2018 Jury

Co-Chairs

Cathy Collier
CEO
OMD Canada

The break-neck pace of change in technology and media consumption has outpaced how marketers plan their communications. As CEO of OMD Canada, Cathy Collier, is at the helm of Canada’s largest and most successful media organization. By harnessing the power of advanced analytics, marketing science, and placing client’s business performance at the heart of all innovation planning – Cathy has helped redefine the role and increased the value her team brings to an incredible roster of clients.

Over the course of nearly two decades with Cossette Media, her leadership brought Cossette Media three gold Media Lions and an armful of numerous other awards. She has enjoyed continued success at OMD, working with clients such as McDonald’s, Pepsi and Rogers, placing in the top two at Media Agency of the Year for the past four of five years.

Cathy is very active in advancing the Canadian media industry. She is Board Chair of numeris, Chairs the Canadian Young Media Lions competition and has judged twice at the Cannes Media Lions festival.  

Emma Eriksson
VP Marketing
General Mills Canada

Emma Eriksson is Vice President of Marketing at General Mills Canada. With 20 years of experience, she is a respected leader and marketer with a passion for building brands that matter. Eriksson has led award-winning campaigns such as Honey Nut Cheerios' “Bring Back the Bees” and Nature Valley’s “Rediscover the Joy of Nature." and was part of the General Mills team recognized as Marketing Magazine’s Marketer of the Year in 2014. She was selected as one of Canadian Grocer’s Star Women in 2016 and won the Canadian Marketing Association’s ”Best of the Best” award in 2016 for the Bring Back the Bees campaign.

Judges

Hope Bagozzi
Marketing Officer
McDonald's Canada

Hope Bagozzi is Marketing Officer of McDonald’s Canada, and is proud to be have been with the brand for 14 years. Over the years Hope has chaired and judged numerous awards, and sees them as an important way to motivate and recognize great Canadian talent. Bagozzi and McDonald’s Canada have been proud recipients of  3 Cannes Lions, 5 CMAs including Best in Show (2013) and Marketing Magazine Marketer of the year in 2012 for the transparency campaign:  Our Food. Your Questions.  More recently McDonald’s Big Mac Bacon campaign was recognized by the Retail Council of Canada as the 2017 campaign of the year.

Karine Courtemanche
President
Touche!

Karine joined Touché! in 2003 and became President in 2010. She is managing more than 300 employees across both Montreal and Toronto offices.

Working with major clients such as Canadian Tire, FGL Sports, Mark’s, VIA Rail and Quebec Milk Producers allowed Karine to become a reference creativity and innovation for award winning campaigns.

Karine was awarded the Strategy Media Director of the Year title in 2013 and 2014 and judged major media competition such as Cannes, Cassies, Festival of Media, Prix Média Infopresse and co-chair at MIAs.

Her work was quickly recognized in many national and international competitions such as Cannes for Sport Chek and Mark’s and most recently the Campaign of the Year at Festival of Media Global and North America.

Touché! was named Strategy Media Agency of the year 3 times in the last 4 years and the Global Agency of the Year title at Festival of Media Global for the last 2 years. Touché! recently clinched the 9th spot worldwide for the most creative media agency and 3rd spot worldwide for best retail media agency according to Gunn Report.

Lauren Dineen-Duarte
Director, Public Affairs and Communications
American Express

An innovative and transformational marketer with a reputation for strategic thinking, Lauren Dineen-Duarte leads both public relations and social media strategy and advertising for American Express Canada. Since joining the company in 2008, Lauren has been responsible for developing and driving the communications strategy, content development initiatives and paid media strategy for the Canadian business.

As Director of Public Affairs & Communications for American Express Canada, Lauren oversees social media for the company and is focused on growing the brand’s digital footprint through strategic partnerships and innovative influencer relationships. Also responsible for the company’s social media advertising, Lauren has a unique role overseeing both content development and paid strategy.

Lauren spearheaded American Express Canada’s move from more traditional marketing, to a strategy that includes social media and influencer-led marketing fused with the organization’s business goals. A relationship builder with a reputation for driving a growth culture, Lauren helped shift funding to digital communications efforts while implementing a test and learn culture. This new strategy has had a demonstrable effect on the American Express Canada brand and its overall success.

