Glassroom, a member of the Humanise Collective, has appointed Sarah Thompson as executive managing director of its Toronto team.
In her new role, Thompson will drive the growth and profile of Glassroom in Toronto and Canada, focusing on strategic planning, talent acquisition and development. She will also collaborate with the Humanise Collective and creative agency The Garden to further Glassroom’s objectives. Thompson will continue to act as an unpaid strategic advisor for the Mantis Group, as she did last year.
“This is a moment when the stars align on values, talent and clients. Glassroom is a great agency and Humanise has incredible brains! We will collaborate and bring the very best to brands in Canada,” she says.
Most recently, Thompson served as president of Dentsu Media Canada, where she accelerated the agency’s media offerings, drove growth through innovation and fostered collaboration with other Dentsu agencies and offices across the region. While at Dentsu, Thompson quickly brought in new business, such as Telus, and grew the agency’s leadership by tapping different talents, including Jennifer Lewis as the new CCO of Carat and Sophie Labarre as CCO of Dentsu x.
Prior to Dentsu, Thompson was CSO at WPP’s Mindshare, where she oversaw marketing sciences, business intelligence, strategy, communications planning, content and new business. She also served as integrated CSO at Theo, a now-closed agency created by WPP to service creative and media for Rogers. Previously, she was VP of strategy at Cossette, where she was responsible for creative and media integration, brand, CRM and organizational design.
Thompson has also been a passionate industry advocate for promoting investment in sustainable and responsible media. She contributed to the creation of the CMDC’s “Canadian Media Manifesto,” a call to action to redirect advertising spend from global digital monoliths to Canadian supported journalism.
Glassroom president Dave Gourde said Thompson’s hire is pivotal for the agency, which is aiming to strengthen its position as a leading player in the Toronto market, especially for brands looking to leverage their data as a powerful and insightful competitive advantage.
“Sarah is one of the rare media leaders who truly excels in strategy, digital performance and technological platform implementation,” Gourde said. “The combination of these three skills is critical to achieving a competitive advantage for marketing decision-makers. We’re fortunate to have found all these capabilities in one exceptional leader.”
With files from Mike Connell and Lauren Richards
