As the Maxus Canada team gets ready to celebrate its opening with a soiree tonight, it has announced some of the 40 team members who have joined the office since its opening in October last year.

Darren Hardeman has joined the Maxus Canada office as its digital lead, having most recently worked as a director at fellow GroupM agency, Mindshare’s Excelerator Media.

Ann Stewart, president at Maxus Canada, tells MiC that Hardeman was the best choice for the position because of his online and offline experience.

“Hardeman has an amazing background in terms of understanding the traditional,” she says. “This will be taking his offline experience and bringing it online. He also has an extensive background on the sales side of digital.”

Also joining the team is Robin LeGassicke,  group director on Universal Studios at Maxus Canada. LeGassicke most recently worked as manager of communications strategies at UM Canada where she worked on the Sony account.

“Robin is a great addition because she brings a great strength of retail with her, in addition to buying,” says Stewart. “She also brings a very young approach to it, in her way of thinking. It is refreshing.”

Stewart says more new hire announcements are on the horizon for the media co, which has been working hard to get the operational end of the business up and running, launching its Canadian website earlier this week. The Canadian office works with clients including, Universal Studios, SC Johnson, Ferrero Rocher and Church & Dwight.

She says the agency is forging its path in the Canadian media landscape by living by a few key words.

“We work by the words ‘passionate, brave and entrepreneurial,'” she says. “Those aren’t words that are normally associated with a media company. We hire against them, and try to loop everything around those core values.”