The city’s new corporate communications and marketing manager thinks he’s landed at the right place during exciting times.
“It’s a culmination of a lifelong passion of marketing and communications, the whole administration is energetic and there’s a lot of great folks that are working in the office. There’s a lot of alignment, everybody’s really energetic and engaged,” said Philippe Renoir in an interview with the Gazette.
Renoir will take up the reins in what he says is a re-jigged corporate communications and marketing department. There’s been some recent turnover in the department – Maya Pungur-Buick moved up the chain, ending up as the general manager for corporate strategic services, and one of the communications advisers recently departed, a position filled with the recently hired Sheelagh Caygill.
The restructuring aims to bring marketing and communications all back under one roof to allow for consistency and efficiency, Renoir said, giving the example of having a small team of centralized graphic designers versus different departments using their own.
Renoir comes to the city after a varied career, most recently working with Industry Canada after other federal government stints. He’s also worked for private industry – getting his start in bar and club promotions after high school and working his way up into an advertising agency, later branching out into roles as a communication and/or marketing manager – as well as time at Edmonton Tourism as director of marketing.
“I’ve been fortunate to be involved in some really cool programs and projects,” he said, noting he helped open the Silvercity theatre in West Edmonton Mall and worked for Playdium for about a year. He holds an MBA that’s a combined degree from the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary.
The 49-year-old grew up in the south of France, immigrating to Alberta when he was 14. His passion for the creativity of communications and marketing comes from his family’s strong association with the arts. His great-grandfather was Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the famous impressionist artist.
“That’s why the involvement in the arts throughout the generations and still to this day is quite heavily present in my family,” he said. St. Albert’s strong arts and culture environment – as well as other exciting, long-term plans for the city – is part of his enthusiasm for his new role.
Though he’s only been with the city for a few weeks, this isn’t the first time Renoir has encountered St. Albert. While with Edmonton Tourism he worked on the festival city branding, which included St. Albert’s International Children’s Festival, something he’s looking forward to being on the front lines with now.
“The City of St. Albert does a lot of things and they do a lot of things right,” Renoir said, noting he might have to take an inventory of all the awards the city has won over the years. “St. Albert is interesting because it’s small enough to be agile and it’s large enough to do meaningful things.”
