Dentsu Creative has added another creative heavyweight to its leadership team, hiring Maxime Sauté as its ECD.
Sauté is the first ECD the agency has hired since it was created last year in a merger of Dentsu’s various creative brands, part of the network’s broader integration strategy. He joins a leadership team that already includes Jordan Doucette as CCO and Rafik Belmesk as chief strategy officer, and will report directly to the former. His role, he says, will be to “solidify the creative product of the agency in Canada.”
“Joining a big network like Dentsu, the sandbox I am playing in is less tight, because there is media and CXM in house and I have the opportunity to access more tools to do my best creative work. Dentsu, also, is not a new company. It has a deep heritage and passion for the craft,” Sauté says. “I love the craft, so that’s why this is the perfect network for me. It has a perfect mix of heritage and innovation.”
Sauté joins Dentsu Creative from Rethink, where he most recently held the title of partner and CD within its Montreal office. Sauté joined Rethink in 2016, two years after the office opened. He worked his way up from art director to creative director before being made a partner in the business in 2020. He has worked on clients including Fondation Emergence, Decathlon, Ikea, Molson Coors, A&W and McDonald’s Canada.
Sauté had worked at Sid Lee and Cossette prior to Rethink, but Dentsu is the first network of its scale to which he has belonged, he says.
“This is going to be new for me, and there will be adaptation and learning. But I like the change, because it is what drives me to evolve,” says Sauté. “While it can be scary to join a network like this from an independent agency, I think it will be a good thing.”
The move is the latest Dentsu has made since launching its new creative brand, and Doucette says Dentsu Creative specifically has “tremendous momentum.”
“It’s an exciting time to be at our agency. In Max, we have a bold, thoughtful and innovative leader that will push our clients and teams to have a real impact in the communities that we live and work,” she says.
