In an effort to continue expanding its client roster outside of Western Canada, Calgary-based Karo Group has tapped a new creative director with a strong international background, says Chris Bedford, president and CEO, Karo Group.

Kilpatrick Anderson joined the company on Tuesday, following a diverse career, including stints at Wieden+Kennedy Portland, Goodby, Silverstein and Partners in San Fransisco and Ogilvy & Mather in Singapore among others, and has worked with an array of brands, including Nike, Fox and Coca-Cola.

“If you look at [Anderson’s] background, he has traditional agency experience at some of the top agencies on the planet,” says Bedford. “He’s also been to film school in London and spent a whole bunch of time immersing himself in integrative strategy at Hyper Island in Sweden.”

Anderson will take on the inaugural role of VP CD, overseeing creative direction for both locations and will oversee all creative teams and product interaction. Bedford says they decided to create this role a little over a year ago and have been actively hunting for the right fit ever since.

“Our business model is around integrative creative thinking. We bring together creative practitioners from the areas of brand advertising, design, interactive and physical environment design,” he says. “When you try and bring that all together, you need someone with a pretty broad base of experience to do that.”