Darren Clarke Named Chief Creative Officer of McLaren McCann Canada

David Leonard, CEO, MacLaren McCann Canada today announced the appointment of Darren Clarke as Chief Creative Officer. Darren Clarke joins from Taxi Canada where he was Executive Creative Director.  Clarke will be responsible for driving the creative vision and output across Canada. Clarke will work closely with Rob Reilly, Global Creative Chairman, McCann Worldgroup.

“Darren has a history of great work at the best agencies in Canada,” said Reilly. “He will bring those skills and energy to set a new creative bar at MacLaren McCann and I like that.”

Leonard added, “Darren’s proven leadership well beyond his superb creative credentials made him the top candidate for this very pivotal role.”

Clarke was most recently Executive Creative Director for Taxi and in less than four years, he has guided the Toronto office to multiple Gold Lions from Cannes, the One Show, D&AD, the CLIOs, the ANDYs, and the Effies. Locally, his work has won multiple Gold and Best of Show recognition at all the major Canadian award shows.  

He began his career at Vickers & Benson in 1997 and has worked at some of Canada’s top agencies including TBWA\Chiat\Day, DDB and Cossette before joining Taxi in 2008. His international creative reputation has put him on the jury of major award shows, including Cannes and the One Show. And he has been consistently recognized as one of Canada's top creative directors and copywriters for the last 10 years by Strategy magazine.

Clarke said, “McCann has gained a lot of attention with its creative product around the world… now it’s time for Canada to add to that. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”