Marc Leardi - Alumni Spotlight

After graduating OIART (class of 1996), Marc took the focus off of the career hunt, and spent about 6 months working odd jobs, and travelling.



With that out of his system, Marc spent a year interning at various audio/video production companies: Rogers TV, Cherry Beach Sound, and Metalworks to name a few. That year taught Marc that his heart just wasn’t in it when it came to the hands-on side of audio/video production. After going back to Industrial Design at Humber College, and a few more odd jobs, Marc came back to the knowledge base he had acquired as a result of his studies at OIART, in particular the video editing summer course that was offered at the time.

In 1999, Marc began working for a company called Mijo/Comprehensive Distributors. Mijo (now known as Extreme Reach Canada) was and continues to be the leading supplier of broadcast distribution services to the advertising industry in Canada. As a junior member of their ClientServices team, Marc became responsible for the daily coordination of post-production and distribution of television and radio commercials for most of the top ad agencies and movie distributors in Canada.

Marc’s career at Mijo spanned 15 years, and by the time he resigned in early 2014, Marc had risen to Senior Director of his department. Marc took a month off to do a bit more travelling, and in March of 2014 began working for Deluxe Toronto Ltd. Marc was recruited by Deluxe to help them build an Advertising Services division of their own.

Since then, Marc been plugging away at Deluxe, growing the Ad Services business for them for the past two plus years. One of Marc’s busiest clients at Deluxe is the cosmetics company, Revlon. Marc’s work on the Revlon account involves managing the process of adapting their U.S. television commercials for the Canadian market (in English & French languages). This requires Marc to oversee every step of the process, including script translation, broadcast/legal approvals, VO talent selection, VO record supervision, final mix, packaging and deliverables.

Marc’s experiences with this client in particular have helped pave the way for some new opportunities for him at Deluxe, in the realm of foreign adaptation for series and theatrical content – a new division Deluxe hopes to see get off the ground in 2017.