Rima Karapetyan has joined The Garden to add to its strategic capacity, joining the agency as strategy director.

Shari Walczak, the shop’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, says Karapetyan will serve as the strategic lead across multiple pieces of business, joining herself and fellow strategy director Jennifer Munoz, who joined The Garden in 2020.

Walczak tells strategy the hire is, in part, a response to a number of new client additions to The Garden’s roster, including Rakuten Kobo, Dymon Storage, Branksome Hall, Radford Beauty and Pine, as well as growth with existing clients Fitzrovia, Jack Astor’s, Sodastream and Roots.

Karapetyan was most recently a senior marketing strategist at Winnipeg’s Brandish, but has also spent several years as a freelance strategist and marketing consultant, working with brands including TD, General Mills, Danone, IKEA and Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

“She brings to us skills in integrated marketing strategy, customer journey planning, as well as brand strategy,” Walczak says. “We are a strategy-first agency. We believe that great and effective creative can only come from a well informed starting point, and we take the time upfront to ensure we truly understand the problem we are trying to solve”

The move comes on the heels of the agency adding industry veteran Andy Macaulay as its chief growth officer in March.