David&Goliath come to Toronto, Israel Diaz at the helm

You know, I think we’re due for another David&Goliath story in the Inbox (hey, can we help it if they’re ihaveanidea fans and we’re D&G fans?)

Actually this is pretty cool news for our loyal fans in ihaveanidea’s original stomping grounds of Toronto, Canada. After opening up shops in London and Frankfurt in 2009 David&Goliath will be adding an office in the T-Dot very soon. They’ll be opening their doors with a built-in client — Kia Canada — and they’ve already found a kickass Executive Creative Director to lead the shop: Israel Diaz. Israel has been at Leo Burnett for the past five years as SVP, Creative Director and Managing Partner, and has also put in time at Canadian faves Lowe Roche, Gee Jeffery & Partners and Cossette. He’s a got a whole pile of Lions, Clios, ANDYs and Pencils to his name (both One Show and D&AD) and helped Leo Burnett score Canada’s first ever D&AD Black Pencil for Digital.

Now this is press release talk, but I know Israel, so I can imagine him actually saying the following: “”What drew me to David&Goliath is the agency’s Brave philosophy and dedication to finding creative communication solutions that solve the toughest of business challenges-a vision that really resonates with me. This is also a rare opportunity for me to lead a new agency and I look forward to helping create outstanding work for a category leader like Kia.”

A word of warning to anybody thinking of sending a physical portfolio over to Israel. Be sure he’s not going to look at it while he has any lit tea-candles laying around. He will set your book on fire.