Simon Sikorski has replaced David Leonard as CEO of McCann Worldgroup Canada, part of a significant management shakeup that also sees the departure of chief creative officer Darren Clarke and chief strategy officer Mary Chambers.
Aside from the senior personnel moves, McCann said the changes will see a structural reorientation across the agencies comprising McCann Worldgroup: McCann, MRM//McCann, Craft, Momentum and McCann Health agencies in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. “Each agency will be responsible to both the North America regional agency leader and to Sikorski as the country leader,” is how it was described in a press release.
With the departure of the three senior executives, their responsibilities will be divided among other executives across the agencies and offices. “We will be working with each of our agencies and regional offices to ensure we have the best structure, people and resources in place to ensure we provide best-in-class service to our clients,” Sikorski told The Message. “Our goal is to have dedicated creative and strategy leadership for each agency and office based on their individual needs and requirements.”
In a press release announcing the moves, Chris Macdonald, global president advertising and allied agencies, said the new structure will provide clients with better access to top talent within each agency. “This move aligns resources across each agency more effectively with each of their global structures for our clients,” he said.
Going forward, agency heads will report to both Sikorski and North American regional leaders, said Sikorski. “Under this structure, our resources in each agency are able to more effectively work with their country and global leadership,” he explained. “Aligning our agencies this way gives our clients access to the best talent, and a clear path for them to partner with each of our agencies in ways that support and grow their businesses.”
In other words, some of the work that would have fallen to Momentum Canada could be done from other Momentum offices. Sikorski said that has always been the case, but they want to “further embed” Canadian operations into the worldwide network.
Sikorski began his career in Canada before moving overseas. Most recently he was chief client officer at McCann’s Craft production network in New York, and before that he was managing partner for McCann London, working on brands such as Intel and ExxonMobil.
Leonard was hired as CEO of what was then MacLaren McCann in April 2015. Prior to that, he held a number of senior agency positions, including overseeing all of DDB Canada from 2010 on.
—David Brown
