Meet Our Judges

Kenneth Gamage
Head of Marketing Applied Science & Intelligence
General Motors Acceptance Corp GMAC

Subtej Nijjar
Chief Strategy Officer
Cossette

With 20+ years in the business, Subtej (Sub) has an unparalleled track record as one of Canada’s leading strategic minds, helping household brands such as Domino’s, IKEA, Best Buy, Molson Coors, Unilever, and American Express innovate and strengthen their business positioning and value.

A true innovator, Sub served as CMO at Shiftsmart where he contributed to building the company’s brand and communications B2B and B2C strategy. Working in partnership with the company’s newly formed leadership team, he also helped Shiftsmart grow its customer base to two million users. Prior to Shiftsmart, Sub was key in launching Coinberry as the company’s first-ever CMO, and he served as President of Mosaic North America, driving multiple lines of business for some of the top Fortune 500 companies in North America.

In 2012, Sub founded the integrated creative agency Union, leading the agency through eight years of significant growth. Before founding Union, he led the Canadian operations of CP+B, first in the dual role of EVP, Group Director Cultural and Business Insights, and later as agency President.

Sub has been celebrated as an industry visionary from the very beginning of his career. In 2005, he was recognized as one of Marketing Magazine’s “Ones to Watch,” an award that celebrates Canada’s brightest minds under the age of 30. Since then, he has used his experience and business insight to help his agencies win over 175 creative awards and honours, including multiple Cannes Lions, One Show Pencils, and a Grand Effie. He has also served as a juror for multiple award shows, including the Effie Awards, the Marketing Awards and the Media Innovation Awards.

Elliott Altilia
Group Strategy Director
Wieden+Kennedy

Jennifer Bell
SVP, Strategy
Bensimon Byrne

Graham Candy
Partner & Chief Strategy Officer
Angry Butterfly

Jennifer Dobbs
VP, Marketing, Stellantis Canada

Joshua Hansen
Chief Strategy Officer
McCann

As a Toronto-based strategist, Josh has 20 years of experience helping brands find new futures.
Prior to joining McCann, he worked at several independent and network shops, including Sid
Lee, Leo Burnett, and TBWA\ and Union. Stints outside of advertising (and strategy) have found
him in fintech as creative director, writing and editing the contemporary art publication Boiler, and a partner in the Toronto Flower Market.

His work has been recognized in the CMAs, One Show, D&AD, the Clios, Cannes, and the
Effies.

Tanya Kreinin
Chief Marketing Officer
University of Toronto

Tanya Kreinin is an enterprise-level brand, marketing and strategic communications leader who believes bold ideas, grounded in insight and strategy, have the power to shape culture and drive meaningful growth.

With more than 25 years of executive experience across public and private sectors, she brings a rare blend of creative instinct, strategic rigor, and operational leadership.

As Chief Marketing Officer at the University of Toronto, one of the world’s leading academic and research institutions, she leads global brand, marketing, advancement communications, and reputation strategy across a complex, multi-stakeholder environment. Over the past decade, she built the university’s first enterprise-wide brand platform from the ground up and established a high-performing, award-winning in-house agency model that integrates creativity, data, and institutional purpose. She also leads all Advancement Communications and Marketing for the university’s historic 4-billion-dollar fundraising campaign, the largest in Canadian history, with more than 60 % of the goal raised to date in record time.

Earlier in her career, Tanya held senior leadership roles in global agencies and consulting firms, advising organizations across healthcare, financial services, aviation, entertainment, telecom, retail, government, and nonprofit sectors. She has led campaigns recognized by Cannes Lions, Clio Awards, Effies, CMA, IABC, CASE, CCAE and the American Marketing Association. A frequent industry speaker, mentor, and award judge, Tanya is passionate about work that is not only strategically sound but emotionally resonant, culturally relevant, and creatively brave.

Ola Machnowski
VP of Marketing, Cheese and Tablespreads
Lactalis Canada

Ola is currently the VP Marketing, Demand Generation at SharkNinja Canada where she leads a the local marketing team and tactics across all consumer touchpoints.  In her role, she is tasked with driving weekly sales performance leveraging a social first marketing flywheel to drive awareness, engagement and ultimately conversion.  She is a seasoned business and marketing leader with over 15 years of experience across multiple functions (marketing, sales, eCom) and consumer packaged goods organizations including Hershey Canada, Unilever & GlaxoSmithKline.  Ola’s passions lie in developing the next generation of marketing leaders through business plans that ‘dream big’ but are also grounded in business realities.   

