Sid Lee Rebuilds Leadership Around AI, Strategy, and Experience

Creative agency Sid Lee has restructured its leadership team to better connect AI, strategy, and experience design — a move that signals where the most forward-thinking agencies think growth is actually coming from.

Three New Appointments, One Vision

Sid Lee has named:

• Yanick Bédard as Chief AI & Transformation Officer for Sid Lee Group — leading enterprise-wide AI vision and technology integration globally
• Shereen Ladha as Chief Strategy Officer for Sid Lee North America — evolving strategy toward a more dynamic, ecosystem-driven model
• Jean-François Lavigne as VP, Innovation and Creative Experiences — advancing AI-driven experience design and addressing the emerging "zero-click" search environment

Why This Matters: The Agency Operating System Is Changing

The underlying message from Sid Lee's CEO Marie-Lise Campeau is blunt: "Traditional agency structures designed around campaign delivery are no longer sufficient." What's replacing them is an operating model built around adaptability, interconnected thinking, and continuous transformation.

Bédard, who spent years embedding AI across creative, strategy, and production workflows at Sid Lee, puts it plainly: "AI is quickly becoming part of the operating system behind how modern agencies think, create, and scale."

Key shifts in their approach:

• Moving AI beyond experimentation into the agency's operational foundation
• Replacing fixed consumer journey models with ecosystem-driven, always-on strategy
• Integrating AI as a creative accelerator — not just an efficiency tool — to unlock new forms of storytelling and experience design
• Preparing brand experiences for a "zero-click" search world where discoverability works differently

What Agencies and Marketers Should Take Away

This isn't a story about three promotions. It's a signal about where agency value is shifting: from campaign execution to strategic transformation, and from AI experimentation to AI operations. For brands working with agencies — or building marketing teams — the question is whether your partners have the same operating model as the clients they're trying to grow.

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