Courage Adds Senior Leadership Across the Board

(L to R: Kat Ledgett as account director, Domenique Raso as creative director, Rami Dudin as group strategy director, Cindy Marie Navarro as creative director, Saloni Wadehra as group account director, and Amna Khalid as account director.) 

In response to a wave of new business wins, including their most recent for KFC Canada, Courage has stocked up on senior leadership talent across the board. 

In the creative department, Cindy Marie Navarro and Domenique Raso join as a creative director duo. While this is their first time teaming up together, Cindy and Domenique each have an impressive resume under their belt, making them a formidable creative partnership. Cindy was named Marketing’s top 30 under 30, and has worked with agencies like JWT, FCB and Leo Burnett where she created notable and award winning campaigns for clients like Hotels.com, Mazda, Tim Horton’s and SickKids. 

Domenique has worked with agencies BBDO and NFA, and was ranked as Strategy’s number two copywriter in 2020 for her award-winning work on Right To Play, as well as the Canadian Paralympic Committee, Visa, PepsiCo, and FritoLay. Both will help lead and shape the agency’s creative, alongside Courage’s founders and chief creative officers, Dhaval Bhatt and Joel Holtby. 

On the accounts side, Saloni Wadehra joins as a group account director on CIBC and Nestlé, with over 15 years of experience in financial services and more. A passionate agency leader, she comes from BBDO Toronto, where she helped facilitate award-winning work on many prominent global brands like Visa, Wrigley, Bayer and PepsiCo/FritoLay. Amna Khalid also joins as an account director on KFC. Originally from Oman, Amna brings over ten years of experience from the Gulf Region, where she worked at prominent global agencies like TBWA, Wunderman, and Y&R. She comes from Toronto-based agency McCann, where she worked on Wendy’s. Her expertise spans across many sectors, including telecom, banking, automotive, pharmaceutical, airline, real estate, hospitality, and QSR. Rounding out the account team, Kat Ledgett joins as an account director on CIBC and North York General Hospital. Her previous agencies include FCB, where she worked on the Sobeys business, and Wunderman Thompson, where she led the Mazda account. 

Rounding out the crop of new hires is Rami Dudin as a group strategy director. He brings a wealth of strategic experience from Publicis, where he led strategy for Heineken Canada and Canadian Tire, and Cossette, where he worked on the SickKids strategy that played an integral role in generating award-winning work for years two, three, and four of the VS platform. 

“At any time, it’s important to attract the right people. But when you’re a young agency, every hire is that much more critical. We are so lucky that this amazing group of smart, passionate and compassionate leaders have chosen Courage”, said Dhaval Bhatt. “We can already see the effect they’ve had on our culture and our work.”