She is most known for her ability to build genuine connections across the organization and rise to any challenge with a signature style of flexing business savviness and a great sense of humour.  In her spare time she can be found exploring nature with her husband, 2 boys and aussie-doodle, or at the keys of a piano working on her next tune.

Malcolm McLean
President, Chief Strategy Officer
Mackie Biernacki

After completing the International MBA program at Schulich with a specialty in Russia and Eastern Europe, Malcolm worked for several years in Germany before returning to Canada to accept a position with Unilever. Motivated by his interest in insight, perception, and the behaviour of brands, he made the decision to focus on strategic planning and decided to cross over to the Agency side of the business. After making contributions at some of Canada’s leading agencies, including BBDO, Cossette, Lowe Roche, TBWA, and Grey Canada, he joined Cundari to invigorate and innovate Cundari’s strategic offering.

During his career, Malcolm has been engaged as the strategic lead for Canada on some of the world’s most famous brands, including Absolut, Apple, Diageo, GSK, Guinness, HSBC, Mars, and P&G, and has led strategic initiatives across North America and in Europe including a new country brand strategy he recently presented to the President of Armenia. Malcolm has developed and introduced a new proprietary planning methodology for Cundari, and is presently providing strategic oversight on all of Cundari’s Clients including BMW Canada, Meridian, Jamieson, Canada Bread, and Maple Lead Foods. He’s had the privilege to work with a variety of not-for-profit organizations including CBCF, the Salvation Army, Special Olympics, Moms Demand Action for Gun Control in America, and notably the Missing Children’s Society of Canada, which has won numerous awards including several Lions at Cannes and the Grand Prix at the 2014 Cassies.

Malcolm speaks four languages, is a proud Maritimer, a slave to his dogs, and has never met a sommelier he didn’t like.

Jeremiah McNama
Executive Creative Director
TBWA

Patrick O'Donovan
Director & Head of Marketing
Wendy's

Patrick has a love affair with this industry having now 26+ years of brand building in his court. Working across some of Canada’s most awarded agencies and with some of the country’s most creative minds, he has led his clients and team members to many successful achievements and managed to have a great time along the way.  

Most recently making the shift client-side, Patrick now heads up marketing for Wendy’s Canada, a brand he has been close to for nearly 10 years, and he couldn’t be more excited to bring his focused approach to brand building to one of Canada’s favorite brands.

Amanda Shuchat
Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Heads+Tales

Amanda Shuchat is a two-time founder and category-defining communications
entrepreneur, and Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Heads+Tales, one of Canada’s fastest-growing challenger agencies.

Launched in 2023 alongside Katie Muir, Heads+Tales was built to disrupt the antiquated agency model with a talent-first philosophy and a proprietary culture-hacking methodology designed for how brands win today. In just three years, the agency has experienced unprecedented growth and was recently named Canadian Agency of the Year by PR Net Next Gen.

Known for helping brands move at the speed of culture, Heads+Tales partners with some of Canada’s and the world’s most influential companies, including Canada Goose, Endy, Campari, Kraft Heinz and more - delivering integrated, earned-first campaigns that drive both relevance and results.

Prior to Heads+Tales, Amanda founded Middle Child, a three-time Strategy Gold PR Agency of the Year. During her tenure, the agency more than quadrupled in size and earned a reputation for modernizing the traditional PR model through its culture-driven approach.

A mother to Oliver, Violet and beloved pup Brady, Amanda is passionate about building businesses that empower the next generation of talent to harness and unleash their full potential.

Marilyne Alie
Chief Strategy Officer
Touché!

As Chief Strategy Officer at Touché!, Marilyne is responsible for shaping and elevating the agency’s strategic product and market point of view. She leads the development of data-driven, insight-led strategies that connect media, creativity, and business outcomes, ensuring clients benefit from future-ready approaches that anticipate market shifts rather than simply react to them. Previously a Client Business Lead on major accounts and, most recently, Man

Nuno Bamberg
SVP, Brand & Marketing
Sleep Country

Nuno Bamberg is a business builder and brand strategist who has helped reshape some of Canada’s most recognizable companies. As Senior Vice President of Brand and Marketing at Sleep Country Canada, he oversees the company’s full multi-brand portfolio, which includes Sleep Country, Dormez-vous, Casper, Endy, Silk and Snow, Bloom, The Rest, Bed Bath and Beyond Canada, and Simba. His work centres on building an insight-led, modern marketing engine that strengthens customer connection and positions the organization for sustainable growth.

