25 years. Financial services. Healthcare. Consumer. Culture.
Brand is the start and the end. It is all-encompassing. It is the core of a company.
I build brand systems that work in the world’s most demanding environments: regulated markets, enterprise boardrooms, national campaigns, and cultural moments. I’ve led rebrands for crown corporations, directed global campaigns at celebrity scale, and launched products in pharma, financial services, CPG, and youth culture.
I also build with AI. Not as a shortcut. As a strategic and production partner that frees me to spend 70% of my time in strategy and direction, the reverse of how this work used to get done. Three complete brand systems in four months is the proof.
Systems, not logos. Positioning through published standards, built to hold up in regulated markets and boardrooms.
Direction at national scale, from celebrity CPG campaigns to crown corporations, with craft in every file that ships.
Positioning, architecture, and narrative that give every execution a reason and every audience a way in.
Web, social and email, plus in-house video from script to final edit. AI-powered production that moves fast, stays on brand and proves itself in the numbers.
Nine brand systems across regulated finance, estate technology, healthcare, public sector, consumer and culture.
Purpose-built marketing agency for Canadian wealth advisors and dealer firms. Complete brand system including CLaaS, a tiered, CIRO-compliant content platform. Full verbal and visual identity, January 2026.
2024 to present View brand guide →Advisors across the country work with ClearEstate. I built the brand launch that put it there: positioning, campaign platform and creative direction on the executor truth that it is the hardest job you have never applied for. “Estates settled simply.” Web, social and out-of-home live in one week, plus three video spots and a website UX rebuild.
2021 · in marketOntario Music Educators’ Association. A century-old institution modernized for a multi-stakeholder world. Four distinct audience palettes for educators, students, donors, and partners, all laddering to one primary system.
December 2025 View brand guide →Valued Connections Healthcare Inc. Intensive case management brand for complex medical needs. Privacy-first by design, with PHIPA compliance built into the brand framework itself. Bilingual. Three audience palettes.
December 2025 View brand guide →Canada’s premier youth basketball development program. A three-pillar brand architecture of Court, Class, and Culture, with a verbal identity that has genuine character. “We don’t just build athletes. We build good humans.” Brand system extended into a full website build: information architecture, copy, video integration, conversion paths into tryout registration, technical SEO, and GA4 tracking. Launched July 2026.
2026 · site live July 2026National rebrand of Canada’s largest independent mortgage brokerage: 15 years of assets, 5 regional offices, 200+ broker websites, signage, print, digital, CRM. Under $60K. Still in use today.
2015 to 2016 · in market 10+ years View case study →A construction-sector brand built with genuine urban personality. Logo, brand system, website, business cards, truck wraps, “Pipe Fitness” elevator video series, and social campaign for Toronto’s Liberty Village neighbourhood.
2017 View case study →A high-end restaurant brand for Kingston, Jamaica’s premium dining scene. A complete identity from positioning through visual standards, plus the strategy behind it: a repositioning from party venue to food-first destination, three defined audience segments, a six-channel mix led by WhatsApp Business for Kingston’s corporate market, and a 12-week rollout. Site live September 2026.
2025 to 2026 · site live September 2026Website rebuild and brand modernization for a Canadian-owned wealth management and capital markets firm. Seven years of ongoing brand and marketing stewardship within a regulated advisor environment.
2018 to 2025 View case study →Large-scale national and global executions across consumer, CPG, and institutional brands.
Full network national launch for Canada’s second-largest grocer in partnership with Jamie Oliver. Creative production director managing 300+ files across English, French, and Bilingual formats: in-store, digital, kiosk, POS, and print. Approvals across Sobeys Canada and Jamie Oliver’s UK team simultaneously. Not one file printed incorrectly. Launch without a hitch.
