2021 Jury

Robin Hassan
Director Integrated Marketing & Digital Transformation
Unilever Canada

Robin Hassan is Unilever Canada’s Director of Integrated Marketing & Digital Transformation, where she is a member of the Canadian Leadership team, she oversees the media and data, digital strategy, ecommerce capabilities, and in-house content studio centres of excellence. Robin’s purpose is to "Cultivate Brilliance from Digital Disruption chaos", to deliver against this she has a strong sense of curiosity and a passion for coaching talent and business partners to lean into data and technology as a way to create user experience centered services and products that provide meaningful impact for consumers and society. 

Prior to joining Unilever in 2014, Robin established her expertise as a digital transformation leader while launching several first to market and award winning programs and solutions in the multi-media publishing and broadcasting businesses while at Hollinger, CanWest, Alliance Atlantis, and Yahoo! From there, she switched to the agency side where she led Digital and Social Strategic Practices at Starcom and Mediacom where she had the opportunity to establish agency capabilities and lead strategic planning work across a wide spectrum of verticals including CPG, Consumer Electronics, Finance, Auto, and Pharma.

Kevin Johnson
CEO
GroupM

Kevin Johnson is a seasoned media professional who brought 20+ years of industry experience across agencies and categories with him when he joined MediaCom as the Chief Client Officer in 2014. Less than a year later he was appointed as CEO and since then has helped the agency grow it’s footprint outside of Media Planning & Buying to include Content Creation, Business Analytics, and most recently creating divisions that serve Sports & Entertainment and connecting with diverse communities. Since he has been in role, MediaCom has seen significant new business growth with the addition of brands like Uber, Hotels.com, Aldo, Roots, Sony, BC Lotteries, Duracell and Adidas.  

Kevin stands out as a leader in the media industry for professional success but more than that, for his commitment to actively participating and impacting the industry and world around him. He believes strongly in the importance affecting meaningful change in the community and encourages his teams and clients to do the same – which has led to significant support for a long list of charitable organizations: The Heart & Stroke Foundation, The Daily Bread Food Bank, Canadian Blood Services, Sick Kids, the Canadian Cancer Society’s Run for the Cure, and Skylark Children, Youth and Families. 

Continuing this belief on a personal level, Kevin is a dedicated community mentor in Rexdale (where he grew up), a strong supporter of Trust 15, a group that provides social and educational tools to success in society through mentorship and serves on the board of the Children’s Wish Ontario Chapter and Hot Docs International. 

A proud father of three, Neveah 12, Keenan 11, and Cali 7; Kevin is a true family man and loves nothing more than family time with a game of Trouble.

Nirmala Bahall
SVP, Business Leadership & Media Design
Cossette Media

With over 20 years strategic and operational experience leading global, cross-functional teams through multi-channel marketing initiatives, Nirmala Bahall brings a thorough understanding of client, agency, publisher and data needs and best practices. 

Having had the unique opportunity to work on all sides of the table, Nirmala’s digital marketing leadership roles started at Alliance Atlantis. She then pivoted into the world of ecommerce, CRM and data – working with household names and quickly expanding her scope beyond Canada to international assignments. 

At Dell, she led global media innovation initiatives, including the identification and roll out of Dell’s advertising tech stack from their Data Management Platform to the resulting end-to-end ecosystem. She went on to lead Walmart Media Group at Mediative where she managed the senior client relationships and overall business. From there, Nirmala headed up Edelman’s Performance & Paid Media practice across Canada, where she also served as Canada’s Co-Lead for Edelman’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives - in addition to sitting on the Global DEI Committee. Now, Nirmala has joined Cossette Media as their SVP, Business Leadership and Media Design. 

In addition to her wealth of experience, Nirmala has completed an MBA (Dean’s Honours List) from York University, and most recently completed the University of Toronto’s Artificial Intelligence Executive Primer. 

Richard Bartrem
Vice-President, Communications, Brand and Community Investment
WestJet

Richard is the Vice-President, Marketing Communications at WestJet. What does that mean, exactly? It means he gets to lead a talented and dynamic team responsible for the strategy and execution of WestJet’s internal and external communications, social media, marketing, sponsorship, community investment and creative services. So, in actuality he does very little but is supported by people who do a lot, very well.

