Zak Mroueh and Tim Gordon
Independent Canadian agency Zulu Alpha Kilo is expanding internationally with a new office in New York, led by Droga5 Chief Creative Officer Tim Gordon.
Gordon, who left Droga5 last week, will serve as partner and chief creative officer, charged with building the ZAK New York office from the ground up with the support of Founder and Chief Creative Officer Zak Mroueh and President and CEO Mike Sutton.
ZAK has been broadening its footprint over the last year and in February opened an office in Vancouver. Growing interest from clients over the years also made opening in the U.S. a priority, Mroueh said. Teaming with Gordon after a patient, year-long search was the final step in realizing that goal.
“All these opportunities started popping up, but we wanted to do it right, and it was really important for us to build the team around a creative person,” Mroueh said. “I didn’t want to just open up an office just for the sake of doing it.”
Gordon is best known for the thoughtful, well-crafted ideas he conceived and led while at Droga5, many of which went on to earn top industry accolades, including multiple Cannes Lions Grand Prix. One of his early breakthrough projects was the Puma “After Hours Athlete” campaign, an artful meditation on the rituals of young night owls, which went on to earn the Film Craft Grand Prix in 2011. He later earned another Film Craft Grand Prix for the Under Armour Michael Phelps ad, a poetic film that captured the Olympian’s focused intensity while in the throes of his training.
More honors followed with the award-winning “Truth Is” campaign for the New York Times, which earned both the Film and Film Craft Grand Prix, the first time in the festival’s history that a campaign won both honors.
“Obviously Tim’s work speaks for itself, we found one of the most creative minds in the world, a top global talent, a super good guy,” said Mroueh. But besides his reel, Mroueh noted that Gordon also has the rare quality of entrepreneurialism, “and I believe we're gonna build a kick-ass agency together.”
Gordon, who also happens to be Canadian, said he hadn’t been looking to leave Droga5. “I probably could have happily stayed throughout my entire career,” he said, but it was hard to resist the opportunity to grow something once again. When he started at Droga5, it was a team of 40 in New York; now, it has around 500 staff.
“The idea of building something from the ground up was ingrained in the philosophy at Droga5,” Gordon said. “It clicked when Zak and I met because I think I was looking for an opportunity to in many ways, do it again. Figuring out a way to build a creative community in New York in the U.S., with the hindsight of Droga5 and the hindsight of what we've all been through over the last couple of years, it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
Until now, Gordon had spent his entire career at Droga5. His last day there was July 1, almost 14 years to the date that he started as an intern at the agency, now part of the Accenture Song network, where he steadily rose the ranks from copywriter all the way to chief creative officer. He had stepped into the top creative post in 2019 alongside Co-Chief Creative Officer Felix Richter, who in February departed the agency to become creative chief at Mother London.
"Tim has been a part of building Droga5’s legacy during his 14-year tenure and we could not be more grateful for his contributions," said a Droga5 spokesperson. "He’s grown up in this agency and we’re proud of his accomplishments, creative leadership and industry-leading work. We wish him the absolute best in his new role." Scott Bell, who had stepped up to replace Richter, remains as the agency's sole chief creative officer.
Gordon is the latest top leader to leave Droga5. In April 2021, Global Chief Strategy Officer Jonny Bauer departed to join Blackstone. And David Kolbuz, chief creative officer of Droga5 London, left in April 2022 and joined Lightning Orchard (now Orchard) in May.
After Accenture Interactive acquired the agency in 2019, a number of its key executives moved up to the parent company, including Founder and Creative Chairman David Droga moving to CEO and creative chairman; CEO Sarah Thompson named to become global lead for communications and content; and former Global Chief Creative Officer Neil Heymann rejoining from Publicis' Le Truc in that same post.
For Mroueh, partnering with Gordon felt like a full-circle moment that harks back to 2008 when, after serving as chief creative officer at top Canadian agency Taxi, he decided to break out on his own with Zulu Alpha Kilo, in the midst of the recession. Since then ZAK has built a reputation for daring and out-of-the-box ideas, earning multiple Ad Age Small Agency Awards, including the overall Agency of the Year honor in 2016 and International Agency of the Year accolades—including last year after the pandemic upended business.
Since its founding, the shop has created work for major brands including Audi, Bell Canada, Coca-Cola, Google, Harley-Davidson and Uber, and it’s expanded its integrated offerings with its own in-house production studio Zulubot and media arm Zulumatic Media, announced this June.
Gordon is ZAK New York’s first official hire, and the team will be looking to add at least four or five key team members out of the gate. The agency currently has one client that could not be disclosed at press time.
ZAK New York has a temporary space in SoHo and will eventually establish permanent headquarters. Ultimately, however, the founders expect to maintain a hybrid model. “It’s important to have a grounding place, but I want to ensure that I’m not overlooking talent just because they’re not in the tri-state area,” Gordon said.
As for what he hopes to bring to the agency culture, “I have this philosophy that the more you care about the work, the less it feels like work,” Gordon said. “So when you care about the brief, the script, the out-of-the-box idea, the production, we can foster a community of caring, not just about the work and the impact, but also the actual making of it.” Also important, he said, is “generosity, building a foundation and ensuring that a lot of people have an opportunity to grow and succeed.”
ZAK’s expansion continues a recent trend of creative Canadian shops breaking ground in the U.S. In 2020, No Fixed Address found tremendous success when it opened Mischief in New York with BBDO vet Greg Hahn. Last December, celebrated agency Rethink expanded to New York as well, buoyed by increasing interest from U.S. clients following its buzz-making work for brands such as Heinz Ketchup and Kraft Mac & Cheese.