Nuno has more than twenty years of experience across brand strategy, marketing, creative leadership, and commercial management. His career began in creative writing before moving into business leadership roles, where he helped guide and grow some of North America’s most successful brands.

This combination of creative grounding and commercial accountability shaped his ability to simplify complexity, integrate teams, and deliver work that consistently drives performance.

At Publicis Groupe Canada, after nearly a decade, Nuno spent his final three years building and leading The Pub, the company’s content and creative production division.

During this time, The Pub became one of the agency’s key growth engines and produced high-impact work for clients including Jeep, Nintendo, Pfizer, Rogers, WestJet, Canadian Tire, The Home Depot, and Canada Post.

His leadership focused on building capability, strengthening integration, and elevating
creative and strategic standards.

Under his leadership at Sleep Country, the company achieved major national recognition, winning 2025 Brand of the Year from Strategy Magazine.

This milestone marked a breakthrough moment, taking a more than thirty-year-old retailer that had never appeared in the rankings and elevating it straight to the top in its first year on the role. The recognition reflected the company’s transformation into a modern, culturally relevant brand with renewed voice, ambition, and momentum.

Today, Nuno is known for pairing commercial clarity with people-first leadership. He remains focused on developing strong teams, raising the standard of modern marketing in Canada, and building brands that create meaningful connections and long-term value.

Stacey Biggar
Head of Sales Planning
Mondelez

With over 15 years of leadership experience in the FMCG industry, Stacey has a proven track record of delivering double-digit revenue, profit growth and market share gains for some of the most beloved snack brands in Canada.  Her real magic is in the development of high performing teams, balancing the business demands with individual growth journeys to create a passionate and engaged team. This also extends to partners and agencies, to help create consumer-centric, omni-channel, innovative strategies and campaigns.

Tracey Cooke
CMO, 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 CMO. SVP, 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, Agency/Tech Partnerships and the newly added accountability of Digital Transformation across the Enterprise. She is a member of the Nestlé Canada Business Executive Team. She first joined Nestle as a Communication Director and was responsible for helping transform Nestle from its digital nascency (in marketing) to a leading centre in the global network. Currently, she is an active  executive core member of the Nestle Sustainability Steering Committee, Nestle Canada DEI Steering Committee, and Sponsor of the DEI Marketing Stream.

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 (Founding Partner, Chief Creative Officer &; Strategy Lead), 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 Molecular 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 over 6 years, is a McKinsey CMO Alumni, and Star Woman in Grocery 2023 Senior Leader award recipient.

She has also been a Sr Judge and Co-chair for a number of advertising and Marketing awards including the Effies, CMAs, SIAs, and Marketing legends, while continuing to provide her perspective on numerous panels, locally and Globally.

Dedicated to mentoring emerging talent in marketing and advertising, she believes in building powerful workplaces where empathy, vulnerability and belonging are key to commercial success.

Sarah Crabbe
President
Agnostic

Known for her natural leadership style, award winning brand building approach and ability to develop work that works, for clients across Canada, Sarah Crabbe has over 20 years’ experience in providing senior strategic counsel to a large number of global brands.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Sarah has provided counsel for some of North America’s leading brands and has led agency teams to Strategy Agency of the Year top 3 placements in consecutive years.

Prior to starting Agnostic 6 years ago, Sarah has held partnership roles in global and local agencies in Toronto, London, and Ireland. Sarah has built Agnostic into one of Canada’s fastest growing companies known for their Better Thinking, Better Results ethos.

Sarah is passionate about delivering creativity in each engagement and believes agencies only do brave work when they have truly brave clients.

An Irish native, Sarah has lived all over the world, including New York and Jamaica and currently lives in Toronto with husband Rob and their two children.

Christine Cruz-Clarke
General Manager
Unilever

Christine CruzClarke is a consumer-first commercial leader with more than 20 years of experience building and scaling beloved brands across global markets. She currently serves as the General Manager, Head of Beauty & Wellbeing with Unilever Canada, bringing a deep passion for how brands shape identity, confidence, and the rituals that support long-term wellbeing.

Christine previously served as Vice President, Head of Global Marketing Excellence at Kraft Heinz, where she partnered with teams worldwide to elevate marketing capabilities and lead transformation initiatives focused on media and creative effectiveness. Before that, she was CEO of Balzac’s Coffee, doubling the company’s growth by expanding into retail and restoring profitability through disciplined operational leadership.

