Two former creative leaders from McCann New York are returning home to Canada in a major coup to join The Hive’s leadership team.

The Toronto-based agency announced on Tuesday that it has brought Lauren McCrindle and Erin Wendel aboard as The Hive’s first co-chief creative officers. McCrindle and Wendel first began their careers in Canada, before their creative partnership brought them to Prague with Lowe and Partners, to Minneapolis working for Fallon, and most recently to New York as EVP, executive creative directors at McCann.

Effective immediately, The Hive’s new co-CCOs will be responsible for overseeing all of the agency’s creative output, working closely with chief strategy officer Dustin Rideout.

After spending the past 12 years working in New York at big network agencies, McCrindle says she and Wendel are excited to move to an independent agencywhere they can feel they have a greater effect on their work, adding that it’s exciting to lose the layers that comes with working in larger, more bureaucratic company.

“It’s different, it’s scrappy, there’s less layers,” McCrindle says. “The impact and the work we do is going to benefit the people in the room and the people doing it, which is kind of exciting.”

The decision to move from McCann New York to working with The Hive presents a new challenge for the co-CCOs, Wendel says. It’s a chance to bring everything they’ve learned through the last 18 years and bring it back home.

“What we loved about The Hive is that it’s not the market leader, it’s not the agency everybody thinks of when they think of Toronto. So it’s that much more of an opportunity for us to make an impact,” Wendel says.

“This felt like something where we really had a chance to affect what was happening and the direction of the agency and the creative output and the way we work, and be the catalyst that helps take what the team has already been doing for the last couple of years, and push it even further.”

The Hive also presents a diverse client roster for Wendel and McCrindle to work with, she says, adding that they were especially impressed with the agency’s recent work creating the “Brave Is Unbeatable” campaign for the Canadian Olympic Committee.

McCrindle and Wendel’s work at McCann New York has picked up top awards around the industry. Their latest work was a documentary for U.S. Bank called “Translators,” which was recognized with a gold, two silvers and six shortlists at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, as well as a gold in the festival’s inaugural AYA Inclusion Award.

McCrindle says the landscape in Canadian advertising has drastically changed in the 16 years since they left, with the country now boasting more globally-leading agencies compared to when they started their careers in Toronto.

But she adds that their goal isn’t just to work in Canada, but to work with clients beyond the country as well.

The Hive CEO Jared Stein says he’s thrilled to bring in co-CCOs with global experience who can provide a fresh perspective that’s been decidedly focused on places that aren’t Canada to the agency.

“Their remit is really helping us not only to define what our creative voice is going to be here at The Hive,” Stein says. “But also helping us plot the course for the future of what this agency is going to become, and helping us to define what this creative department starts to look like and how it takes shape, the different skill sets that we look for, and then the talent that is required within these four walls.”

Most of all, Wendel notes that what connected her and McCrindle to Stein and the rest of the team at The Hive was the level of ambition they all have to elevate the agency further, expand its client roster and workload.

“Our ambition is to make this a world-renowned agency. That’s the goal we’re all working towards,” Wendel says.