Clockwise from left: Susie Lee, group creative director; Tom Evans, managing director of Zulubot; Maxine Thomas, executive strategy director; Sean Bell, head of digital; Heather Segal, executive strategy director; Jacob Gawrysiak, creative director; George Ault, creative director; and Jeff Watkins, design director.

Zulu Alpha Kilo is promoting eight of its employees to more senior positions as part of a plan the Toronto-based agency has enacted to “reengineer” itself for the decade ahead.

The first of the moves will see Susie Lee, whose recent work as creative director includes the Goldfish #FeedImagination campaign and Subaru Greatest Outback of All Time campaign, promoted to group creative director. In her new role, she will play a larger role in leadership across clients.

George Ault, Zulu’s longest-serving employee at 12 years with the company, has been promoted to creative director, along with partner Jacob Gawrysiak. The two also worked on the #FeedImagination campaign, as well as producing the Out of Work Mannequins to plead for fairness in retail lockdown measures on behalf of the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) in December.

With the expansion of its design department following the return of Stephanie Yung to the agency as head of design in December, Zulu has added Jeff Watkins in a permanent role as design director. Watkins had been freelancing for the agency throughout the pandemic, including on the 24-hour ADCC All-Nighter to help save the Advertising & Design Club of Canada last summer.

Zulu has also appointed Heather Segal and Maxine Thomas as its new executive strategy directors, responsible for leading the discipline with a focus on brand and customer experience strategy.

Segal has been with the agency since 2016 and led strategy on the Consonant rebrand and the #FeedImagination platform. Thomas, meanwhile, had worked as a consultant with the agency before joining it full-time in 2019 and leading strategy on Tim Hortons, as well as the agency’s COVID #StayHome campaign.

Sean Bell will take on the responsibility of growing digital strategy and driving innovation at Zulu as its new head of digital. He joined the agency in 2016 .

Finally, Tom Evans has been promoted to managing director of content studio Zulubot. In the new role, Evans is responsible for overseeing the agency’s 20 full-time employees and its “creator network,” who produce content including TV shows, online episodic series, branded content, digital and interactive experiences, social, studio art and design.

Zak Mroueh, the agency’s founder and CCO, says boosting the agency’s leadership come following “Reengineering for 2030,” an internal planning initiative the agency recently undertook to figure out what the agency would look like in ten years, how client needs would change over that time and what the agency needed to do in order to get there. These promotions put “the right people in the right roles” to help Zulu realize those plans.

“The promotions are about building for the future and putting people into positions where they can have maximum impact,” he adds. The agency also made a series of hires and promotions last month, though it said at the time that those were in response to a yet-to-be-named client win.