(Left to right: Rafik Belmesk, Marilou Aubin, and Maxime Sauté)
Courage is expanding into Quebec with a full-service Montreal office.
The new office, based in the city’s Mile-Ex neighbourhood, will be spearheaded by partner and executive creative director Marilou Aubin, partner and head of strategy Rafik Belmesk and partner and executive creative director Maxime Sauté.
The agency, which just celebrated its third anniversary, boasts a client roster that includes CIBC, KFC, Sephora, Skip and the recently added Rona, based out of Quebec.
The Montreal office is a natural extension of the independent agency’s existing Canadian offering. Courage has already worked within the Quebec market for several “foundational clients,” according to a Monday morning news release.
“Montreal has always been a priority for our clients and for us,” Courage founder and co-CCO Dhaval Bhatt said in a statement.
Aubin, previously an executive creative director and partner at LG2, is an internationally recognized creative leader with more than 20 years of experience in the industry. She led a group of major accounts for LG2 including National Bank, Bell, Tourism Montréal and Hydro-Québec.
In 2021, she served on the juries for the Cannes Lions and the ADC.
Belmesk has held strategic roles in brand, customer engagement, digital and social change across APAC and North America, most recently as EVP of Americas and chief strategy officer at Dentsu. His experiences include work in Canada and globally with brands such as Fido, VW, Audi, Rogers, Chatr, Canada Life, Sanofi, Danone, WWF Canada and Bel Group.
His output has been recognized at the Cannes Lions, Effies, D&AD and One Show.
Sauté spent nearly a decade at indie creative agency Rethink and most recently held an executive creative director role at Dentsu. His work has consistently positioned him among Canada’s top creatives and led to accolades from Cannes, D&AD, The One Show, Clio, the Webby Awards, ADCC, the Marketing Awards and the Effies.
He has produced work for clients including Decathlon, Ikea, Molson Coors, A&W, McDonald’s Canada and Fondation Emergence.
