Tech, Hires and Shiny Hardware: How Weber Shandwick Canada Is Amping Things up for the Second Half of 2025

​_{Caption: Greg Power, CEO of Weber Shandwick Canada, speaks at the LBB & Friends Beach 'Brands Need More Canada' panel, presented by the ICA.}

With the second half of 2025 officially underway, it’s a great time for businesses to reflect on progress made over the past few months. Within adland itself, this is an especially exciting prospect for many, given the fact that, collectively, the industry has just come off the back of Cannes Lions, buoying winners’ spirits as the new quarter unfolds.

Of course, awards aren’t everything. The measure of ‘success’ will vary from agency to agency, be it financial, technological, hardware-based, or something else entirely. However, for Weber Shandwick’s Canadian offices, across the board, the start of 2025 has proven fruitful.

Weber I/O, the global AI platform, launched earlier this year, recently rolled out in Canada. This offers some very exciting opportunities to the agency and its partners. Year-on-year growth has also looked good, with 16 new arrivals – including vice president of analytics Tushar Balsotra, creative director Alex Champlin, and executive creative director Ben Pobjoy – building upon the company’s momentum.

And, just to round things off, Weber Shandwick Canada has also had a strong showing in the awards circuit, with its Toronto office being listed as a co-entrant for Airbnb’s ‘Icons’ and ‘UP House’ campaigns at Cannes, (Bronze Lion in the Media, PR, and Brand Experience & Activation, as well as a Bronze Lion in Media, respectively), while also taking home another 35 pieces of combined hardware from CPRS and IABC.

Off the back of this flying start, LBB’s Jordan Won Neufeldt wanted to know just what it took to make this happen, as well as how the agency will be using this momentum to slingshot forward. So, she sat down with Weber Shandwick Canada’s chief executive officer, Greg Power, for a chat.
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LBB> From the outside, it appears that it’s been an exciting year at Weber Shandwick Canada thus far. From your perspective, how are you feeling right now? Is everything going to plan?

Greg> This year is an exciting year for the agency and for anyone who is keen to discover what we’re made of. Why? Because 2025 is proving to be a year of headwinds that will define leaders and organisations everywhere. The goal is always to convert headwinds into tailwinds by creating value for clients in uncertain times. We’ve demonstrated industry-leading growth from the pandemic onwards, proving we can up-level our client value in an upended world.

This all fits into Weber Shandwick’s culture of innovation and investment, always done in the interest of delivering greater value to our clients and creating strong pathways to career growth for our people. Such is evidenced by the launch of both Weber I/O and Weber Advisory earlier this year. The former builds on our 20-plus-year heritage of helping clients navigate technology disruption, bringing together our deep data, tech, and AI capabilities to catalyse communications impact for clients. The latter combines our advisory expertise with cultural understanding and insights to provide trusted, agile C-suite counsel that accelerates stakeholder and business value. Both are calculated to punch harder on behalf of clients, with more precision and targeted impact.

LBB> You’ve also brought in over 16 new arrivals since the start of the calendar year – what’s driving this growth? How have your capabilities expanded with these new personnel additions, and what does it mean for the company?

Greg> Results drive growth, and investments in the right talent drive capability. In terms of people, we have made strategic hires in key areas including creative, healthcare, corporate risk and reputation, and sustainability.

In terms of process and product – citing just one example here – we were one of the first firms globally to develop a proprietary comms tech stack to improve strategy and effectiveness, fuelling significant growth and offering new solutions like narrative intelligence and AI-enhanced scenario planning that leverages custom audience agents. In short, we embrace change and exist to change the game – new players, new plays, new possibilities for our clients.

LBB> Most recently, you’ve onboarded Tushar Balsotra and Alex Champlin as vice president of analytics and creative director respectively. What do they bring to the table, and what makes them the right people for pursuing future ambition?

Greg> Here, the prerequisite for a seat at the table is an appetite for excellence and a hunger to innovate, be it in culture or through technology.

