MARKETERS

Christi Strauss, who has been president of General Mills Canada for the past 10 years, is moving to Lausanne, Switzerland to become CEO of Cereal Partners Worldwide – a joint venture between General Mills and Nestlé.

Tom Gauld has been lured out of a brief retirement to take over the vacated CEO post at Canadian Tire. Gauld first joined Canadian Tire Financial Services in 1993 as VP marketing and was head of the division before retiring just a couple of months ago. He replaces Wayne Sales. Meanwhile, sales for the brand continue to be strong. Last month, the retailer announced a 34.9% first quarter net earnings increase over 2005. Plans are to build or renovate 80 of its stores across the country by year’s end. Comparable same store sales were up 2.7%.

There has been some internal shuffling following BC Lions’ Lindsay Carswell’s departure from the director marketing and corporate programs post. Terri Breker, who has been with the sports team since 1999, will absorb the advertising responsibilities as marketing services manager. Breker says they are currently looking to fill a marketing assistant position and adds that new creative by agency Rethink, targeting the ‘fence-sitter’ fan, has launched.

Hilary Lloyd, formerly an account supervisor at Cossette, has joined Ikea as advertising manager. She fills the role vacated by Cass Hall, who was promoted to marketing manager earlier this year following the departure of Nandini Venkatesh. Lloyd, whose client list included Bell and BMO, spent three years at Cossette. Previous to that she was at MacLaren McCann and worked on the Microsoft account.

Kellogg Canada marketer Jennifer Hurlbut has joined Alliance Atlantis as VP marketing and publicity for its dramatic networks, which includes Showcase. Hurlbut spent nine years at Kellogg and was most recently marketing director kids and family at the company. She was behind the Special K ‘Keep it Simple campaign’ and the All-Bran work featuring actor William Shatner.

AGENCIES

Martin Beauvais has left Montreal’s BBDO to become CD at Zig. His start date is early June. Zig partner Andy Macaulay says the decision to hire another CD was influenced in part by partners Lorraine Tao and Elspeth Lynn’s desire to be more hands-on with creative. ‘Their first love is conceiving the ideas,’ he says. It’s a busy time for the agency, which has also hired copywriter Geoff Morgan and art director Niall Kelly from Cossette. Also recently hired is Grace Castaneda, who has worked on both the Intel and Rogers Wireless accounts while at MacLaren McCann, to handle the recent Virgin Mobile win. With the title team coach, she will oversee the entire creative and account teams. Macaulay also hinted at three recent client wins and two more new hires at the Toronto-based agency.

After nine years, Brenda McNeilly, VP/CD at Grey Direct and Interactive has left the agency to join Toronto-based Fuse Marketing. She will team up with John Rocca, VP/CD. McNeilly’s client list will include Tetley, Kellogg and McCain.

‘We recently picked up Cadbury Schweppes,’ says David Gibb, EVP/MD at JWT to explain the hire of Sandy Watt and three others to its creative department. Brands Motts, Snapple and Dr. Pepper join the Toronto agency’s portfolio. Watt, who was at Enterprise Advertising, joins as group account director for Kraft. She fills the post vacated by Mark Hansen who has moved to the agency’s Chicago office to head the Nestlé account. JWT has also added art director Rita D’Ettore-Berton from Enterprise and copywriters Tom Osborne and Sean Gallagher.