Image courtesy of Rethink

Rethink has promoted Mike Dubrick to the newly created role of CCO for North America, expanding his leadership status across the agency’s Toronto, New York, Vancouver and Montreal offices.

The agency says the move is the first phase of a planned succession strategy for its senior creative team as it continues to evolve its multidisciplinary offering across advertising, design and PR.

Dubrick, whose title had been CCO of Rethink Toronto since October 2022, will oversee the advertising business across the continent. He will be collaborating with New York partner and CCO Tara Lawall, Vancouver partners and ECDs Leia Rogers and Don Shelford and Montreal partner and ECD Xavier Blais.

Rethink global CCO Aaron Starkman tells strategy that Dubrick’s focus will be on “helping ensure the best ideas can come from anywhere and scale everywhere.”

“As we’ve grown, it became clear that the scale of the role had outgrown one person,” Starkman says.  “Mike has already been leading many of these responsibilities, and formalizing that lets both of us focus where we create the most value.”

Dubrick has also worked as a creative director and executive creative director since joining Rethink as an associative creative director in 2012. He’s led work for clients including Kraft Heinz, IKEA, Molson Coors, and Scotiabank.

While Starkman remains in his current role focusing on advancing Rethink’s broader creative ambition and strengthening the agency’s brand and capabilities, he says Dubrick taking on North America gives the agency more leadership capacity, “while keeping our creative standards as high as ever.”

The move comes less than a month after Rethink was named Independent Agency of the Year and Independent Network of the Year at Cannes where it collected 14 Cannes Lions, including the Print & Publishing Grand Prix for its work on Heinz’s “Look Familiar” campaign.