Zulu Alpha Kilo Grows Its Talent and Promotes Five from Within

Andrea Por, Christina Roche, Marco Buchar and Michael Romaniuk promoted to associate creative director and Sterling Hall to resource director

Zulu Alpha Kilo has promoted Andrea Por, Christina Roche, Marco Buchar and Michael Romaniuk to associate creative director, and Sterling Hall to resource director. The moves come on the heels of new business wins, a string of international accolades and a commitment to groom and grow talent from within.

Por joined Zulu in 2017 after winning Zulu’s inaugural Employeeship competition. Roche joined Zulu later that year to work with Por. In their time at the agency, Por and Roche have worked on award-winning campaigns across multiple clients, including ‘Trigger Change’ for the Coalition for Gun Control, One Show’s call for entries, ‘Smile Cookie’ for Tim Hortons, and ‘Star in AR’ for Young People’s Theatre, the first-ever series of mini-plays to live entirely as Instagram filters. Most recently, they created ‘The Micropedia of Microaggressions’, which has garnered accolades at virtually every top tier show, including a One Show Fusion pencil, D&AD pencil, two Cannes lions and Design Best of Show at this year’s Marketing Awards.

Romaniuk was hired on the spot in 2018 after showing up at the agency dressed as a ‘FedEx/FedUp with spec’ courier. Buchar joined the same year with a different partner. In 2020, Romaniuk and Buchar paired up to create such notable work as “Green Screen Shirt” for Harry Rosen, Goldfish’s ‘Focus Faceoff Lens’, ‘Sound of Spending’ for Interac and ‘Orders of Sacrifice’ for the Royal Canadian Legion which recently won them a D&AD pencil. Previously, Romaniuk also helped create RGD’s DesignThinkers 2019, KitchenAid Mix ‘n Match, Dodge the bullet, Pause To Remember, winning two One Show pencils and Gold at the LIAs. In 2019, he represented Canada at the Young Lions competition and brought home a Bronze medal. For two years running, he’s also made Strategy’s creative report card as one of the Top Ten Art Directors in Canada, placing third overall in 2021.

According to agency founder and CCO Zak Mroueh, great work only happens when you have great planning and resource management. Hall, who originally joined Zulu as resource manager, was also promoted to resource director. With a string of major international creative accolades over the past two years, Hall is credited with improving the agency’s process and “clearing the path for creative teams” to work their magic and deliver big results for the indie shop’s clients.

Mroueh adds: “It’s nice to see talent grow from within our walls and move to the next level in their careers. These promotions are well-earned. All five of them are integral parts of the agency and consistently go above and beyond to make us better.”