Dentsu Canada has hired industry veterans Lina Alles and Paul Reilly to join its Canadian media leadership team.

Alles has been appointed SVP of trading and commercial for the agency’s media innovation and investment arm Amplifi. She will lead sourcing, negotiation and execution of partners for Dentsu in Canada, including principal trading, upfront investment, product co-creation and outcomes-based buying. She will also work to continue evolving the trading capability for Dentsu in Canada to support the local needs of clients and the goals of the organization.

“Despite the economic flux, I think now that the pandemic years are behind us, the future looks promising,” Alles says. “One thing that we learned over the last few years is that the media industry needs to be constantly evolving and ready to pivot to the ever-changing market. Now more than ever, for media to succeed, the focus needs to be the consumer, ensuring everything we do – structure, product offerings – maps to the way consumers interact with media.”

Reilly, meanwhile, has joined Carat’s executive leadership team as SVP of client leadership, a role that will include leading the agency’s newly-won Telus account.

“We have a big, important client to onboard,” Reilly says of his immediate priorities. “And my goal is simply to deliver an excellent onboarding to set us up for exciting work in the future.”

Alles has spent the last 20 years with Mindshare, most recently as its chief trading officer. Reilly is also a veteran of Mindshare, where he led the agency’s work on Rogers and was president of dedicated agency Theo before its dissolution last year. Prior to joining the media realm,

In addition to previously working with each other, their stints at Mindshare and Theo also Dentsu Media Canada president Sarah Thompson, who says that bringing strong leadership into the agency is part of its evolution to support clients in their business journey.

“We have a radically collaborative leadership team with different backgrounds, histories and thinking to find new ways of operating as a media network and as one Dentsu in Canada,” she says. “Alles has trading and commercial acumen that gives Dentsu even more credibility and leadership in this space to work with our partners, our client leadership and our clients in new and innovative ways to create value and growth for everyone. Reilly is one of the strongest business and operations leaders I have ever had the pleasure of working with and is the best to lead the team we are designing for Telus and help them on their ambition.”