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Charlie Fiordalis, a marketing professional based in Darien, Conn., is the new CEO at Think Shift, an agriculture marketing agency in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
The Darien, Conn., resident says he was drawn to Think Shift because the company is \u201cbig enough to matter (and) small enough to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Fiordalis said.<\/p>\n
David Lazarenko, partner and executive vice-president, says Think Shift chose Fiordalis because of his experience in the industry and his people-first approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not a business-at-all-costs or a success-at-all-costs organization,\u201d Lazarenko said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Think Shift keeps a small office on Erin Street, but employees have predominantly worked from home since the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Rather than issue a return-to-office mandate, Fiordalis said he believes in cultivating a \u201cpost-office\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re able to figure out what it means to be a modern company while still having the grounding of being a Winnipeg company,\u201d Fiordalis said. \u201cI think that matters because the culture of a company really comes through, and our culture is based on how deeply we\u2019re rooted inside of Winnipeg.\u201d<\/p>\n
The executive\u2019s pitch to Think Shift while applying for the job included advocating for an \u201cAI plus AI\u201d approach \u2014 \u201cactual intelligence\u201d coupled with artificial intelligence that results in exponential value.<\/p>\n
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. \u201c(AI) doesn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Think Shift has given Fiordalis a mandate for sustainable but aggressive growth, and his immediate priority is increasing the company\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI want to get to a place where it\u2019s more balanced between those two,\u201d Fiordalis said.<\/p>\n
Lazarenko said the \u201cAI plus AI\u201d approach is promising.<\/p>\n
\u201c(AI) is an opportunity for businesses like ours \u2014 Winnipeg-based businesses \u2014 to compete on a scale that we\u2019ve never been able to before,\u201d Lazarenko said. \u201cThe playing field has been levelled in so many ways and I feel we are perfectly situated to really take off here.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca<\/p>\n
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Aaron Epp Aaron Epp reports on business for the Free Press. After freelancing for the paper for a decade, he joined the staff full-time in 2024. Read more about Aaron<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Aaron produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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