped at the chance to join the agency given their shared values. “It was clear to me early on that Chris, Tom, Ian and their agency had the same sort of values and approach to business as me.”
Macaulay joins Aaron Starkman, partner at Rethink since 2011, who he worked alongside at Zig.
“I can’t wait to get back to working with the guy,” Starkman said. “He’s one of the nicest guys in the industry and happens to be the smartest person I’ve ever met”
