Huge has made an investment in its creative team in Toronto, hiring Allen Oke as executive creative director.

In his new role, Oke will work on opportunities across Huge’s network – both in Toronto and in the agency’s 15 other offices across the globe – as well as help the agency build its brand design practice.

Paul Burns, managing director of Huge Canada, pointed to Oke’s history of brand building and storytelling as being a strong complement to the agency’s existing skill set.

“Historically, Huge has had powerful product and digital design disciplines, but now with Allen we’re building a strong brand design practice adjacent to that, where we will wrap storytelling around the current disciplines to provide a more impactful end-to-end offering to our clients,” he said in a press release.

Oke was most recently ECD at Zulu Alpha Kilo, which he joined in 2015. Since then he has been credited on some of the agency’s most attention-grabbing campaigns for clients including Harley-Davidson, Cineplex and Interac. Prior to that, he spent 11 years at TBWA, where his output included branded documentaries for Gatorade and early entries in Nissan’s “Conquer All Conditions” campaign.

“Allen is a friend and it’s been great working closely with him,” Zulu’s CCO and CEO Zak Mroueh told strategy in an email. “I have no doubt he’ll do great things at Huge.”

Oke joins a leadership team at Huge that now also includes general manager Emily Bond and group director of creative Vassilios “Vass” Alexiou. At the time of those hires, Burns told strategy that Huge’s role with clients has been expanding to include more large-scale, end-to-end projects. That has required Huge to hire talent that brings new and proven experience to its bench, with Burns referring to the recent leadership hires as “fundamental linchpins” in ensuring the agency could continue to scale its business.