Directed $7M media and marketing spend for global acne treatment brand Proactiv® across Canada. Global celebrity campaign with Kendall Jenner across earned, paid, OOH, display, and digital channels. Managed co-marketing partnerships with Shoppers Drug Mart, Costco, Sephora, and Amazon. National rollout to 1,054 Shoppers Drug Mart locations.
Modernized national brand for one of Canada’s largest youth-serving organizations. Championed the DEI-driven storytelling campaign “Scouting is for Everyone,” repositioning a 100+ year institution for a new generation. Led 2025 national recruitment campaign across digital, email, social, and PR channels.
Created and led digital influencer integrated campaign for U.S.-based CPG disruptor in partnership with PBR (Professional Bull Riders). Directed full brand with a creative agency across website, merchandise, video, and all brand assets, leading a cross-border team of creatives in the U.S. and Canada. $3M USD budget across launch and growth phase.
Deep category experience inside banks, insurers, investment firms and household names across Canada and the U.S.
Almost ten years of brand and marketing delivery across Wealth Services, Retail Banking and Investor’s Edge: 20+ retail brochures, the Investor’s Edge welcome guide, and some of the bank’s first bi-weekly advisor e-newsletters, the beginning of CIBC’s online content marketing for wealth services.
Managed a team of five producing the monthly portfolio review and market booklet: 30 to 50 pages with over 70 charts created and edited in English and fully rebuilt in French, in print and digital, delivered on deadline every month for years.
Years running the crown corporation’s studio with a staff of up to four: all advertising for the park, media, campaigns, signage, print, digital, the park guide and the Cinesphere, plus the rebrand and Ontario Place’s first major website build with online ticketing.
Over 200 projects a year, for years, for one of the largest healthcare organizations in the United States, including five years as original art director of the National Compliance annual report.
Any strategy, any promotion and any interaction with a company starts with the brand. From your signage to your office design, to your digital presence, to something as simple as your email signature: what does your brand say about you to the world?
Kathryn Ashby · on brandI came up through the work. CIBC advisor newsletters, 70-chart bilingual market booklets, park signage, national campaign files: I built them with my own hands for two decades. Now I lead. It means I brief better, judge work faster, scope honestly, and nobody bluffs me with “that’s impossible.”
Before AI, production consumed the majority of a brand leader’s time. Strategy was the 30%. Today, with AI as both strategic thought partner and production engine, that ratio flips. I spend 70% of my time in strategy, brand direction, and creative decision-making. The rest is execution: faster, more consistent, and more ambitious than what was possible before.
This isn’t about automating creativity. It’s about removing the friction between thinking and making. Three complete brand systems (OMEA, VCHI and Union Elite Basketball) were built from positioning through published standards guide in four months. Each is rigorous, multi-audience and ready for market.
The same shift brought production in-house. I now run a video system that goes from script to final edit, and live dashboards that pull email, website and social performance into one view, so the work and the proof of the work sit in the same place.
The businesses that understand this shift earliest will compound fastest. I believe that. I’ve built two companies around it.
25 years across financial services, healthcare, CPG, non-profit and culture. Full detail on LinkedIn.
Purpose-built marketing agency for Canadian wealth advisors and dealer firms. Brand, creative and digital lead.
Independent brand and creative studio behind the brand systems and case studies on this page.
National brand modernization and the 1,943% ROI “Scouting is for Everyone” recruitment campaign.
Marketing leadership for the national non-profit.
Full brand direction and the $3M TAAT × PBR “Meet the Cowboy” launch campaign.
Seven years of brand and marketing stewardship in a regulated wealth management environment.
Directed the $7M Proactiv × Kendall Jenner campaign across Canada.
Healthcare and pharma agency delivery within Health Canada compliance frameworks.
Led the national rebrand of Canada’s largest independent mortgage brokerage, still in market today.
Senior brand leadership, on your terms. Fractional, contract and project engagements are my focus, with select full-time roles considered. Toronto-based, remote-ready.
kja markets · where ideas flourish · Toronto, Ontario