2026 Inductee

Lesley Parrott

Industry Builder, Mentor

Lesley Parrott and the work behind the work

When Lesley Parrott reflects on her long and illustrious career in advertising, it isn’t the awards she’s won or even an especially well-executed campaign that comes to mind. It’s the people she’s worked with.

A 2026 inductee in the Hall of Marketing Gold’s industry builder/mentor category, Parrott is an unabashed people person and credits her interpersonal skills with propelling her career. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, but spent much of her childhood in an idyllic seaside village. When she was fourteen, her family moved back to the city of her birth, an experience she says prepared her to work in the advertising industry.

“My father was a minister, and he believed that we should live among the people he ministered,” Parrott says. “So, we lived in a community centre, and it was fantastic. I learned to deal with any kind of character. Glaswegians are very direct, and I learned to be comfortable with anybody – to not be afraid of anyone. I learned to engage with people, and to see the best in people. And I think that helped me be a good producer.”

Parrott moved to Canada in her early twenties, with a plan to spend one year in Toronto, a year in Montreal and a year in New York City. But in Toronto, she met her eventual husband Peter about three months in. She ended up putting down roots in the city and now lives in Collingwood, Ontario.

In 1965, Parrott was offered a job by Canadian television pioneer Ray Arsenault at Breithaupt Benson. She started out typing up presentations, but was later offered the opportunity to produce ads. Once she got behind the camera, she never looked back.

“I had done some secretarial training, but I wasn’t supposed to get the job I got,” she recalls. “There were no women in production at the time.”

She brought a people-centric approach to the role, a departure from the conventions of the day. “Back in the Mad Men era, a producer would just take the script and go,” she recalls. “The creative people would not be involved at all. And creative people rightly wanted to get involved in the execution of their ideas.”

Parrott’s approach eventually became the norm, and she plied her trade at many of the biggest names in the advertising business throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s: Ogilvy & Mather, J Walter Thompson and MacLaren among them.

“I always want to find the best in people and bring it out. I have always maintained that there is a vulnerability to being really strong creatively,” Parrott says. “When you bring forward an idea, you go to a place that is not always easy to be in. I think I was able to nurture that and to understand that, but also to be a bit tough. I love the creative spirit. I love strong characters. But bravado can be a mask for insecurity. So, you make people feel safe in their creative environment. That is the way to bring out their best. I think I was known for being tough but fair.”

Parrott began her career as advertising was shifting from radio and print media ads centred on pitchmen to more creative television advertising. She worked on campaigns for big brands like Dove, Pepsi and Red Rose Tea. And she worked with big names too, like Jason Alexander, Leslie Nielsen and Johnny Cash. She also helped found the Canadian Agency Producers Association in 1986.

She won a Gold Bessie Award for the “Look What Daffodils Do” campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society. And the “Stay Alert…Stay Safe” public service announcements she produced in the 1990s are permanently imprinted in the memory of a generation of Canadian children.

But by the late 1990s, the industry was beginning to shift again, this time from television to digital media. Design and public relations were both beginning to play a larger role in how marketing got made.

By then, Parrott was a senior executive and leader of people. In 2000, she took on the SVP, director of training and development role at MacLaren McCann, and even though the media landscape was changing, her approach to working with people was as relevant as ever. She retired from the SVP role in 2003, but continued to share her knowledge and wisdom with agency staff through workshops and executive coaching for nearly two decades.

“I have some campaigns that I’m very proud of, but what I’m most proud of is developing other people,” she says. “Helping them be the best that they can be. At one point, I looked around at the agency’s creative directors, and I’d worked with them all.”

Her impact was felt widely across the agency. As Rick Davis, EVP and CCO at MacLaren McCann, once observed, “Lesley believes passionately in herself, her family, her friends, her department, her craft, her flowers, her farm and her heritage. She will stand by, and up for, anyone who she believes is being railroaded by bad judgment, lack of compassion or politics.”

The result was a culture shaped by both conviction and care. “She makes us a better creative department. She makes me a better creative director,” he summed.

Maintaining her connection with the advertising community – and giving back to it – was extremely important to Parrott. She is forever grateful for the support she received from her colleagues when she suffered an immense tragedy in her personal life decades ago.

“I owe the advertising industry so much more than it owes me,” Parrott says. “People who work in advertising are often maligned as superficial, but you need to have insight to do this work. You need to have humanity to connect with people. The industry came together for me. They held me up when I needed it the most. And it is a credit to the type of people they are.” TB