Departures and new faces at Mindshare

Ira Kates, who spent the last year heading performance marketing at GroupM shop Mindshare, has moved into a new space of the marketing industry. Kates will now serve as VP of digital for Brandfire Marketing, a full-service agency focusing on shopper marketing, experiential, traditional and digital advertising and brand creation. As VP of digital, Kates will work with all teams to weave digital into the fabric of their work.

The company has also promoted a handful of associates including Shreyas Sukumar, now senior account manager for social media; Danielle Jones, now senior associate on the Mazda Team; Emmie Liu, now manager of the Air Canada Team; Sid Gupta, now senior associate on the Unilever Team; Adam Parisan, now senior associate on the IBM Team; Michael McHale, now manager on the Unilever Team and Andrea Miliauskas, now the client lead for the Kimberly-Clark team.

Havas snags industry vet

Maggie Fife joins Havas as a media financial analyst after three decades in senior roles in both media planning/buying and communications strategy for brands like GM. Fife’s previous agency roles include PHD, M2 (now Initiative) and MacLaren McCann.

New faces at MediaCom

Along with welcoming back Jodi Peacock, MediaCom has also procured Anna Zelko, Aqila Nazarali, Sara Ruso in assistant media executive roles.  Camillia Yuen and Marcus Sheppard will serve as senior media executives, while Ratna Shankar joins the team as account director and Min Kim will serve as assistant investment negotiator.