MEET THE MENTORS

Client-Agency Crossover

Someone who has made the leap from being a client or agency side marketer to the opposite side of the table

KARLA CONGSON

Client-Agency Crossover

Someone who has made the leap from being a client or agency side marketer to the opposite side of the table

KARLA CONGSON

Karla is CEO and founder of OpenGravity a full-service marketing consultancy focused on optimizing agile project teams. A proven repeat founder and entrepreneur with 25 years of experience, prior to OpenGravity Karla co-founded collective IQ, a leader in managed services specializing in marketing. This created a unique advantage for OpenGravity at launch:  a deep understanding of the freelance model and agile teams, significant operational learning and deep network to enable rapid scale.  This has enabled OpenGravity to reach rapid scale, servicing enterprise scale clients such as Sun Life, Scotiabank, Deloitte, Nokia (Global), Canadian Medical Association and others.

She brings over two decades of marketing and strategy experience and her work has included business leadership and general management of top global and domestic brands, customer insights & analytics, brand strategy, client experience design and integrated marketing. In her previous role as Chief Marketing Officer
at Dundee Corporation, Karla was responsible for driving customer experience, innovation and brand strategy. 

Karla has also held the roles of Executive Strategy Director & Managing Director at  Mirum Agency, one of Canada’s largest digital marketing agencies and Executive Vice President at WPP/Young & Rubicam Canada, responsible for country leadership of the Ford of Canada business spanning multiple marketing agencies. 
In this capacity she led a significant customer experience initiatives, brand strategy at the enterprise and nameplate level for launches and brand and customer segmentation research. 

Prior to this Karla was the Vice-President Marketing at AIM Trimark, responsible for domestic  brand and marketing leadership.  In this capacity she also led a significant global brand strategy and architecture
project for Invesco, the parent brand for AIM Trimark, leading to the global rollout of the Invesco masterbrand.

Karla has also been responsible for the brand strategy and identity development of other significant
Canadian brands such as  Canada Post, CIBC Wood Gundy, Empire Life, Homemakers Magazine and others.  

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