Toronto independent agency The Mark has hired Steve Carli as president, adding agency leadership experience to help steer its plans for further growth.

Carli joins CCO Hayes Steinberg – with whom he worked at Roche Macaulay & Partners earlier in their careers – and Elsa Morena, the agency’s director of production and operations, on The Mark’s leadership team. The reunion with Steinberg comes “at an opportune time,” Carli says, as his vision aligns with Steinberg’s, as well as the agency’s as a whole.

“The close relationship between strategic and creative has always been at the heart of our relationship,” he explains. “I’ve had the great pleasure of working with tremendous creative partners and clients who are willing to trust. The impact I’ve seen from that combination is what we’re focused on at The Mark.”

Carli had been working in the same capacity with Mackie Biernacki since 2019; that agency named Matt Cammaert as his successor last month. Prior to Mackie Biernacki, Carli served for nine years as president of Omnicom-owned Red Urban. He has also worked in the U.S. market, where he launched his own agency, Hadrian’s Wall, in Chicago. That agency was acquired by MDC.

With The Mark, he will bring his expertise to bear with the agency’s existing client roster, while also helping the agency pick up work with new clients and recruiting new, young talents to help the agency deliver. Some of The Mark’s clients have included Scotiabank, Shoppers Drug Mart, Kruger, Staples and Arterra Wines.

“The opportunity to set a vision for the agency that reflects what clients are looking for while also creating a place that will be a destination for a new breed of young creative talent is so rare and exciting,” says Carli. “The Mark has solved communications challenges for clients with a feature-length documentary, multi-channel ad campaigns and a reality series, to name a few, so we’re quite comfortable pushing into new territory to make an impact on our clients’ business.”