Jeffrey Almeida, left, and Sharifa Khan
Balmoral Multicultural Marketing has promoted Jeffrey Almeida from senior VP and GM to managing director.
Almeida, who has 15 years of agency leadership experience in India and the United Arab Emirates, joined Balmoral in 2018. Prior to joining Balmoral, he was group account director with Dyversity Communications, responsible for multicultural communication on Unilever, OLG-Lottery brands, Pepsi and WelcomePack Canada.
“In his new role, [Almeida will] be even more focused on anchoring our vision and elevating Balmoral’s strategic approach to growing our clients’ brands and businesses within key ethnic communities,” says Balmoral CEO and founder Sharifa Khan.
As part of the reorganization, five other team members have been promoted and assume new responsibilities. The promotions are linked to new business the shop did not disclose, but which it says is being mostly driven by organic growth and current clients doing more work in the multicultural sector.
Johnson Chang moves from VP, operations and channels to SVP, operations and community engagement. Johnson, who’s been with Balmoral since 2010, has over 20 years of experience in multicultural marketing and is a member of the strategic planning team.
Donovan D’souza has been named vice president and executive creative director. D’souza, a creative talent from India, has served Balmoral for nearly four years as senior creative director. Nicholas Chan, a long-time creative director at Balmoral, steps into the senior creative director role and will be reporting to D’souza.
Puneet Ahuja, a consumer marketing specialist with 15-plus years of experience in media planning and digital media strategy, is moving from the director of media services role to associate vice president of media.
The agency has also boosted its ranks with two new senior hires.
Rohan Chowdry has been hired as strategic planner. Chowdry, a seasoned advertising and brand communications professional, has served in India and Dubai with McCann, JWT Group and Saatchi & Saatchi.
Ajey Trivedi joined the agency as creative director, and recently served as associate creative director at Dyversity Communications for over five years. Trivedi brings over 20 years of Canadian multicultural marketing experience to the creative department.
Additional promotions in account services involve Jocelyn Lam, who steps up from senior account manager to account director on the OLG business; and Royston Dsouza, who moves from senior account manager to account director to manage the FreshCo, Chalo FreshCo, Sobeys and Safeway accounts. Arzoo Pathan has been promoted from media manager to senior media manager.
“Balmoral’s multicultural team is deeply rooted in a variety of ethnic communities,” says Khan. “This rich mosaic of backgrounds ensures the agency delivers resonant, culturally-attuned creative and content that lands authentically in ethnic markets.”
The agency currently works with brands including OLG, Canada Life, Brita, Clorox and Tata.
