Emily Kilfoyle
Maxus Canada has announced two senior hires, kicking off what president Ann Stewart predicts will be a “coming out year” for the smallest unit in WPP’s GroupM network.
The new hires include Emily Kilfoyle as managing director of digital and emerging technology, responsible for guiding clients in the evolving media landscape; and Tim Davies as group director, responsible for clients including Revlon Canada and Kruger Products.
Kilfoyle was selected from among 30 candidates in a search led by a global search firm that lasted about four months. Her position is an evolution of Maxus’s former head of digital position, which Stewart said is a reflection of the ubiquity of digital in modern media and the continued emergence of new technologies that can include everything from virtual reality to ecommerce.
“It’s all-encompassing these days, so we’ve expanded the role because of her skillset,” said Stewart.
Kilfoyle has more than 13 years of industry experience focused on digital ad products in mobile, search, social media loyalty programs and ecommerce with companies including Rogers Communications and Teletoon.
She is the former director of digital advertising at Star Media Group, and boasts what the company described as an “extraordinary track record” in leading teams, developing digital initiatives and understanding the principles of media planning and trading.
Davies joins Maxus Canada from MediaCom’s Sydney office, and will manage all aspects of client service and development for agency personnel servicing accounts under his purview. He will report to the agency’s chief growth officer, Kerry Mitchell.
He has extensive experience in the consumer packaged goods sector, having worked on Procter & Gamble in Australia for the past five years, as well as clients including GlaxoSmithKline in his native U.K.
The hires reflect what Stewart described as a continued emphasis on non-traditional agency personnel. “What clients are looking for these days is someone to help them [beyond] just media,” said Stewart. “We’re looking for different kinds of business leaders, not just media leaders.”
Maxus currently employs 75 people, with two new undisclosed hires – one of which is a managing director position – set to join the agency at the end of the month. The agency employed 53 people in 2014.
The GroupM unit saw its billings grow approximately 25% last year through a combination of new account wins and organic growth. While Maxus didn’t pitch extensively in what was a busy year for agency reviews, its new business wins included Nestlé’s Galderma Canada business, paint company Behr Canada and ACH Food Companies.
Stewart said hiring appropriate talent would be a key focus for Maxus in 2016 as it looks to execute on its “lean into change” positioning. She said attracting and retaining talent is a “big challenge” in the agency world, and has led agencies to look beyond the media industry when hiring.
“It’s a difficult business, it’s not the way it used to be, and the automation and speed with which it’s changed is not for everybody,” she said. “We have to start to look outside our market and what we’re used to.”
Stewart predicted a tough year for advertisers on the basis of a weak Canadian dollar and sluggish retail environment, and said the speed of technology would remain a key challenge for agencies over the next 12 months.
“Some of our processes are still very slow and antiquated as an industry, on the vendor side as well, and if we don’t move faster in trying to fix these issues, as a country we could be left behind,” she cautioned.
She said one of the biggest challenges facing the industry as a whole is achieving consensus among the media community. “We’re too small a market to have so many players go off and do their own thing,” she said. “I think [we’ve] been competitors for so long that we don’t know how to get out of it.”