With more than a decade of PR experience, Lauren is a sought-after speaker and has delivered keynotes at top industry associations including Women of Influence and the Canadian Marketing Association. Lauren is seen as a role model within American Express, co-creating and leading the Women at Amex program advocating for the advancement of women in the workplace, both within the organization, and externally.

Lauren launched her career at Aerial Communications Group, a boutique firm specializing in lifestyle and entertainment brands, before spending four years at integrated PR agency, High Road Communications. During this time, Lauren managed a range of consumer-focused accounts for such established brands including MSN, LG, Paramount, Universal, Shoppers Drug Mart, Quo Cosmetics and more.

A former blogger, Lauren has a love for all things fashion, beauty and related. When Lauren’s not strategizing about PR and social media, she’s using it: with an active presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat. Lauren lives in Toronto with her husband Romeo and her two adorable sons, Kingsley and Theodore.

Lauren holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from York University and a Post-Graduate Degree in Corporate Communications from Seneca College.

Helen Galanis
President
Initiative

As the President of Initiative Canada, Helen leads a growing team to deliver on the promise of helping brands take the initiative in culture. As a former client, Helen values diverse skill sets and has built a team of passionate experts with backgrounds in marketing, media, tech, experiential and sales.  A dedicated leader, Helen is personally involved and invested in helping clients navigate the new media landscape through cultural connections that drive meaningful business outcomes.

Stuart Garvie
CEO
GroupM

Stuart Garvie is CEO of GroupM Canada, where he oversees GroupM’s executive committee in Canada and roughly 800 employees across GroupM, Mindshare, MediaCom, Wavemaker, Essence, Xaxis and Catalyst.

Prior to rejoining GroupM in 2017, Garvie was President, Media Sales and Marketing at Bell Media, where he oversaw Bell Media’s integrated multi-platform sales force and Bell Media’s award-winning, in-house creative agency.

An industry visionary, Garvie has over 20 years of international experience in the media industry. Prior to Bell Media, Garvie served as GroupM Canada’s Chief Commercial Officer between 2013 and 2015. During this time, he established GroupM’s successful trading operations. Before moving to Canada, Garvie was based in London where he held global leadership positions at GroupM agency Maxus.

Garvie was also previously Danone’s Media Purchasing Manager for the U.K. and Ireland. Earlier in his career he also spent time at Reckitt Benckiser’s Media Manager of Northern Europe.

Garvie has a breadth of agency experience having held positions with Manning Gottlieb OMD, IDK, and Optimedia. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for thinktv (formerly the Television Bureau of Canada), a marketing and research association dedicated to the advancement of commercial television.

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Science from the University of Nottingham.

Robin Hassan
Head, Integrated Marketing & Digital Transformation
Unilever Canada

Hassan has worked for almost two decades on digital reinvention and data driven marketing. Before joining Unilever, Hassan held in leadership and innovation roles at WPP, Publicis, CanWest, Alliance Atlantis and Yahoo! Canada.

Robert Jenkyn
President
Media Experts

A recognized leader in the Canadian media landscape, Robert has a proven ability to marry client needs with agency offerings; building stronger brands and driving impressive results. His experience is both broad and deep, spanning three decades in both traditional and digital leadership. This provides him with unique perspective, a pragmatic approach and an unwavering focus on driving his customers business.

His passion and leadership embolden the team to make a bigger impression: on our clients, on our agency, and on the industry. Examples of his achievements are reflected in the strength of our client relationships and the reputation of excellence that Media Experts has built.

During his time as both VP of Digital and SVP at Media Experts, Robert was instrumental in developing, activating, and amplifying our digital practice, including the launches of our substantial Search practice as well as XPETO, our proprietary online programmatic trading desk. Now, as President, he is evolving our customer-focused model to further our mission as a data-savvy, solutions-driven, cross channel media practice, bringing the agency and our clients into the next frontier of media solutions.

Outside of Media Experts, Robert also brings experience on both the vendor and agency side, with increasingly senior roles at Excite Canada, Microsoft, and The Globe and Mail. He is currently serving as a board member for both Vividata and the ICA as well as contributing regularly to the trade press and industry panels.

