Cheil Canada has a new leader for its planning and strategy department, hiring Scott Suthren as its latest VP of planning.

Suthren joins from Innocean Worldwide Canada, where he had been director of strategic planning for roughly a year. Having started his career in information architecture and experience design, he’s also held senior planning and strategy roles at agencies including The&Partnership, Publicis, Capital C and Digital Cement.

“Scott’s experience fits with our goals, as we tend to look at planning as a discipline, not a channel,” Matt Cammaert, president of Cheil Canada, said in an email. “So while he has significant digital planning experience, we’re solving clients’ business and marketing challenges through creativity and innovation. Those solutions can take a number of different shapes, digital or otherwise.”

Suthren takes on a role previously held by Meghan Sherwin, who left the agency in the spring to take the VP of strategic planning position at McCann Canada.

Cheil was established in the 1970s as an in-house ad agency for Samsung. Though the tech giant retains a stake in the agency, Cheil has become more independent over the years. While Samsung remains the agency’s largest client, both globally and in Canada, it has also worked with clients including Pizza Nova, BMO and Yokohama Tires in recent years, as well as on campaigns for non-profits like Human Rights Watch and the Canadian Breast Cancer Support Fund.

“Since [I joined] Cheil almost five years ago, planning has always been a critical aspect of our offering,” Cammaert says. “The only thing that has changed over those years is the size of the department, and the continued investment we’ll put behind it, in order to deliver against our clients’ needs.”