Zulu Alpha Kilo Announces Two Chief Strategy Officers

Today, Zulu Alpha Kilo announced two more leadership promotions with long time strategy leaders Heather Segal and Maxine Thomas both moving into chief strategy officer roles.

Heather has been the strategic architect behind some of Zulu’s most impactful work, including the Gold Effie winning Feed Imagination campaign for Goldfish crackers. The veteran strategist is also known for her ability to mentor and nurture talent within her team. The promotion to chief strategy officer marks her third promotion since joining the agency in 2016. “The past six years have been the best of my career. Our strategy and creative teams are truly one and it shows in the work,” she says. Heather was also instrumental in last year’s successful launch of Subaru’s Welcome To Uncommon brand platform that threads together the automaker’s advertising and customer experience. Most recently, her strategic leadership was also integral to Pizza Pizza’s highly lauded Fixed Rate Pizza campaign that has already sold more than 500,000 pizzas and garnered global media coverage in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

Maxine has a reputation for building long standing brand platforms going back to her time working at Taxi with Zulu founder and creative chairman, Zak Mroueh, where they built brands like Canadian Tire, WestJet and Viagra together. Prior to joining Zulu, Maxine was a partner and head of strategy at Rethink. In 2019, Maxine joined Zulu and was promoted to executive strategy director in 2021 alongside Heather and her leadership at Zulu is helping long time clients like Bell and Interac position themselves for the future. Most recently, she led strategy work on Bell’s purpose-driven platform, Bell For Better, that’s focused on industry leadership in environmental, social and governance standards. “We have such great momentum right now and I’m excited to partner with Heather in this new role,” says Maxine.

“Heather and Maxine are simply the best there is and I’m ecstatic to shine a spotlight on these two brilliant leaders,” says agency president and CEO, Mike Sutton. “Our clients entrust us with their brands and our job is to position them for the future and ultimately drive growth through game changing creative ideas. Our successful track record is a testament to the research, insights, experience, and strategic discipline that Heather, Maxine and their incredible team deliver time and time again.”

This latest announcement comes one week after the growing independent shop announced Stephanie Yung’s promotion to chief design officer and Brian Murray’s promotion to chief creative officer. The past twelve months have been a period of growth and accolades for the independent shop. Aside from their launch in Vancouver, Zulu’s first international office opened six months ago under the leadership of former Droga5 creative leader Tim Gordon. The agency also launched Zulumatic, a modern, digital first media offering. And to top off 2022, Zulu landed in the top 10 globally for independent agency rankings from Cannes Lions, The One Show, and D&AD.