Prior to joining WestJet in 2005 as Director, Brand and Communications, Richard began his career selling soap for Unilever in 1988 and, over the next twelve years, held a variety of sales and marketing positions in Montréal, Halifax, Calgary and Toronto. Richard left Unilever in 2000 having amassed more than enough soap for the remainder of his natural life and spent five years working for Astral Media in television in Toronto where he was responsible for the marketing strategy for The Movie Network and Mpix brands. Recognizing that television adds ten pounds, he made the jump to the airline industry where he was under the impression that you weigh less at altitude.

A native of Montréal, Richard now resides in Calgary with his wife and has two children in university.

Bethanie Butcher
Vice President, Brand Operations and Analytics & Insights
Procter & Gamble

Bethanie leads Brand Operations, Analytics & Insights for the Canadian Market Operations Organization. These organizations are responsible for overseeing all communications and media planning for the Canadian organization as well as driving Consumer and Market Analytics insights into core business decisions.
Bethanie is an expert home cook whose dinners routinely sell for over $5,000 at local charity auctions. She’s also a certified sommelier and is studying to get her Diploma in wine, an honour fewer than 10,000 people have achieved globally. She’s also an avid runner.

Andrea Danovitch
AVP Marketing and Brand
Interac

Andrea Danovitch is a seasoned marketing professional with over 25 years of combined experience in financial services and payments.  She also has extensive knowledge and experience in brand strategy.

She has been a driving force behind the evolution of the Interac brand.  While Interac services have been an integral part of Canadian consumers’ and business’ daily lives, there was an imperative to improve brand awareness, relevance and motivation in a time of significant change in the payments landscape.  During her time at this organization Andrea relaunched the Interac brand, notably with the award-winning Be In The Black platform, recognized for its sustained success and brand building efforts. 

She has continued to evolve the platform with the recent Own Your World campaigns to guide the company’s stakeholders towards new technology-based payment solutions.

In addition to her work on the brand, Andrea also oversees marketing campaigns and activities for the full suite of the company’s product offerings.  She was recognized as a 2015 Marketer of the Year.

Andrea holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing from Concordia University.  She has a passion for bringing brands to life through compelling storytelling and engaging creative.

Ira Dubinsky
Marketing Director
KFC Canada

Originally from Montreal, Ira is a marketing and digital leader with global experience in retail, packaged goods and foodservice. He started his first business building websites in the 90s and then held marketing leadership roles with Unilever and Marks & Spencer before joining YUM! In 2019. Ira recently relocated back to Canada and took up the role of Marketing Director for KFC Canada. Ira holds an MBA from London Business School and lives in Toronto with his partner and two kids.

Richard Ivey
Chief Procurement Officer
Media Experts

In his role as Chief Procurement Officer, Richard is responsible for all media investments and
relationships with media partners. He ensures that clients consistently enjoy superior media value by institutionalizing bespoke trading strategies, procedures, and tactics that maximize customization, innovation, and advertising effectiveness across all media channels from traditional, digital and emerging areas. As the strategic lead for clients such as Bell, Michael Hill, Planet Fitness, Pizza Pizza, Interac, and Kayak/Open Table, Richard draws on his unique consumer insight skills, incisive analytical capabilities, and contagious enthusiasm to develop and deliver custom designed media plans.

Richard’s talent in bringing innovative and strategic direction to Media Experts’ clients has been finely tuned over a 30-year career of extensive cross-platform media buying and planning experience. He holds a degree in advertising and media from Toronto’s Humber College, and has completed a program in negotiation skills through Harvard University. Richard spins his natural leadership and industry know-how into gold, winning hardware at the Media Innovation Awards for his work leading Bell and Interac.

Samantha Kelley
Managing Director Strategy
Touche!

