Mary Maddever is SVP, editorial director of Brunico Communications, overseeing journalistic policy and procedures for the company’s editorial brands, and publisher of strategy & Media In Canada.

Maddever has lead content strategy and new product development on many Brunico brands, recruited and trained teams for launches and refreshes, and most recently oversaw the transition for the Marketing brand acquisition.

As executive editor of strategy, a remit she held since helming its relaunch in 2004, Maddever launched Brunico’s first offshoot daily e-news/site Media In Canada, and also developed stimulant, a creative-focused offshoot of the strategy brand’s ad and marketing universe. She also spearheaded new Awards programs and collaborated on new event franchises.

Prior to strategy, Maddever was editor of RealScreen, an international non-fiction brand for which she originally developed the editorial launch plan in 1997, and oversaw a content focus redirect in 2004 as the business evolved.

Maddever’s background includes four years (1998-2001) as editor of international kids entertainment biz magazine KidScreen, where she was mandated to raise brand authority in top tier global production and broadcast circles, and across ancillary areas of the industry.

Prior to that, Maddever was editor of Playback, Canada’s bi-weekly TV & film industry journal and its subsidiary magazine offshoots, such as Playback International.

Cosmo Campbell

Chief Creative Officer

DDB Canada

Cosmo grew up in the disturbingly idyllic city of Cape Town, South Africa. Upon  graduating from art college, he began his ad career at a small boutique agency. After a few years, he decided to travel and try his hand on the international ad scene. A short stint in London followed by a year in Dubai with Saatchi & Saatchi eventually led him to Vancouver where he joined Palmer Jarvis. During his time at PJ and now DDB, Cosmo has been fortunate to work with some of Canada’s greatest ad people, who have contributed to his work being recognized in numerous major international and local award shows. Additionally, over the past 20 years, he has been consistently ranked amongst the top creatives on Canada’s, Strategy Magazines Creative Report Card. In 2014, Cosmo relocated to Toronto, to take over the Chief Creative Officer role of DDB Canada. When he’s not busy making ads, Cosmo can be found baking bread, painting, or roaming the city at night taking photographs.

Lyranda Martin Evans

Vice President, Executive Creative Director

DentsuBos and 360i Canada

Lyranda is an award-winning creative director, bestselling author, and podcast host for Google’s “Lead by Womenwill” which aims to address gender disparity in the workforce and champion young women in their careers. She’s a working mom with two young boys at home, and in her spare time she drinks more coffee.

Cory Eisentraut

VP Creative Director, Havas Canada

For over 18 years, Cory has taken his passion for filmmaking, music and
business and translated them into a career in advertising. After more than a
decade at independent agency, Cundari creating award-winning campaigns
for BMW, the Royal Ontario Museum Dempster’s and SickKids Hospital, Cory
moved to Havas Canada to lead their creative department. His impact was felt
almost immediately as the agency secured several new accounts and won a
number of international and Canadian awards.

Over the course of his career his work has been recognized at the Clios,
Communication Arts, One Show, LIA, as well, he has received four finalists
and two Gold Lions at Cannes. Recently he was also awarded World’s Best
Omelette by his wife, Kate and their three kids, an honour that he intends to
vigorously defend in 2018.

Michael is Creative Director and co-founder of Kiddo, a creative production studio dedicated to commercials and branded content. Previously, he was the Executive Creative Director of Cossette Vancouver, overseeing work for clients such as McDonald’s, TELUS and Tourism Yukon. His work as a writer, director and creative director has been recognized both nationally and internationally by such shows as the Clio Awards, Cannes, Communication Arts, One Show Interactive and London International Awards.

Nuala Byles

EVP, Executive Creative Director

Geometry Global | Toronto

Drawing from a longstanding career in brand activation and design, Nuala has an award-winning track record for consistently crafting insights and ideas that engage consumers and shoppers, build long-term brand value and – most importantly – influence behaviour to drive sales.

Prior to joining Geometry, Nuala ran her own successful creative shop specializing in entertainment and brand activation. After earning international acclaim for creativity (including a Juno Award nomination for package design) the company was acquired. Since joining Geometry in 2011, Nuala has produced breakthrough campaigns for clients such as Danone, Kimberly-Clark, Unilever and Mercy Ships.