Creatively, we’re curating a department that is defined by an obsession with craft, aesthetics, and narrative, where the people are legitimate makers and creators from – and very much at – the source itself, not mere observers or decoders of culture’s source code.

With regards to Weber I/O, we’re revolutionising the integration of data, tech, and AI to supercharge marketing and communications strategies, spearheading powerful conversations with clients that lead to transformative programmes and solutions. The right people – be they in creative, in I/O, or in any other department here – are feeding their curiosities as they delight in being thoughtful changemakers for our clients.

LBB> You’ve mentioned Weber I/O a few times – tell us about this! As a new addition to Canada, what sort of capabilities does it bring to Weber Shandwick regionally, and how will you be applying these technologies within your work?

Greg> Weber I/O is striking. The power – the predictiveness of it all – is transformative. It is amazing what we can accomplish once we get over the fear of something new and the barriers of trying to be perfect. It’s critical to iterate forward and not be afraid of learning something new. Get in it, do it, discover. Miles Davis once said, “Don’t fear mistakes. There are none.” I try to live by that advice, because the risk is playing it too safe. This is truly the ‘day one’ dawn of a new era.

The proprietary AI platforms and capabilities Weber I/O has developed – and is infinitely iterating upon – represent a paradigm shift. For instance, we’re testing client content and communications, refining them, and retesting them using cutting-edge, AI-fuelled personas that provide deep insights. We’re also reducing client risk and bolstering brand safety with AI agents that automatically analyse client communications and suggest real-time refinements against sudden changes in regulations and public sentiment, and we’re readying another predictive product that will create new ways of delivering and deeper sensemaking for the C-suite. From what we’ve been hearing from leaders across the country, all of these solutions are critical to meet the moment we’re in.

LBB> Building on this, what are the implications for your offering in the Canadian market? Do you think this technology will help you in your aim to capture a larger share of attention?

Greg> Weber I/O capabilities aren’t just helping our aim; they’re actively driving the capture right now. We initially presumed the barrier to client adoption would be difficulty in understanding the application, but clients immediately got it and want more of it now for greater competitive edge and advantage. It is thrilling to see the excitement at the value Weber I/O advisory and intelligence provides, and fascinating to see our marketplace offering uniquely widen from industry-standard services to the inclusion of new proprietary products.

This is increasingly important as we roll out Weber Advisory at the intersection of business and culture, where we enable clients to accelerate stakeholder and business value. The world has never been so unconventional, and these new tools and approaches are critical for helping clients navigate policy, media, tech, societal activism, and evolving consumer expectations.

LBB> At this time, you’ve also expressed a desire to fuse cultural storytelling with this data-driven intelligence. On a practical level, what might this look like? How can the two be brought together to create a best-of-both-worlds scenario?

Greg> On a practical level, it sounds like Bob Dylan plugging in at Newport before an audience of head scratchers, or Herbie Hancock crossing over with ‘Head Hunters’. Meaning, it looks like human-led ideas supercharged by technology which meet people where they are before everybody is even there. To the point where unknown needs are met.

This, really, is just a new chapter in the old evolution of story itself: us wanting to share, us wanting to reach, us wanting to impact, and us using technology as a delivery mechanism to explore and export novel approaches to permutation and permeation. Yesterday’s printing press is simply today’s AI persona – a continuum. It is all refinement by way of prompts, culture or data – possibilities given potency if you dare to imagine it.

LBB> Finally, technologies aside, you’ve also taken home a good amount of awards hardware across the year. To what do you attribute this success, even without the benefits of Weber I/O?

Greg> New technologies are game changers, but what doesn’t change – and this statement will sound old-fashioned, but I promise you, it is timeless – is that we understand our clients like no other and are deeply devoted to solving their problems. This is a relationship business. The greatest power is the soft power of human connections: caring, responding and delivering. The hardware we’ve been empowered with is a testament to their trust, our commitment to them, and the power of what great partnerships can do.