With nearly 20 years of experience in the media industry, Samantha has devoted the majority of her career to retail accounts. Her unique expertise has serviced some of the most prestigious national clients: Canadian Tire, Sport Chek/Sports Experts, Metro Inc., Loblaws Corp Ltd., Marks/l’Équipeur and many more. While navigating through a media landscape in constant evolution, Samantha is always looking for new ways to create new, unconventional opportunities for her clients. She injects innovation into the core of all her ideas and recommendations. 

Samantha’s rapid rise to the top was no small feat: within seven years, she was promoted four times, joining senior management at age 32.  Samantha possesses a unique combination of agility, drive, focus, and people skills to coordinate campaigns across national and international offices.  Her ground-breaking work has been recognized many times over by her peers, including in 30 international awards and 2 Cannes Lions.

Kevin Kivi
EVP & General Manager
Horizon Media Canada

Kevin brings more than 20 years’ advertising communications expertise, spanning two continents: Australia and North America.  He was appointed as lead for Horizon Media Canada in 2017, responsible for heading up both the office and overall expansion into Canada.  He brings a wealth of experience in developing & nurturing strong teams, award winning work, and a flawless track record in creating trusted partnerships with clients, partner agencies, his staff, and the media community. Kevin is an extremely passionate leader whose relentless focus on culture and team dynamics has led to highly engaged and collaborative teams and exceptional product output for stakeholders and clients.  He is known in the industry for his big laugh, lateral thinking, and his ability to deliver outcome-focused work, on time and with high regard for his teams.

Richard McLeod
VP, GM
Foot Locker Canada

Richard McLeod is a senior-level executive with 16 years of international sales and luxury marketing experience. He joined Foot Locker, Inc. in 2019 as the Vice President of U.S. Marketing for Footaction. After 10 short months, McLeod was promoted to lead marketing for the company’s namesake as the Vice President of North America Marketing for Foot Locker. In November 2020, McLeod stepped into his current role, to lead the Canadian business as the Vice President and General Manager of Foot Locker Canada. McLeod also serves as part of Foot Locker, Inc.’s Global Diversity & Inclusion Council. 

McLeod’s extensive knowledge within Wine & Spirits, a highly complex and lifestyle driven industry, has afforded him the opportunity to lead a multitude of strategic initiatives encompassing project management, strategic planning, talent relations, national and global sponsorship, revenue negotiation, global experiential development, execution and evaluation of award-winning marketing campaigns. 

Prior to joining Foot Locker, Inc., McLeod held senior-level marketing positions at several companies in the Wine & Spirits industry. Most notably, his 11-year tenure at Bacardi USA where he successfully led the growth of multiple brands including Grey Goose, Bombay Sapphire and D’usse Cognac, a joint venture with Jay-Z.  

McLeod’s demonstrated ability to analyze brand needs, create unique solutions designed to drive consumer engagement and develop high-performing teams have proven to be his greatest assets. In both 2017 and 2018, he was awarded the LVMH President’s award for outstanding achievement in marketing.  

McLeod holds an honors degree in sports Science & Business Management from Brunel University in London, England. He lives in N.J. with his wife and two children and enjoys playing basketball or watching movies in his spare time. 

Sherry O'Neil
Partner
Cairns O'Neil

Sherry O'Neil, co owner of cairns oneil strategic media inc. is a long time veteran of the media industry.  Sherry spent much of her career with OMD leading major businesses and driving the OMG agency macro deals.  Sherry also dabbled on the vendor side of media leading strategic planning for Astral Radio English Markets along with the role of General Manager of the Toronto cluster which included Virgin 99.9, Newstalk 1010 and helped launch boom 97.3. 

For 10 years Sherry spends her time working with a team of media professionals who deliver insightful media solutions that drive their client’s business results.  The brand promise for cairns oneil is Results. Driven. which they live in everything they do.  The agency supports over 30 brands and have a staff of + 35 people.  The reputation they are all proud of at cairns oneil is to be an excellent partner to all of our clients, creative agencies and media vendors.  This attitude allows them to lead the industry in embracing new technology and taking measured risk with our clients.  cairns oneil is Results. Driven

Alexandra Panousis
CEO
Dentsu Media

Alex Panousis is the CEO and Chair of Dentsu Media, overseeing 3 incredible brands Carat, Dentsu X and iProspect, and leading over 400 people in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.  Alex is the host and community director for MarketingTO, a tech and digital forum in Toronto and a professor at Humber College in the media and advertising program.   With over 20 years of experience Alex has worked on all sides of marketing and communication with CPG marketing,  creative agency, sales, tech and media experience.   She has judged at every major award show in North America and is a student of disruptive innovation.  Alex also is a director with NABS, the Jorgen Ballet, the City of Toronto Parks and the organization After Me Too.

