There’s a changing of the guards up in Canada as Monica Ruffo will take over for Geoffrey Roche as CEO of Lowe Roche, the agency that the latter founded back in 1991 which was eventually acquired by Lowe in 1996. It appears that Roche himself is leaving the ad biz to focus on his new media company Poolhouse, which he co-founded with his son, Alexandre.
Who’s Monica Ruffo, you ask? Well, she’s currently the president of three-year-old, Montreal-based shop Amuse, which has now joined Lowe and Partners’ North American network (which is overseen by Deutsch North America CEO Linda Sawyer and includes Deutsch NY, Deutsch LA, ICC Lowe, Lowe Roche Toronto, and now Amuse). See, it all makes sense now, right? Anyhow, Geoffrey Roche isn’t splitting immediately as he’ll slowly transition duties to Ruffo, who will officially become CEO of Lowe Roche and Amuse on September 1.
In a statement, the departing exec says, “This has been a dream job for me. I’ve been able to create my own company, hired, mentored, and worked with many truly talented people and helped clients ring their cash registers over and over. I’m a very lucky man in more ways than I can begin to count. And now to be able to hand over the reins to such a talented and entrepreneurial spirit like Monica is a real honour. I’m looking forward to seeing the Agency continuing to flourish and to my own exciting new adventure.”