Glassroom Toronto has hired Scott Stewart as its general manager to manage its growth and raise the profile of its business.

Stewart was most recently president of VMC Media Group. A longtime media executive, he has held senior roles at Vizeum, Carat, UM Media and Wavemaker.

Dave Gourde, Glassroom’s president and partner, says the agency needed someone “to be the face of Glassroom Toronto. There’s no better person than Scott in that market with extensive experience in media and his personality.”

Glassroom has experienced a great deal of growth since winning the Desjardins media business two years ago, particularly in Toronto where the Montreal-based agency currently employs 10 people. The agency began as the Montreal media department of Bleu Blanc Rouge in 2006. But four years ago, it was spun off as an independent consulting agency as more and more clients were bringing media in-house. It subsequently absorbed BBR’s media operations and now operates as a full-service media agency with both traditional and digital media capabilities. (Glassroom remains affiliated with Bleu Blanc Rouge through the Humanise Collective.)

With the win of Desjardins’ SEM business earlier this year, Glassroom handles all of its media requirements and has a full performance team embedded at Desjardins. “We actually encourage brands to in-house their media business because it makes sense for them to have a competitive advantage,” Gourde says. “Most major agencies are using the same databases for research so there’s no competitive advantage in that. A competitive advantage is actually in how they gather insights and tie that into a 360-degree strategy.”

Glassroom works with brands such as Bausch Health, Bio-K International, Shaw Communications and Plan International.