Non-alc brand Partake shakes up its leadership team

Low-cal non-alcoholic beer brand Partake Brewing is promoting its current chief commercial officer, Evan Cohen, to president and CCO, overseeing marketing, sales, innovation, brand partnerships, and finance.

Ted Fleming will continue as founder and chief operating officer. Director of marketing, Sara Ross is being promoted to VP of marketing and reporting to Cohen.

This summer, Partake announced a packaging overhaul to focus its look on vibrancy and calorie counts.

6 Seeds names a new COO, managing director and acquires Audacious Marketing

Andreas Düss (pictured right) is now COO, managing director North America for tech-enabled marketing consultancy, 6 Seeds, which also acquired and bought a controlling stake in the food and agri-tech business company, Audacious Marketing, that Düss founded in 2022.

The acquisition deal, for an as-yet-undisclosed amount, was brokered by 6 Seeds CEO Kate Burns and backed by company chair, Dominic Perks.

Audacious is a Toronto consultancy which helps food and drink startups scale, while 6 Seeds operates out of the U.K. and Toronto and specializes in growing sustainable food brands.

CPG veteran, Düss, along with Jo-Ann McArthur, previously co-founded full-service food specialist agency, Nourish Food Marketing. Düss announced he was selling his shares in that company last year.

Düss is also CEO and co-founder of non-alcoholic tonic beverage brand, Auralis Botanical Brewing Company.

Blackjet announces new hires

Brand strategy and growth consultancy Blackjet is announcing a spate of new hires as it responds to continued business growth.

On the leadership team, Blackjet has added Olena Sukhina, who joins as director of finance and administration. Sukhina comes to the team from Cleansheet and previously held senior roles at Cundari. As department head, she will oversee a team responsible for finance, administration and HR.

On the production side, Blackjet has hired April Wozny, formerly at Diamond Marketing Group, who joins as senior agency producer. Caryl Tan has also been recruited from Minnesota-based board game micro publisher, Leder Games and is now the technical project coordinator for Blackjet’s digital content studio.

Adding depth to Blackjet’s client service team, Kaitlin Butrum and Hira Iqbal both join as account manager and senior account manager, respectively. Iqbal was previously at John St and Butrum joins from LG2 Toronto. In addition, Jennifer Italiano and Kira Savchenko join as account coordinators.

Since 2022 Blackjet has added a range of clients to its roster including Onlia Insurance and Gay Lea Foods. Earlier this year Blackjet also acquired Spider Marketing, which provides shopper marketing services to clients like Kruger and Andrew Peller.

Neo Financial names a PR AOR

Fintech brand Neo Financial has named national communications agency Talk Shop as its PR agency of record.

Talk Shop will be responsible for driving Neo Financial’s brand visibility and market positioning.

Launched in 2019 by SkiptheDishes co-founders Andrew Chau and Jeff Adamson, along with Kris Read, Neo Financial has been expanding – moving into investment services and beyond traditional banking ones like everyday money accounts.