Mike Bascom
Sr. Director Marketing, Above Core
Labatt Breweries of Canada

Experienced leader with a proven track record of consistently delivering stretch business results. Extensive multi-functional experience with expertise in consumer and customer marketing, sales management, strategic planning, change management and people management.

Derek Bhopalsingh
Executive Vice President, Platform Media
Publicis

Derek Bhopalsingh is a leader in the Canadian digital marketing landscape. He calls Publicis Media Canada home, overseeing programmatic, search, social and eCommerce as EVP of Platform Media for the holding company.  With almost two decades of experience, Derek knows how to build high performing teams and how to drive excellent business outcomes for his clients. 

He is also known for his work through the IAB, representing the Canadian agency community as a member of the board of directors.   He participates regularly in mentorship initiatives and is a regular speaker at industry events.

Previously, Derek has held senior roles in both agencies and holding companies - focusing on elevating digital, data and analytics.  He is a product of both York University and Georgian College.

Francesca Cardarelli
Senior Director, Marketing Planning & Digital Strategy
McDonald's Canada

Francesca Cardarelli is a senior marketing leader with experience in Quick Service Restaurants, CPG & Health and Wellness.

Francesca has established herself as a strong brand builder & change maker wherever she goes, balancing top and bottom-line results and delighting customers along the way. She has had the honour to influence iconic brands across PepsiCo Foods, Starbucks, Jamieson Vitamins and most recently joined McDonald’s Canada to lead their Digital Strategy & Marketing Planning team.

Leading teams in brand strategy, marketing operations, product management, insights & analytics, marketing communications, loyalty marketing, Francesca is focused on building her team while ‘achieving the impossible’ on the business through bold and aspirational thinking.

Francesca is currently focused on enhancing digital experiences for guests across Canada and is motivated by the ever-changing landscape within digital innovation and modern marketing.

Veronica Castillo
VP Marketing, Freshii
Freshii

Veronica Castillo is VP of marketing for Freshii, known for its fresh, veggie-filled bowls, salads, burritos, and most recently Tacos. Veronica came to Freshii from the land of nacho cheese sauce and taco shells at Taco Bell, where she spent seven years leading the business.

Born and raised in Mexico, Veronica moved to Canada over 15 years ago and has since settled into life as a proud Canadian. Before entering the quick-service restaurant industry, Veronica worked for a few consumer-packaged goods organizations such as Ferrero Group, ConAgra, and Maple Leaf Foods which fostered her driving-for-results mindset and gave her experience leading and collaborating with high-performance, cross-functional teams. This, along with her natural desire to constantly challenge the status quo, allowed her to achieve the unprecedented turnaround of Taco Bell in Canada delivering 7 years of growth. Now at Freshii, she leads an amazing and super talented team overseeing brand and performance marketing, menu innovation, CRM/loyalty, and most recently CPG.

Always looking to grow both personally and professionally, Veronica holds MBA at the University of Liverpool and enjoys working out, spending time at the cottage, real estate, and home renovations 

Sue Lynne Cha
Vice-President of Integrated Marketing Experiences, North America
Coca-Cola

Sue Lynne Cha is Vice-President of Integrated Marketing Experiences, North America for The Coca-Cola Company. She leads a talented, passionate and dynamic team responsible for End-to-End Connections & Media, Assets, Influencers & Partnerships, Design & Production, Digital Experiences, Connected Commerce and Content Activation (Shopper & Social). Together, her team is focused on creating  end-to-end consumers experiences to deliver on the brand’s ambitions for over 40 brands including Coca-Cola, Sprite, smartwater, vitaminwater, Minute Mail & Simply for the United States and in Canada.

