Type1, WPP’s bespoke agency for automaker Volkswagen, is changing leadership with the retirement of industry veteran Michel Sergio and the promotion of Christine Maw to president.

Maw previously held the role of CSO for Taxi. In that role, she oversaw the strategy teams for Taxi, but also at Type1, since it was created by WPP to handle the Volkswagen business in 2018 (in Canada, Type1 largely pulled its talent from Taxi and the agency previously known as Wunderman).

Maw assumes her new role at a key moment in time for the automaker, as the industry shifts toward greater electrification and undergoes a major digital transformation. Volkswagen is aiming to be a leader in the push toward emission-free mobility, she tells strategy, and that means “changing the playbook on just about everything.”

As one of her first acts in her new role, Maw has hired Andrew Ahern as group strategy director. Ahern had served as strategy director for Anomaly for the past two years, prior to which he fulfilled the same role at Taxi. He will join the Type 1 team on Feb. 28 and step into a critical leadership role on the agency’s data-driven efforts.

Along with the new addition, Type1 has promoted Allen Kwong to group creative director and Alexis Caron-Côté and Alexandre Béland to creative directors, overseeing Type1’s creative team in Quebec.

Sergio, meanwhile, will officially retire on April 29 and departs his role as the first president of Type1.

In 2018, WPP merged Wunderman and J. Walter Thompson, with most of the staff of Wunderman Canada being reassigned to the newly created Type1 in order to handle the Volkswagen business (which it had just won) in North America. Sergio was appointed president of that agency and given the mandate of assembling talent from across the WPP network.

“He took on the task of creating a new agency model and new agency culture with enthusiasm,” says Maw. “Pulling together people from various agencies and making us feel like one, cohesive team was no easy task, but Michel did it.”

Prior to the formation of Type1, Sergio led a number of other WPP agencies, including Wunderman Canada, Blast Radius and Possible.