AOL Canada has added new personnel to both its content and sales teams in advance of The Huffington Post Canada’s upcoming expansion into Alberta and British Columbia.
AOL (which owns Huffington Post) is boosting its sales force with the addition of account executive Sydney Robertson and account manager Jeffrey Wood, both of whom will work out of the company’s Toronto office. Robertson’s sales career includes stints at Yahoo, Glam Media and Rogers Media, while Wood arrives from Olive Media.
After two years as an account executive at AOL’s Toronto office, Tanya Iliakis is also joining the organization’s west coast sales team as Western Canada account executive.
The company is adding to its editorial roster with the hires of Andree Lau as the news editor of HuffPost B.C. and Michelle Butterfield as associate news editor, HuffPost Alberta.
Lau is joining AOL after stints with the CBC in Vancouver, Calgary and New Brunswick, while Butterfield was formerly a digital editor at the Calgary Herald, where she spearheaded the Postmedia-owned publication’s social media strategy.
The upcoming launch of the HuffPost B.C. and Alberta sites are the second regional expansion for Huffington Post Canada brand this year, following the launch of Le Huffington Post Québec in February.
AOL said that the number of unique visitors to the French-language site has jumped more than 199% since its launch, while it has a following of more than 26,000 people across its social networks.
The company has also appointed Patrick Bellerose as news editor for Le Huffington Post Québec, reporting to managing editor Patrick White. Bellerose has contributed to a variety of print and online titles including Marketing, L’Actualité and BranchezVous.com.
“AOL Canada continues to deliver strong results and the growth of our team reflects those results,” said general manager Graham Moysey in a release. “Our people are our biggest asset and I am thrilled to welcome these new hires to our team.”
