Kathleen Adams is the new EVP and GM of BICOM Toronto.

The marketing communications firm specializes in the consumer brand arena and influencer marketing, and says that Adams will oversee development and operations in its key English Canada market.

Vicky Boudreau, BICOM’s CEO, says 80% of its campaign work is national, making “the growth of our Toronto team strategic and key to our success.” She adds that she will be working with partner and president Marie-Noelle Hamelin on a U.S. expansion in the near future, so Adams was a key hire to ensure its Canadian operations and growth were supported.

Adams will assume duties previously held by Toronto managing partner Daniella Macri, who in 2020 moved on to found The Virtue Project. Adams, a bilingual creative marketing communications and PR leader, brings 15 years of Quebec- and Canada-wide experience in sustainability, corporate social responsibility, fashion and retail and CPG to the role.

Prior to being named VP and GM of BICOM Toronto, she held freelance roles focused on social impact and sustainability, and assisted Rethink Breast Cancer’s patient support, education and advocacy programs.

Adams also had a senior role supporting Uniqlo Canada’s sustainability and purpose marketing and was instrumental in launching Uniqlo in the Canadian market in 2016 and the flagship Montreal store in 2019. While there, Adams had worked with BICOM on the client side, “so we knew her skillset and experience fit our requirements perfectly,” Boudreau says.

Boudreau tells strategy BICOM recently won perfumery Diptyque Paris’ business, an addition to clients such as Volkswagen, Vichy, Vans and The North Face. The agency’s roster also includes apparel retailer RW&Co, which BICOM recently assisted on a Black History Month outreach, and French distiller St-Rémy, which tapped BICOM to generate engagement for its Sangria Saturday initiative.

The hiring of Adams follows two personnel moves from last summer, when BICOM named Polina Lichagina and Laetitia Jallais executive directors out of the agency’s Montreal official to focus on beauty, fashion and lifestyle initiatives.