Brooke Leland
SVP, Ontario & West
Cossette Media

Brooke Leland is Senior Vice President, General Manager Cossette Media and manages the Toronto and Vancouver teams. She started her media career with Cossette 19 years ago and has been pushing her clients to innovate in the world of media ever since. Brooke has earned a reputation for her innovative and award-winning media work, partnering with such clients as General Mills, Whirlpool, Coca-Cola, Nike, IKEA, TIFF and Capital One.

Brooke has been Nationally recognized with Media Innovation Awards and Atomic awards for her clients. She has also seen success Internationally, with Cannes Lions for IKEA and Nike as well as an Effie award alongside partner Leo Burnett for work done on IKEA.  She was named as a nominee from Canada to sit on the Cannes Media Jury in 2018.

Brooke is on the COMMB board developing cutting edge mobile lead media measurement platforms in outdoor advertising...and has always been a huge fan of OOH winning the People’s Choice Award for Outdoor media planner.  She is also on the Vividata board and passionate about the future of media research and insight development.

Brooke is a bold and creative thinker who inspires great work that drives great results.

Devorah Lithwick
SVP of Brand
Bell Canada

As Senior Vice President, Brand at Bell Canada, Devorah Lithwick oversees Bell’s corporate branding, advertising, digital and social, sponsorships and visual design activities including retail stores and offices. She also leads the management and direction of Bell’s external communications agencies.

Since joining Bell in 2006 as Vice President, Marketing Communications, Devorah has built high-performing teams at Bell Mobility and Virgin Mobile Canada, propelling those businesses to the top of the Canadian wireless industry. She’s led a broad spectrum of innovative product and service launches, including most recently Bell’s popular pre-paid wireless offering, Lucky Mobile and the creative campaign for Bell Let’s Talk – the country’s largest corporate initiative and globally recognized campaign aimed at ending the stigma around mental illness for Canadians.

A graduate of University of Toronto with a BA Honours in History and Philosophy, Devorah was previously Director, Marketing Communications at Telus, and prior to that Account Director at award-winning ad agency Taxi, where she led advertising campaigns for top-tier brands including Pfizer, Molson and Clearnet.

Devorah mentors Bell team members through her involvement with Women at Bell, a national employee network, and is actively engaged in industry organizations like the Canadian Marketing Association and on the board of Lime Connect, a non-profit organization that is rebranding disability through achievement.

Luke Moore
EVP, Managing Director, Media
Cundari

Luke Moore is a media strategist and business builder with 25+ years of cross-continent retail-focused advertising experience. He is a published media expert, and he possesses the unique attribute of a long history in North American media coupled with creative agency management. He has held senior positions in both media agencies and creative agencies across the country; including JWT, M2 Universal and MacLaren McCann.

The majority of Luke’s career has been retail or conversion oriented. His media experience spans financial, automotive, CPG, QSR, lottery, big box retail, entertainment and government. Some of his past clients includes some of the most prominent blue chip companies in Canada: General Motors, Toyota, CBC, OLG, WCLC, Pepsi, Wendy’s, Johnson & Johnson and Cadbury.

Luke joined the Cundari Group in February 2014 to build a new type of media company, Cundari Media Trust. This new offering is built on the pillars of transparency, customer-centric media management and innovation. Luke leads this nimble group of media specialists in a very hands-on way: acting as lead planner and negotiator on several of our key clients, including Maple Leaf Foods, The Art Gallery of Ontario and Fix Auto. Luke manages all aspects of our media business at Cundari. He is a member of the Cundari Executive Committee and the Canadian Media Director’s Council.

Deborah Neff
Vice President, Marketing Canada
Sephora

Deborah Neff is the Vice President, Marketing for Sephora Canada where she has been growing her team and developing the Sephora retail brand within the Canadian marketplace for over two years now.  Previous to Sephora, she was on the brand side in Marketing at Revlon for 10 years and before venturing into beauty, she was at General Mills for 8 years.  As a veteran marketer with various brand and retail experience, we are excited to have her join the MIA jury this year.

Bob Park
CBO
GE Appliances

Bob Park is the Chief of Brands for GE, Café, Monogram and Haier Appliances in Canada. In addition to corporate communications and branding, his responsibility encompasses public relations, digital, advertising, promotions, and training initiatives.

Drawing on more than 15 years of sales and marketing experience, including leadership roles with globally recognized home electronics and computer brands, he is a proponent of digital innovation as well as a retail execution strategist. While at Samsung, Bob was the architect for successful product launches such as large format commercial displays as well as personal laser printer technology. He most recently led the Monogram brand of luxury appliances to prominence in the Canadian market using an unprecedented ‘digital-first’ approach for that industry.