David Rosenberg

Chief Creative Officer & Partner, Bensimon Byrne

David Rosenberg joined Bensimon Byrne in October 2000, and became a Partner in 2007 after a management-led buyback restored the firm to its independent roots. His goal is to help make the Bensimon Byrne the best place to work in Canada – famous in equal measure for both the quality of its product and the quality of its environment.

Trained as a writer, David has rebranded The Canadian Football League, helped create the “You’re Richer Than You Think” campaign for Scotiabank, launched Joe Fresh for Loblaw Co.’s, created the CBC’s Olympic thematic, and has won hundreds of industry awards for his work on Nike, IKEA, MacDonald’s, Pro-Line, Stupid.ca, Bombardier, Lexus and the Royal Ontario Museum. He has worked on Liberal political campaigns both federally and provincially, most recently leading creative for Justin Trudeau’s historic climb from 3^rd place to the Prime Ministership,with a majority government. He delivered this story in a keynote address at The 2016 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, in a talk entitled “How Risk Taking Ads Helped Trudeau Win.”

David is married and has 3 lovely children who have all gone into the arts. He’ll be working until he’s 108.

Laura Stein is Creative Director at Sid Lee, a global multi-disciplinary creative agency, where she focuses on design in all aspects of creative output, including branding and visual identity. Before coming to Sid Lee, she was Creative Director at Bruce Mau Design where she and her team delivered design work for a diverse set of clients from consumer electronics to contemporary art. Clients have included Canadian Olympic Committee, MaRS, DAZN, Asics, Sonos, Harvard University, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Beijing.

Work has been featured in publications such as FastCompany, Communication Arts, It’s Nice That, Creative Review as well as books such as Designing Brand Identity and Dynamic Identities and has been recognized by Cannes Lions and D&AD, among others.

DAVE DOUGLASS

Partner and Executive Creative Director

Dave started out creating insight-driven work for Lexus, Toyota, Mackenzie Financial, and The Children’s Aid Society. He then accepted a posting to London, where he continued to develop successful campaigns for British clients Hamlet Cigars, McEwans Lager, Hampton Court Palace, and the Tower of London.

Since returning to his homeland (Canada), Dave has developed a diverse array of work for an equally-diverse roster of clients including McDonalds, General Mills, Lexus, Stella Artois, Budweiser, Alexander Keith’s, WestJet, Coca-Cola, and Molson.

His work has been awarded both nationally and internationally including Gold and Silver awards from The Cannes International Advertising Festival, The One Show, Clios, CA, D&AD and Media Innovation Awards. In 2005 his work for the Canadian Film Center was the number two most awarded campaign in the world.

Formally Dave was co-creative chief at Lowe Roche. He and his long time creative collaborator Pete Breton are co-ECDs at Anomaly Toronto.

Heather Chambers

SVP Creative Director

Years in Advertising: 20 +

Years at Leo Burnett:  15

Heather Chambers  is a Creative Director with over 20 years’ experience working in several leading Canadian agencies. The last 15 years,  she has spent at Leo Burnett in Toronto as SVP Creative Director spending most of her time on their North American and Global Procter and Gamble businesses.

Heather’s work has been recognized at the world’s most prestigious shows including Cannes, The One Show, Clios, London International Awards, Marketing, Cassies and Effies among others.

Luc Du Sault

Partner, vice-president and creative director, lg2

In 2004, Luc co-founded the Quebec City office of lg2. Since then, he has racked up over 700 national and international awards, including Cannes, Clio, D&AD and the One Show. As one of Canada’s most awarded creatives, Luc has sat on many juries including Cannes in film, One Show in film, Clio Awards in print, and has co-chaired the Marketing Awards, the Extras, the Atomics and the Crea Awards.

His passion for advertising, creativity, storytelling, and film began when he was just 4 years old, when his father brought home a storyboard for a TV spot. That passion continues to grow to this day, as clients such as the Quebec government, the Quebec dairy producers, Krispy Kernels, and Farnham Ale & Lager have all benefited from Luc’s creative leadership over the years. The agency has benefitted as well – resulting in lg2 being named the Agency of the Year (Canada) at the Clio Awards, and claiming the highly coveted Agency of the Year title at the 2016 ADCC Awards.