Prior to returning to the Canadian market in 2021, Christine led the UK Chocolate & Seasonal Portfolio at Mars and served as European Portfolio Strategy Director for Mars Petcare.

Renowned for combining large company discipline with entrepreneurial agility, Christine is a proven brand builder, change agent, and values-led leader who creates energized, high-performing teams.

Lori Davison
Chief Strategy Officer
Diamond

Lori Davison is Chief Strategy Officer at Diamond in Toronto, where she leads a multi-disciplinary team of strategists with expertise spanning brand, digital, social, PR and sponsorship strategy.   

Prior to joining Diamond, Lori spent the last decade client-side most recently as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at the Royal Ontario Museum. Prior to ROM, Lori served for six years as Head of Brand Strategy at SickKids Foundation in Toronto, Canada.  At SickKids, Lori led the visioning and development of the groundbreaking SickKidsVS brand platform which succeeded in driving $1.5 Billion in fundraising revenue for the hospital.

Lori is a recognized leader in the Canadian advertising industry.  She honed her skills agency-side in leadership roles at BBDO and Leo Burnett Toronto.  She is a known champion of compelling creative ideas with work awarded in every major advertising show, including a career total of 20+ Cannes Lions among which is Canada’s first and only Black Lion for Advertising Effectiveness as well as 2 shortlists for Grand Prix Lions.  

Lori was named Canada’s 2017 Marketer of the Year by the Canadian Marketing Association and 2018 Top Marketer of the Year by Strategy Magazine.

Rami Dudin
Head of Strategy
Courage

James Lachno
Head of Strategy
We Are Social

James is a seasoned strategy leader, pioneering agency team builder and sometime dank meme conoisseur. He started his career as a music journalist for national newspapers in the UK before swapping sparkling copy for consumer insights back in the mid 2010s, and he loves to bring the art of storytelling to strategic narratives. After several years at M&C Saatchi in London, he moved to Canada in 2018 and spent the next 6 years building Edelman Canada's social & content team into a thriving department. He joined We Are Social as head of strategy in 2024 and launched the Canadian WAS Sport division in 2025. 

Christine Maw
Chief Strategy Officer
VML

With 20 years as a strategist, Christine is innately curious about people and what motivates them, and the role of culture in shaping brands in a complex world.

Christine joined Taxi in 2013, and heads-up the strategy team, leading a passionate group of brand builders.

She has a proven track record in helping grow world-class brands, including Audi, Fido, Canadian Tire, Leon’s, Kraft Heinz, Boston Pizza, Koodo, Nissan, Visa, Mars, Bell, Coca-Cola and Pfizer.  She’s worked at a variety of leading agencies, including Cossette, ZiG and TBWA\Toronto.

Never satisfied with the status quo, Christine is the restless type who always doubts conventions to help create the exceptional.

Lindsay Page
EVP, Head of Strategy
Citizen Relations

Jacynthe Prince
Senior Director, Brand Marketing
RONA

Jacynthe Prince is Senior Director, Brand Marketing at RONA.

She is the leader behind the nationwide renaissance of the RONA brand. Along with her team and agency partners, she has been instrumental in creating major brand platforms and cultural moments, including the Quebec cultural phenomenon Mike chez RONA, the Quebec reality TV series Le Grand Chantier RONA, and the Build it Right. Build it RONA platform in English Canada.

With 20 years of experience on both the agency and client sides in Canada and the United States, Jacynthe now leads one of the largest brand marketing teams in Canada. She oversees all aspects of RONA’s brand strategy and expression, including marketing research, design, advertising, media, social media and influencer marketing, sponsorships, brand activations, and local marketing, among others.

Jacynthe is recognized by her peers for her strategic and creative vision, her contagious passion, and her ability to rally teams around bold ideas.

France Wong
Former CMO
Independent

With more than 25 years in the marketing communications field, France began her career in account services at Cossette, then at LG2 and Sid Lee, where she contributed to the growth and transformation of both international and local brands, such as McDonald’s, Bell, Loto-Québec,  Belairdirect, IGA, Lowe’s, McKesson and Desjardins. She progressed within the agency world, ultimately becoming national President and Partner at Bleublancrouge. Most recently, she took on a new challenge at Hydro-Québec, where she served as CMO, overseeing marketing, brand, and customer experience, including call center operations.

Sarah Yim
Group Strategy Director