Brett McIntosh has been promoted to president of Publicis Toronto, reporting to Publicis Canada CEO Duncan Bruce.
McIntosh has been with Publicis for 20 years, most recently serving as chief marketing officer for the agency. Before that he served as vice-president managing partner in both Toronto and Vancouver, and led top Publicis accounts like Rogers and FCA Chrysler.
Publicis Toronto clients also include Canada Post, Coca-Cola, Red Lobster North America, Sephora USA and RBC.
The change atop the Toronto office comes after previous president Bryan Kane moved to FCB earlier this summer.
“In his most recent role as CMO, Brett has worked incredibly collaboratively with every discipline, team and senior leader in the agency,” said Duncan Bruce, in a release. “He is an entrepreneur—a key driver of our growth story over recent years. He has helped shape both the vision of the agency, and the services and talent required to make it happen. And he’s successfully achieved this both in Canada and the USA.”
“I’m honoured to be given this opportunity and responsibility. Duncan, Andrew [Bruce] and Yves [Gougoux] have long been mentors of mine and this provides a chance to work even more closely with them,” said McIntosh. After six years leading Publicis Communications out of New York, Andrew Bruce has recently returned to Toronto to take on leadership of all Publicis Groups offices in Canada, while continuing to oversee Publicis Communications in the Western U.S.
McIntosh also steps into the new role as Publicis begins to integrate the acquisition of Epsilon, part of a larger transition to be more “data led and digital first.”
“With the addition and close collaboration of Epsilon with our existing data, media and CRM services, our ability to deliver one-to-one communications at scale across platforms and devices has now been supercharged,” he said.
The rest of the Publicis national leadership includes: Rachelle Claveau, President of Publicis Montreal; Christian Ayotte, President of Nurun; and Alister Adams, VP Digital.