But despite all the accolades, even today, Luc continues to create the way he always has – with the heart of a 4-year-old who’s seen a TV storyboard, for the very first time.

Catherine Allen

Creative Director, Zulu Alpha Kilo / Toronto/Canada

Catherine Allen is a Creative Director at Zulu Alpha Kilo, a gutsy and fast-growing Toronto agency that was named InternationalSmall Agency of the Year in 2017.

A creative who loves making stuff, Catherine spent the first ten years of her creative journey as a designer and expanded her scope to include art direction eight years ago. Since then, she quickly rose to lead integrated campaigns for some of Canada’s top brands while working at some of the country’s leading agencies.

Most notably, Catherine was the creative mind behind the acclaimed Respect the Bean campaign for the Nabob Coffee Company as well as the internationally recognized branded content campaign “The Movie Out Here” for Canadian beer brand Kokanee that included a theatrically-released feature-length film. Her work has achieved international and local recognition at numerous award shows including Cannes, One Show, D&AD, the Effies, and Epica.

SHARPER INSIGHTS 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.

INSPIRING IDEAS Over the course of nearly two decades with Cossette Media, Cathy focused on clients such as Nike, Coca Cola and Bell. Her leadership brought Cossette three gold Media Lions and an armful of numerous other awards, including four ‘Best in Show’ trophies at Canada’s Media Innovation Awards. She has enjoyed continued success at OMD with the agency being named Media Agency of the Year for two consecutive years.

SUSTAINABLE RESULTS Cathy is very active in advancing the Canadian media industry. She is Vice Chair of Canadian Media Directors Council, is Board Chair of numeris, Chairs the Canadian Young Media Lions competition and has judged many award shows including the Cannes Media Lions festival. Cathy also sits on the Canada Cannes board helping to inspire the Canadian media community to be recognized in Cannes.

Brooke Leland, SVP & GM 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 18 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 and Capital One. Brooke is a bold and creative thinker who inspires great work that drives great results.

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.

After graduating in marketing from HEC Montreal, Stephane joined Touché! PHD in 2008 as a specialist in marketing on search engines. He developed the division dedicated to this discipline.

Stéphane is now Director Digital Investment and leads a team of 27 people on several major accounts such as Sport Chek, Milk Producers of Quebec and VIA Rail. His work and creativity have been recognized several times in media competitions organized in Quebec, in the rest of Canada and internationally.

Throughout his experience in the industry, Stéphane has developed his knowledge in the field of online commerce, Social Media & Mobile Marketing that has allowed him to become a leader in the digital industry in Canada. In addition to his role at Touché! Stéphane is also Director of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in Quebec.

Harvey has been building iconic brands for the past 24 years on both the client and agency side.

On the client side, Harvey has built brands for Procter and Gamble, Kraft Foods, and AB InBev, where he was Vice-President of Marketing responsible for North America.  In the role of President and Partner, Harvey grew Grip Limited into Canada’s largest independent, partner-owned creative agency.  Grip represented clients such as Honda, Acura, AB InBev, Expedia, Johnson & Johnson, Yum! Brands, Cadbury, Dare Foods and Bacardi.

In his current role, Harvey is accountable for ensuring that IPG Mediabrands over-delivers on client expectations by collaboratively and seamlessly leveraging the network of agencies in Canada.

Harvey is excited to be working in the rapidly evolving world of media and is committed to being a true business partner to his clients.  He is focused on driving his clients’ total business outcomes through innovation and an entrepreneurial approach.  He was recognized for the evolution of IPG Mediabrands in Canada with the prestigious Strategy Media Director of the Year award in 2016.

Stuart Garvie

CEO, GroupM Canada

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 forthinktv (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.

Jason believes communications planning is a marriage of art and science, bringing together world class creativity and data-driven media strategy.  In over 18 years as a media professional he’s built successful media strategies for many of BC and Canada’s most influential brands, including McDonald’s, Save-on-Foods, BC Lotteries, BC Dairy and TELUS.  His experience extends into the global marketplace through his work with Destination Canada and Rocky Mountaineer, managing multi-national campaigns via OMD’s network of global offices.

In his current role as General Manager of OMD Vancouver he leads a team of talented media stars, who have seen success at Strategy Magazine’s Media Innovation Awards (‘MIA’), winning Gold in each of the past 3 years for work on the BC Dairy Foundation and Destination Canada, as well as past success for McDonald’s, BC Hydro, Mercedes and Sun-Rype.

Jason’s commitment to the Vancouver ad industry extends beyond his role at OMD, having sat on the western chapters of the NABS board from 2011-2014, and IAB since 2013.

Alastair Taylor is a convergent thinker with diverse category experience across the UK and North America, specializing in helping brands understand how technology and media is changing the point of purchase with their consumers. With a proven track record in business development and culture creation, Alastair is a transformational leader building corporate cultures for the modern business reality.

Currently the CEO of Starcom and Spark Foundry in Toronto Alastair has overall responsibility for the business, including the strategic direction and vision. Alastair lives in Toronto with his wife Kate, and son Evan and is passionate about making the advertising business better.

Susan Courtney is Group Media Director of RBC at Initiative Media, within IPG Mediabrands.  With over twenty years of experience, Susan has a cross of media strategy and partners sales roles in the advertising industry.

The common thread across her career has been a focus on the Financial Institution and Telco categories.   Susan led Scotiabank and Bell Mobility at Cossette.   At Torstar Media Group, she was director of all National Sales with a focus on the Financial and Telco Categories.  And during her tenure at Starcom, was media lead for Wind Mobile (now Freedom Mobile) and TD Bank Group.  Susan also led the English Canada national sales team at Quebecor Media.

Her love of the financial category and all things banking, however drove her back to media agency to assume her current role at Initiative working with RBC.

Catherine Lautier

Chief Strategy Officer, Canada

Originally from Paris, Catherine has dual French-American citizenship, thrives in international environments, and has hands-on experience working in more than 30 countries.

She began her career on the client side at P&Gas a Media & Communications Manager first in France and then across Europe and Asia.

Catherine was hired away from her last role at P&G Geneva to help lead the digital transformation of the combined DDB Paris/Tribal organization. While there, she worked directly with senior clients at CHANEL, Unilever, Mini and J&J, all of whom were in the throes of transforming their organizations for a new world. Practices under her leadership included consulting, communications planning, ROI measurement and research.

From DDB, she was recruited to Publicis as ZenithOptimedia’sGlobal Account Director on L’Oréal before landing at WPP where she ran global strategy for CHANEL.

Today at MediaCom Canada, Catherine is responsible for the guiding strategy for clients such as Starbucks, Mars and CIBC.

Catherine is committed to sharing all that she knows with a younger generation, and until recently taught media as part of the first year Masters program at Science Po, France’s leading university in the social sciences.

Devon MacDonald is the Chief Strategy Officer for Mindshare in Canada. Overseeing the Communications Planning, Insight and Content teams, Devon helps shape the overall strategic direction across our clients and the agency.

With anextensive background in the media, creative and technology worlds, Devon has worked on a number of high profile brands across virtually every category on a local, North American and Global Scale. He thrives on the challenge of change and loves to learn about new clients, problems and solutions.

Devon is active in the industry as a founding member of the Media Council at the Canadian Marketing Association, a visiting lecturer at the Schulich and DeGroote Marketing MBA programs and is often called upon for press and speaking opportunities.

An inspiring Marketer with a passion for breakthrough innovation and business growth, Mark has a proven track record of building vital brands that resonate with consumers most recently contributing to the rise of the Samsung brand in Canada to the Top 10 in the country.

As Samsung Electronic Canada Inc.’s Chief Marketing Officer, Mark leads the organization’s strategic brand and marketing initiatives, overseeing Brand Marketing Communications, Public Relations, Corporate Social Responsibility, Digital and Social Media teams.Prior to joining Samsung, Mark was Vice-President of Marketing at Campbell Company of Canada. His strategic leadership and insight led to Campbell business vitality, a CSR refreshed unique brand identity, and a highly engaged team.

Recognized as an inspirational team leader, Mark actively cultivates marketing talent and ‘best practice’ within the industry. In addition to his passionate support of AToMiC, he champions the Canada Young Lions Marketers initiative, directly supporting the Cannes Lions Academy and Young Lions jury in 2016, and has contributed professionally to the Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA), the Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) Children’s Advertising Commitment committee, Enactus Canada and was Creative Chair at Concerned Children’s Advertisers.

A role model in the LGBTA community, Mark pioneered the launch of PFLAG Canada’s 2012 awareness campaign while volunteering for the organization, winning a Cannes Lion award.

Originally from the U.K., Mark attended Groupe ESC Business School in Reims, France, following his studies at Queen Mary’s College in England. He is passionate about yoga, movies, technology and food.

Lori Davison is Vice President, Brand Strategy & Communications at SickKids Foundation – the marketing and fundraising arm of world-renowned The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.

Lori leads the strategic vision for SickKids’ brand communications. Under Lori’s leadership, SickKids’team of marketers, content specialists, public relations practitioners and agency partners develop innovative marketing programs that build equity for the SickKids brand story and drive $145million in donations annually.

Since Lori’s arrival at SickKids Foundation in 2014, the organization has consistently produced award winning advertising campaigns that have attracted international media attention and garnered recognition at every major awards show.  In that same period, SickKids Foundation has achieved record-breaking donations year over year.

Prior to joining SickKids, Lori had roles on the senior management teams of leading advertising agencies such as Leo Burnett and BBDO, where she was Business Lead on assignments that includedsome of Canada’s biggest blue chip brands such asGE, FedEx, RBC and TD Bank.

Lori holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Toronto as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Sociology from the University of Western Ontario.

Lori was recently named Canada’s 2017 Marketer of the Year by the Canadian Marketing Association.

Nancy Marcus

Corporate Vice President Marketing

Kruger Products

Nancy Marcus has been a trailblazer since the start of her marketing career at leading companies including Phillip Morris and RJR MacDonald as one of the few female VP’s to have a seat at the Executive level. Now as Corporate Vice President of Marketing at Kruger Products (KPLP) and the only female on the KPLP Management Team for more than 15 years, Nancy has successfully contributed to the changing CPG landscape by redefining how companies embrace marketing to deliver bottom line profitability.

Her keen insights and intuition position her as a “change agent” by demonstrating how brands can talk to a consumer form a women’s perspective with intelligence and respect. By applying this strategy, she has gained prominence as a brave marketing pioneer by developing breakthrough marketing and trade strategies within the dynamic grocery environment and her credible longevity has contributed to the success of KPLP as Canada’s brand powerhouse and market leader in the consumer tissue industry.

A recipient of the 2014 WXN Top 100 Award and the Star Women in Grocery 2014 Award, Nominated for 2008 & 2018 Marketer of the Year and currently Chair of Advertising Standards Canada, Nancy has been an active and dedicated participant in the industry and community.

Steve Levy
COO, Ipsos Canada

While starting his career in sales (at Xerox) and then brand management (at Mars foods), Steve Levy has been involved in the marketing research and information business in the UK, South East Asia and, since the late 80’s, in Canada.  In his current role he plays a leadership role in the Ipsos business in Canada which involves; managing a staff of almost 200 Marketers/ and Researchers, Local product development, innovation and R&D, Overseeing the publication/release of material and a busy public speaking schedule. In addition to his management role, Steve continues to act as team leader for a few accounts mostly in the technology and media sector.

He is also active in the broader industry with roles in the MRIA (Marketing Research & Intelligence Association) and the CMA (Canadian Marketing Association).  He currently service on the board of the Earth Rangers Foundation.

Steve loves to play Golf and Tennis and has the best marriage in the world- married forever – to the SAME person with two daughters.

Aaron Nemoy

Founder & President

Crowdiate

Aaron Nemoy is the founder and strategy lead at Crowdiate, which helpsbrands discover and develop brilliant ideas with a competition-based model and a global community of creative talent. Crowdiate was one of the featured start-ups at Cannes Lions in 2017 and developed the new Canada Young Lionsplatform.

Aaron spent the first decade of his career in brand management at Kraft and Campbell’s. In 2012, he was part of the winning team in the inaugural Canada Young Marketers competition, and placed Bronze in the Cannes Lions international event. In 2015, Aaron was recognized by the AMA Marketing Hall of Legends with the ‘Marketer on the Rise’ award.