Through her 20 year career, Cha led multiple business units, drove several business turn arounds, led long term strategies, innovation, and marketing plans on iconic brands, including Coca-Cola, Tide & Pampers, and held a variety of leadership positions across marketing, commercial, shopper marketing and sales. Through her career, Cha also led organizational efforts to promote diversity.

Cha is originally from Montreal, where she graduated from HEC Montreal Business School, she also lived in Toronto and now lives in Atlanta with her family. 

Tracey Cooke
SVP Head of Marketing & Commercialization
Nestle

Tracey is a strategic and creative leader with a passion for problem solving, building brands and driving sustainable growth. She has a track record of nurturing strong teams, orchestrating organizational change, and developing emerging in-house practices to deliver consumer centricity @ the core. 

Tracey Cooke is currently the Head of Marketing and Commercialization at Nestle Canada, and Leader of the Centre for Marketing Excellence, a multidisciplinary team focused on driving consumer first thinking, accelerating change and capability building in marketing, including Consumer Insights & Strategy, eBusiness, Consumer Engagement and Experience (including our in house Consumer Engagement Service team, internal Community Management, Content, Media), Category Analytics, Packaging, and Agency/Tech Partnerships.  She is a member of the Nestlé Business Executive Team.

Prior to joining Nestlé Canada, Tracey worked in various communication, advertising and leadership roles at a number of agencies, including: the social purpose startup Public Inc (Director, Creative & Experience), her own consultancy twostories (Partner, Creative Director & Strategy Lead), MacLaren McCann (Vice President, Creative Director) and DDB Health & Lifestyle (Senior Copywriter).

Infinitely curious and a perpetual learner, Tracey started in the world of science with a degree in Genetics and Microbiology, roles in pharma, a world renown science centre and emerging environmental technologies before she started a career in advertising – leveraging diversity of thought & experiences as a core philosophy for success.

Tracey has been a board member of the ACA (Association of Canadian Advertisers) for 4 years.

Erica Kokiw
EVP of Digital
UM Canada

With a skillset that spans across strategy, communications planning, media investment, client service and digital integration, Erica brings a wealth of knowledge to her role at UM. As Executive Vice President, Digital, Erica is responsible for innovation and thought leadership across all of UM’s client base. Her focus leans on driving new product innovations, delivering value for clients through both global and local media partnerships, and ensuring best-in-class digital strategies are developed and successfully executed. With an unmatched enthusiasm for the industry, Erica takes time to train and mentor others to ensure the UM teams are up to date on the latest digital issues and trends.
When it comes to solving client business challenges, Erica dreams big, creating dynamic action plans. Always eager to learn, she enjoys that her work allows her to get involved across all industry client categories. She uses this knowledge base to create individualized solutions that deliver stellar client outcomes. Prior to joining UM Canada, Erica spent six years living in Sydney, Australia, where she held various media and digital roles.

Janice Liu
Senior Vice President & GM
Magnet Consulting

Janice Liu, SVP & General Manager of Magnet Consultancy, a data and technology consulting firm under the Vision 7 holding company.

Janice is an experienced digital marketer and entrepreneur who, through her innate leadership qualities and passion projects, works to inspire a new generation of women in science engineering technology and mathematics (STEM). Her leadership of Magnet enables smarter, more impactful advertising and marketing decisions through market-leading consulting services and proprietary data solutions.

Janice has led and managed large cross-functional teams to achieve business objectives on both the agency and brand side as well as at the helm of her own start-ups. 

Previously, at Cossette Media (another Vision 7 company) Janice led digital and technology strategy for all clients including those in Financial services, Telecommunications, eCommerce, and Cannabis. The combination of her unique expertise in performance and acquisition programs and her ability to leverage digital interactions within a personalized, customer-centric experience are key in driving sales and brand building strategies for established companies and new entrants alike.

An entrepreneur at her core, Janice recently launched a start-up called Retreat, a demand-generation technology solution that allows customers to book last minute salon and spa appointments. The platform leverages business intelligence, via machine learning, in order to enable the service providers to optimize their inventory. Retreat is her second business venture; she launched her first e-commerce business while working in the fashion wholesale industry in 2011, a time when e-commerce was only beginning to flourish and make strides in Canada and the United States. 