Bob holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Alberta, as well as executive certification from Princeton University.

Online Jury

Nick Bilodeau
Head of Marketing, Insurance
American Express

Regularly recognized as a leading financial services industry influencer, Nick Bilodeau is an award winning marketing executive with over 20 years of leadership experience. In his current role as Head of Marketing for Insurance at American Express in Canada, Nick is responsible for marketing activities across all channels for the insurance business. His previous work has included heading departments and marketing initiatives for organizations like Fidelity, ING Direct, and Northbridge Financial.

Nick holds an MBA from the Schulich School of Business (York University), a BA in Commerce and Information System from Western University, and has completed an executive program in Competitive Marketing Strategy at Wharton.

Monique Brosseau
SVP, Business Director
MediaCom

Monique is a passionate executive with extensive experience in general management, marketing, media strategy, account management, communications planning and business development. An integral part of MediaCom Canada’s leadership team, she is the head of the agency’s Montreal operation and is responsible for the oversight of all Quebec based clients.

Her work background in Canada and Europe for large companies in the consumer goods and service industries includes: Reitmans Canada Ltée, DDB Canada, ZenithOptimedia Canada, Nurun, Publicis, Edelman Canada, L'Oréal Canada, Raymond Chabot International and the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Canada.

Monique is a crucial driver for development and sustainability for all media planning initiatives. Having lead both agencies and marketing divisions, her experience is invaluable to the development and expansion of the MediaCom’s business and brand.

Monique is recognized for her outstanding management and problem solving skills, having led large multidisciplinary teams and managed multi-million dollar budgets. She has demonstrated leadership, strategic thinking and initiative in project delivery and has delivered superior results through customer-centric approaches and innovation and by mobilizing teams to achieve ambitious goals.

David Cairns
Director
Cairns O'Neil Strategic Media Inc.

David Cairns is a principal and director of cairns oneil strategic media inc, a Toronto based media agency launched in partnership with Sherry O’Neil in 2012.

Now in its seventh year, the agency offers senior led, full service media planning and execution, including digital expertise which represents fully a third of staff. Partnering with over 20 creative agencies, cairns oneil works with clients across numerous categories including retail, finance, association, not for profit, QSR, and packaged goods to craft business building strategies that drive ROI.

David’s former media agency, David Cairns and Company, became Carat’s first foray into English Canada when it acquired the agency. David then designed and built the Dentsu Canada media operation, bringing media planning and execution in house, and served as Communications Director prior to departing in 2011 to launch cairns oneil.

Marilyn Cresswell
Professor
Humber College

Marilyn is a proven marketing leader and a full-time Professor at Humber College with the added responsibility of leading the highly regarded Advertising Account Management program. Marilyn firmly established the Humber AdCentre an in house ad agency for the college in order to provide students with real client mandates over 10 years ago. With over 25 years of global corporate and product marketing experience, she has been a key element in building the reputation many brands.

Prior to joining Humber, Marilyn was a Director of Product Management in the software industry growing Corporate Marketing and Communications. In her own consulting company she worked to strategize and launch new products and ideas. Key customers included financial services, software and consumer products companies such as Microsoft, DuPont, Great West Life, Manulife, and MetLife.

She has worked with not-for-profit and for-profit organizations driving growth as measured by a variety of KPI’s. Marilyn has served as a judge on many occasions including the CFA awards. She has also won awards and recognition for her own innovations and for community support.

Marilyn currently serves as the Chair on the board of the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary.

In addition to a degree in Economics, Marilyn holds a postgrad diploma in management studies, as well as an MBA from McMaster University.

D'Arcy Finley
Vice President, Brand Marketing
Maple Leaf Foods

D’Arcy Finley is Vice President of Brand Marketing at Maple Leaf Foods. With 15 years of Marketing experience, D’Arcy is a respected creative and innovative leader with a passion for building and renovating loved, trusted, and purpose-led brands. He has guided award-winning campaigns across the company’s suite of brands (Maple Leaf, Schneiders, Greenfield Natural Meat Co, Prime, Natural Selections, etc.), and was part of the Maple Leaf team recognized as Marketer of the Year in 2013 by Marketing Magazine. 

