Chief Strategy Officer
Sasha Grujicic believes that in order for innovation to be sustainable, it must be systemic. As Chief Strategy Officer at Dentsu Aegis Network Canada, he has a deep understanding of how technology intersects with business, people and policy; as well as an ability to drive system-level changes. According to Sasha, “Innovation tends to happen most on the fringes of business. Descriptors like ‘beta’ or ‘pilots’ are often used to categorize innovations that have short shelf lives or are perishable. The reality is that the changes we’re seeing as a result of the accelerated digitization of industries are massive and systemic.”
In his role at Dentsu Aegis Network Canada, Sasha works with all of the network’s major clients (GM, Target, Manulife, P&G and more) across all of the network’s ten agencies in Canada, including Carat, Vizeum, DentsuBos, etc. In Canada, Dentsu Aegis Network has more than 900 employees, and has tripled in size organically and through acquisition since Sasha joined the company in 2010.
His interest in innovation focuses largely on how industries are being transformed and anticipating the opportunities that come with such change. Sasha recognizes how such exponential change enables marketers to open up their businesses to aspects of innovation that start with marketing. Also by innovating with technology in mind, he believes we can enable larger, more pervasive types of change that better aligns brand clients with the dynamics of consumer behavior and technological growth.
In fact, Sasha is leading an effort to provide a technology-led solution that aims to empower the struggling middle class in Canada, which is dealing with stagnating incomes, moderate inflation, increased time pressures and weakening community relations. Recognizing this real world problem, he is developing a unique service model that empowers people in these communities to buy and sell packaged goods on behalf of Dentsu Aegis Network Canada’s client.
He’s also working across a complete transformation of a large financial institution’s 125+ year identity into a more progressive, externally orientated and purpose-led one. This new identity looks at how the company self-organizes its tens of thousands of employees and leverages various technologies to fulfill an internal and societal purpose, and then aligns its values with their customers.
Sasha believes that the largest challenges facing innovation, particularly on an international level, no matter the discipline, are existing structures of people, politics and economics. He is convinced that we are awash with innovation, both in thinking and goods, to solve the majority of our global issues ranging from simple, commercial issues to more substantial humanitarian challenges. “The advances both in the hard and soft sciences have afforded us the means to innovate,’ he says, “but not the faculties to challenge existing structural barriers that slow the effects of systemic innovation.” He tries to use innovative means to challenge convention and enlighten others about the potential benefits that can come with change and new thinking.
As a child of immigrants to Canada, Sasha has a broad world view that formed during his upbringing. His parents both grew up as dissidents in communist Yugoslavia before moving to Canada, experiencing a polarized swing in national ideology. This polarization, and cultural assimilation, gave him a critical eye on systems, structures and motivations at a young age, along with a slightly more impassioned conversation style more familiar in Eastern Europe. It wasn’t until he visited Serbia and Montenegro after the war in the 90’s that he gained a real appreciation for the cultural underpinnings that contrasted with the social conservatism he experienced in Canada. Sasha’s work in global roles later in life was largely informed by his experiences as a child, especially in understanding and respecting local cultures as they adopted new technologies.