you can Call me Yas

Yas has spent 23 years working in the advertising industry in Canada, US and the UK. She has worked at award winning shops, large WPP institutions to small nibble wear-a-lot-of-hats kinda agencies. During that time, she has worked across a number of brands over the years: PepsiCo, Ford Motor Company, Royal Bank of Canada, Rogers Telecommunications, Kraft, Sephora and IKEA to name a few.

In her current role as Executive Creative Director at Blue Noise Studios in Toronto she oversees the creative, production, creative resources, project management and account services departments. It's a roll-up-your-sleeves kinda place.

Previously, she was the VP ECD at GTB (abbreviations are a real thing in this biz), where she ran the Creative and Production departments responsible for Ford of Canada.

Before that, she was the Head of Creative at VICE Canada, running the VICE Media creative services and VICE’s in-house ad agency, Virtue. There she focused on strong digital storytelling while telling millennials what's cool without ever using the word 'cool'.

Yas graduated from the Miami Ad School in South Beach with a degree in Art Direction. While at MAS, she did a separate degree - Masters in Mass Communications from the School of Journalism at Florida International University.

Yas's work has received recognition on local and international levels (ADCC, Marketing, Cannes, One Show, Clios), but she is most passionate about championing diversity and inclusivity in this industry, from the people she hires, to the talent she casts, to the stories she tells.

Over the past 9 years, Yas has been teaching as a part-time Professor at George Brown College - School of Design in Toronto. Her classes range from first year advertising programs to third year brand strategy courses.