Dave Gourde
Partner & VP, Media
Bleublancrouge

Dave lives and breathes media. After earning degrees in marketing and communications at McGill University and HEC Montréal, he hit the ground running at shops like Palm + Havas and Bos. Dave’s 16+ years of experience have made him an expert in the ever-evolving media landscape, where he constantly endeavours to find new solutions. And the competitive instincts he honed as a professional hockey player as a major asset when it comes to media negotiations.

Dave joined Bleublancrouge in 2012, bringing with him the unparalleled strategic vision, insight and attention to detail of a natural born leader. As partner and VP, Media, Dave hasn’t wasted any time expanding our media offering and establishing a rapidly-growing digital media service synonymous with creativity and performance. Dave works with his team to devise formidable strategies that are able to tackle the most complex problems, earning him accolades throughout the industry. As a partner, Dave oversees account management and also sits on the board of the Conseil des directeurs médiatiques du Québec (CDMQ), a non-profit organization that protects the interests of advertisers and agencies.

Tracy Jones
Managing Director
Alternator

Tracy is co-founder and employee number 1 at Alternator, the Creative Content division of Omnicom Media Group Canada, designed to bring media and creative closer together.

Prior to joining OMG, Tracy came from the Creative Agency side as a Writer, Executive Creative Director and Managing Director. Over his career, he has led and built creative departments at several traditional and digital agencies, including establishing the digital practice at Y&R Canada as a CD and ultimately as VP, Managing Director. Over his career, he has worked across virtually every category at both agencies and on the client side in both Canada and the U.S. In addition to his work in Marketing Communications, Tracy applies a lifetime passion for music to raise money for charity as a founding member of Community Soul Project.?

Martin Lechasseur
Digital Investment Lead
Dentsu Aegis Network

With more than 14 years of experience in media (xCossette, xZenith Optimedia, CARAT), Martin has forged a strong reputation in both integrated media strategy and digital buying. His ability to work in a 360 media ecosystem made him a valuable asset for some of the biggest clients, such as General Motors, The Home Depot, Loblaws and L’Oréal. In 2017, he took the lead of digital investments for the Dentsu Aegis Network in Montreal.

With a passion for the newest technologies and everything related to the data, he was one of the first to embrace the data-driven planning model instead of the traditional demographic analysis. His capacity to bring innovation and effectiveness together has been recognized several times at the Prix Media Infopresse, the Internationalist Awards, The Festival of Rome and of course, the MIAs.

On a more personal level, he has also been involved for the past 2 years with the Heart & Stroke foundation, helping them with their media visibility in Quebec. The foundation was awarded back-to-back best societal media campaign of the year at the Prix Media Infopresse.

Alexandra Panousis
President and Executive Advisor
Havas Canada

Alex Panousis is an executive at the forefront of digital media, technology and creativity. A culture leader and media/creative industry veteran, with over 20 years of experience leading high-growth and innovative and brands and companies.   Alex is an Executive Advisor to multiple start-ups, the Host of MarketingTO and the President of Havas.  She has held executive roles at the National Post, the CBC, PHD media and Leo Burnett.  She volunteers with a number of organization including TechTO and also teaches at Humber College in the advertising program.

Andeen Pitt
Vice President, Partner
Wasserman & Partners Advertising Inc

Andeen Pitt is Vice President and Partner at Wasserman + Partners.

With over 25 years of experience in media, Andeen has the unique advantage of having developed her chops within several distinct agency models: big multi-national, client-side, independent, and full-service.

Bailey Wilson
Client Partner
Facebook Canada

Bailey joined UM/IPG in October 2008 and has been an integral part of the investment team ever since. Bailey represents the new investment professional. In addition to being a master of negotiations, she is creative, business minded, and driven to deliver integrated campaigns that stand out amongst the crowd. She can lead highly-complex integrated projects while at the same time driving efficiencies across all pieces of business.

When she’s not doing her day job, she’s a blogger that has been featured in Strategy Magazine & Media In Canada for events like the NYC upfronts as well the CMDC. In 2011, she won the Strategy Next Media Star award.
Since 2016 Bailey has held the leadership role of VP Investments at Magna, overseeing the total investment strategy of UM’s parent company, IPG Mediabrands, representing over $1.5 billion in media spend.