Think Shift appoints new chief executive on ‘AI plus AI’ approach

Rejecting return-to-office mandates, using artificial intelligence and working with more clients in the United States are top priorities for the new leader of a Winnipeg marketing agency that specializes in agriculture.

Think Shift Inc., appointed Charlie Fiordalis as its chief executive officer last month. He replaced Robert Thorston, who served as CEO for seven years before stepping down and joining the company’s finance team.

A marketing veteran who has spent most of his career working in and around New York City, Fiordalis was most recently the head of growth at PMG, a company that works with iconic brands such as Apple, Nike, and Sephora.

The Darien, Conn., resident says he was drawn to Think Shift because the company is “big enough to matter (and) small enough to change.”

“The need to figure out how to incorporate AI into your company is defining right now for all companies, and I saw an excellent path for Think Shift to be able to do that,” Fiordalis said.

David Lazarenko, partner and executive vice-president, says Think Shift chose Fiordalis because of his experience in the industry and his people-first approach.

“We are not a business-at-all-costs or a success-at-all-costs organization,” Lazarenko said. “We believe that our people perform best when they have flexibility, when they have freedom and that, ultimately, like any organization, when our people are happy and healthy, we will succeed.”

Over the last dozen years, Think Shift has become one of the largest ag-focused agencies in North America. Clients include Alberta Beef Producers, Elanco and Corteva.

The company employs 75 people, 50 per cent of whom live in Winnipeg. The rest are spread across Western Canada, Ontario, Quebec and the U.S.

Think Shift keeps a small office on Erin Street, but employees have predominantly worked from home since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rather than issue a return-to-office mandate, Fiordalis said he believes in cultivating a “post-office” environment that includes connection and collaboration, but ditches the physical office in part to remove the geographic ceiling on the kind of talent the company attracts.

“We’re able to figure out what it means to be a modern company while still having the grounding of being a Winnipeg company,” Fiordalis said. “I think that matters because the culture of a company really comes through, and our culture is based on how deeply we’re rooted inside of Winnipeg.”

The executive’s pitch to Think Shift while applying for the job included advocating for an “AI plus AI” approach — “actual intelligence” coupled with artificial intelligence that results in exponential value.

The company is using AI to eliminate repetitive tasks so employees can focus on the human intuition no language learning model can replicate, Fiordalis said. “(AI) doesn’t touch the actual intelligence needed to determine what insights matter, and therefore how best to design something that will inform your audience and get them to see things in a different way.”

Think Shift has given Fiordalis a mandate for sustainable but aggressive growth, and his immediate priority is increasing the company’s presence in the U.S. Right now, the company does about 80 per cent of its business in Canada and 20 per cent south of the border, he said.

“I want to get to a place where it’s more balanced between those two,” Fiordalis said.

Lazarenko said the “AI plus AI” approach is promising.

“(AI) is an opportunity for businesses like ours — Winnipeg-based businesses — to compete on a scale that we’ve never been able to before,” Lazarenko said. “The playing field has been levelled in so many ways and I feel we are perfectly situated to really take off here.”

Think Shift was founded in 2011 when two agencies merged: Mars Hill Group and BCG Communications. In 2014, the company acquired and merged with LogiStyle, an agency headquartered in Portland, Ore.

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca