Toronto’s Cundari has added five new creative team members, while the hunt for a new chief creative officer is still on.

Jonathan Smith has been hired as group creative director, overseeing several client accounts. Smith was previously a creative director for two years at Y&R Canada, which was folded into Taxi in July. Prior to that, he was an ACD at TBWA\Toronto and has held roles at Sid Lee, along with working as a freelancer.

Jake Bundock has also joined Cundari as an art director, partnering with another new copywriter hire, Ryan Kukec. Bundock was most recently an art director with DDB Canada, while Kukec comes from Grip Limited.

Cundari has also added Francis Portugal as a digital designer and former Juniper Park staffer Matthew Morris as an art director.

Meanwhile, the search for a new CCO continues, says Jenn Steinmann, EVP and managing director at Cundari. That role was left vacant last month when Andrew Simon joined Edelman as ECD.

Since news of Simon’s departure, Cundari has seen a lot of interest from some “big names” in the industry, Steinmann says. “It’s a coveted role to come into an independent agency that’s growing at the pace that we’ve been growing and doing the work that we’ve been doing.”

Apart from Simon, group CD Brian Murray left Cundari this year to lead DS+P’s creative department as CD, while group CD Cory Eisentraut took the VP, creative director position at Havas. “we’re really proud that they’ve gone on to more senior roles in other organizations,” Steinmann says.

Bolstering its creative team now has also been a response to three new business wins from the summer – two of which are “quite significant” – which will be announced in the next few weeks, she says.

Earlier this month, the shop also brought on Angie Kramer as VP of digital and innovation, a new role at Cundari.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock