From left: Matt Hassell, national chief creative officer at KBS Canada; Lance Koenig, chief strategy officer; and Lorri MacDonald, managing director.

KBS Canada has added new strategy leadership to its c-suite, hiring Lance Koenig as chief strategy officer.

Koenig joins from DDB Chicago, where he was SVP and strategy director, leading work on the agency’s Capital One, Symantec and LifeLock accounts. Prior to joining DDB, Koenig led global strategy for McDonald’s at Leo Burnett Chicago, with projects including the launch of All Day Breakfast and the repositioning of the QSR’s family business. He has also held senior strategy roles at Mullen, Hill Holliday and Bailey Lauerman.

Susan Meisels, previously VP of strategy at KBS, recently left the agency. Her role was focused solely on the strategy practice in the Toronto office, while Koenig’s CSO role has a national remit. In addition, Adam Brian and Lisa Pratt, both directors of strategy, left KBS in the fall of 2017.

Matt Hassell, national CCO at KBS Canada, says bringing on someone in a national leadership position will help bring strategic talent to all of the agency’s clients, as well as shape and dictate the future of KBS and the role strategy has in its work.

“[Koenig] represents a nice history of classic strategy training, but with an eye towards what’s next,” Hassell says. “We have to keeping thinking of ways to be a more modern agency, and he’ll be a big part of understanding that. He has what is an unfortunately rare skill of taking discipline in brand planning and applying it to what’s coming. This is someone we’ve been looking for a long time.”

At the end of 2017, the agency’s CEO Nick Dean stepped down from his position to become CEO of licensed cannabis producer Emblem. In the creative department, KBS added Glen D’Souza and Mike Takasaki to its team of ECDs in November.