She is thoroughly committed to advocating for women in STEM and has taken on an active role as co-organizer of Filling the Gap, a conference that aims to help young women acquire new skills and empower them to apply them in both their personal and professional lives.

Sean McConnell
Managing Director
The Media Kitchen

Sean is an experienced marketer with success in building brands and driving growth spanning across a wide spectrum of brands & categories including: Government, Commerce, B2B, Tech, CPG, FI, Retail and many more. He brings a unique perspective towards media, coming from a performance media background and transitioning into a well rounded 360 marketer allows him to impact all aspects of the consumer journey for his clients.

He currently sits on the IAB Search & Social committees. Prior to joining MK, he worked at Publicis Media & GroupM Canada.

Sean leads the Media Kitchen brand across Canada.

Kristie Painting
CEO
Wavemaker

Kristie Painting is currently the CEO of Wavemaker Canada. She has over 20 years of experience in media and technology and comes to Wavemaker from her most recent role at Bell Media, where she oversaw all local and national digital ad sales, as well as leading the development of Bell Media’s Advanced TV capabilities. Before that Kristie spearheaded revenue growth for the North American mobile couponing app, Checkout 51, leading to its acquisition by News Corp in 2015. She was a founding executive at Olive Media, where she led sales from 2006-2013, and has also held digital sales roles a both Yahoo Canada and Doubleclick Canada.

Cheryl Radisa
VP of Marketing
SkipTheDishes

Alexandre Simard
AVP, Advertising Technology
Omnicom Media Group

Alexandre has climbed the ladder over the last 12 years from his beginnings as an assistant strategist to overseeing a team of twenty analysts based in Montreal and Toronto. His professional path is defined by creating new business units and lifting digital expertise across strategy teams, marketing science experts and campaign activation specialists.
As Director of Marketing Science, he has contributed to the development of digital expertise such as attribution and automation of reports within the OMG group, and his team has been recognized throughout the network for their most advanced skills. His leadership was put on display when he took on the mandate to launch the Montreal office for Hearts & Science and manage growth over years, even amid the 2020 pandemic.
With his unique vision and flair for breaking down complex ideas into simple terms, Alexandre helps keep his agency at the forefront of thinking on approaches to data. Truly multidisciplinary expertise empowers Alexandre to take on whatever challenge is thrown at him.

Scott Stewart
General Manager
Glassroom

Scott Stewart is a leader in the Canadian media industry and General Manager of Glassroom, where he heads up operations for the Toronto office and is a member of the Humanise leadership team. Currently focused on growing the Glassroom brand in English Canada, Scott brings 20 years of industry experience to the position and has worked with many of Canada’s top advertisers in a host of senior strategy and agency executive roles over the past two decades. Scott has served on many industry committees, councils and award juries over the span of his career and has been recognized for his work in many national and international award shows including MIA’s, Cannes Media Lions, and Festival of Media Global Awards.

Noah Vardon
President
Havas Canada

A seasoned agency leader, Noah has spearheaded award-winning media strategy and digital transformation for many of the top brands in Canada. He also has experience managing international agency teams across NA, Asia and EMEA. Prior to joining Havas Media Group as President, Noah led one of the largest media teams in Canada for TELUS and has been part of the senior leadership teams at Initiative and Cossette Media. 

Media Creativity & Science is where Noah has pioneered many firsts for Canada and the expansion of media disciplines has distinguished his career, with Vardon adding many first-to-market digital, analytics, content, and project management agency roles and capabilities.

Melissa Williams
Sr Director, Media
CIBC

Melissa Williams is a Senior Director, Media responsible for media investment decisions across CIBC’s key business priorities.  She has been a key driver in ensuring CIBC continues to adapt to the changing media landscape with a strong focus on media performance measurement, expanding in-house digital capabilities & testing new media solutions.  Prior to CIBC, Melissa worked agency-side for leading advertisers such as Labatt, Microsoft & General Motors