FirmDecisions expands global reach with Toronto and Dubai offices

FirmDecisions, the world’s largest independent marketing compliance specialist, is expanding its global reach with the opening this month of new offices in Canada and Dubai. These are the fourteenth and fifteenth, wholly-owned FirmDecisions offices worldwide.

Toronto, Canada
FirmDecisions’ new Canadian HQ in Toronto will be headed by Patricia McGregor, who was SVP and Group Media Director at Publicis-owned Starcom until recently. Patricia joins as MD of FirmDecisions, Canada, at a time when advertisers around the world are determined to assert control and drive transparency into all aspects of media trading. This includes the ever-more complex programmatic marketplace, covering digital and increasingly traditional media.

Patricia brings more than 20 years of senior agency experience to FirmDecisions. She has held a variety of roles covering client management, strategy, and operations. She joins FirmDecisions from her most recent role at Publicis, where she personally managed over $750m in billings. While with the group, Patricia was agency lead in the development and negotiation of the compensation and service agreements for some of the largest blue chip clients in the Canadian market. As the MD of FirmDecisions Canada, Patricia will manage FirmDecisions’ current clients and drive business growth in this market, while working closely with Fiona Foy, Managing Director, North America.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates
FirmDecisions has also just opened a new office in Dubai which will serve as the hub for the increasingly-important Middle East & North Africa (MENA) market. This new office will be led by industry and region expert, Stewart Morrison. He, too, brings more than 20 years’ client-side experience working in both the Middle East region and globally, including senior marketing and marketing procurement roles for Unilever, Sony Music, Nokia and Microsoft. Stewart was also a member of the MENA WFA. His experience encompasses both revenue-generating and cost efficiency roles.

The MENA region is a fragmented marketplace of 20+ countries, a population of 400m that’s expected to double in the first half of this century, and many more marketing opportunities and touchpoints to reach these consumers. As in the rest of the world, however, advertisers today face increased pressure to deliver more with their marketing spend than ever before. With this comes a drive for greater transparency in all investments and a growing movement to enshrine the right to audit in agency contracts to achieve this.

Stephen Broderick, Global CEO of FirmDecisions, commented: “Canada and the MENA region are increasingly important markets for FirmDecisions global and national brand advertiser clients. I’m delighted we’re open for business in both these markets. I’m also really pleased that we’ve attracted such strong leaders for both new offices to help grow our global footprint. They both have great track records of brokering well-constructed commercial agreements and ensuring that commercial partnerships operate as efficiently as possible. This will be critical to help FirmDecisions’ growing client base across the world.”