Pictured: Ivan Druzic and Dave Watson (top); Brad Van Schaik, Jess Willis and Athena Kouverianos.

Mosaic has made some promotions and added to its creative and design teams in Toronto as it continues to diversify work for clients.

Dave Watson has joined the shop as ECD, design, a newly-created role. Watson joins following more than a decade at Taxi, most recently as creative director of design for North America. He had previously worked at Taxi for about four years in the early-2000s before re-joining the agency in 2006 after a two-year stint at GJP Advertising + Design. At Taxi, Brooke Hennessey was recently promoted to CD, design.

Watson’s history with successful above-the-line work made him a good fit for Mosaic as it aims to broaden its perspective, says Mark Jay, VP of strategic design at Mosaic. “We were looking for somebody who did not necessarily walk the exact same path that we’ve walked to come to this agency.”

From a design perspective, the agency has positioned its Toronto offices as a “centre of excellence” serving Mosaic’s North American business, he adds.

Apart from Watson, Brad Van Schaik has also been hired as a CD. He joins Mosaic from The Hive, where he was most recently CD, working on campaigns including Coca-Cola Canada, Mondelez, Weston, Labatt and OLG.

The shop has also brought on Athena Kouverianos as an agency producer on the creative team. Kouverianos has worked in the production industry for more than a decade, beginning as a visual effects producer working on feature films, including the X-Men series and the Twilight Saga. On the advertising side, she’s worked as a freelancer and as a producer with Taxi, working on brands including Canadian Tire, Telus and Kraft.

“We’ve been producing content from real world experiences for a long time now but the sheer amount that we’re getting asked to do saw us see a need for an in-house agency producer,” says Matt McCoubrey, VP, creative at Mosaic.

Outside of those new hires, Mosaic has also made two key promotions in its creative department, making Jess Willis and Ivan Druzic group CDs.

Mosaic has been working on diversifying its team and skill-sets as it grows, in part because of organic growth through current clients, such as Labatt and Samsung, who are needing more content production in addition to experiential work, McCoubrey says.

He describes Mosaic’s “medium agnostic” approach to taking on clients’ business problems as a key draw for both brands and new talent.

Just seven years ago, Mosaic’s creative team in Toronto was only three people and it’s now up to 16. On the design side, the team has grown over that time as well, from about a dozen staff to 29 now. Adding in production, that includes 42 people.