The LCBO has hired Vanda Provato as VP of marketing and customer intelligence.

In addition to overseeing the marketing team at the crown corp, Provato has been tasked with bringing more data and customer insights to the LCBO and its marketing efforts.

Provato is taking over duties previously handled by Kerri Dawson, who left the LCBO earlier this year to take on the role ofhead of digital, retail banking and wealth management at HSBC.

Provato is coming off five years leading marketing for Second Cup, where her efforts included testing different ways to update its cafes in order to put a greater emphasis on experience and craftsmanship – and attempts to turn around consecutive quarters of same-store sales declines. Prior to Second Cup, she spent seven years at Indigo, including as VP of marketing.

In her new role, Provato will report to chief customer officer Alix Box, who joined the LCBO herself this past summer. The hiring is also something of a reunion: Box joined Second Cup as president and CEO a few months before Provato, before departing the company in 2017.

The new marketing leadership comes as the LCBO is not only preparing for the holiday season – typically its busiest period of the year – but as it also looks to extend its reach across the province through online and in-person environments.

Earlier this year, it partnered with Foodora to pilot delivery of beer, wine and spirits in Ottawa and Toronto, while this past month it closed an RFP for the last round of new convenience outlets set to be authorized to sell alcohol in Ontario. The outlets, set to be authorized by the spring, join 60 added to the list in August and 90 expected to be added by the end of 2019 – bringing the total number of new authorized outlets to 200.

In February, the LCBO also enlisted Lg2 as its new agency of record.