Zulu Alpha Kilo has promoted two new senior leaders from within, naming Stephanie Yung its chief design officer and Brian Murray its chief creative officer.

Yung, who rejoined Zulu in 2020 as head of design after spending more than a decade working stateside for Smart Design, has led the charge on her team’s growth and the expansion of the agency’s design service offering. She also played a key role in the development of Zulu’s “Micropedia of Microaggressions”, created on behalf of a coalition of DEI-focused groups, which has received considerable awards recognition from Cannes, the One Show and D&AD, among others. Prior to her time at Smart Design, she had played a key role at Zulu, helping it win Bell, one of its first major clients.

Murray, meanwhile, joined Zulu as its ECD a few months after Yung’s return. With Zulu, he has made major contributions to existing business and helped secure new clients for the agency, including Pizza Pizza, for which he led the “Fixed-Rate Pizza” campaign – an effort that has sold more than 500,000 pizzas. Murray had previously held the CCO post at Ogilvy Canada, where he developed the award-winning “Courage is Beautiful” campaign.

“Steph and Brian have earned their stripes at Zulu,” says Zak Mroueh, the agency’s current CCO, to whom Yung and Murray will report. He will be moving into the role of creative chairman, reflecting a shift in his focus to elevate creative across all three of Zulu’s offices and “to mentor and support all our creative leaders and inspire creative bravery across the entire Zulu family.”

Alongside the promotions, Zulu is announcing the departure of ECD Wain Choi, who had worked alongside Murray and joined the agency just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Choi was offered a promotion alongside Murray, but has instead decided to exit the agency business altogether when he resigns from Zulu at the end of March, with plans to spend more time with his family and work on a client based in Korea that he will service out of Canada. With Zulu, Choi had worked on clients including Subaru, Bell, Interac and Harry Rosen.

“Wain has been an incredible creative partner over the past three years,” Mroueh says. “His track record for doing smart, innovative work with craft excellence has been impressive and we’re going to miss him.”

The agency will be actively recruiting a new creative leader to step into Choi’s role and work with Murray and Yung.