2020 Jury

Cheryl Grishkewich
VP, Control Brand Marketing
Loblaw Companies Ltd

In her past, Cheryl Grishkewich was a competitive figure skater, roadie, record label entrepreneur and cook book writer.  All great lead-ups to one of the top marketing jobs in Canada. As VP Control Brand Marketing for one of the country's leading retailers, Loblaw Companies Limited, Cheryl is responsible for some of Canada's most loved brands including President's Choice. Prior to joining Loblaw, Cheryl brought her passion for building successful brands and team culture to her leadership roles at several of Canada's most innovative ad agencies.

Gina Kiroff
Director, Foods
Unilever Canada

A courageous Marketeer with a true passion for growth and building brand love, especially around purpose-driven marketing. Gina joined Unilever in 2006, holding various roles in Marketing on local and regional teams including the launch of Magnum in Canada and the creation of the Dove “Women Who Should Be Famous” campaign. She now oversees the Foods portfolio, leading the development of campaigns like Hellmann’s Real Food Movement and Knorr’s ‘What’s for Dinner?’ digital and in-store program. Prior to joining UL, Gina worked at DDB advertising agency as a strategic planner and in account services. She is an active volunteer in her community, most recently as President of her local Home & School committee.

Ian Adler
CMO
PepsiCo Foods Canada

Catherine Allen
Group Creative Director
Zulu Alpha Kilo

Catherine is an award-winning Creative Director at the gutsy, independent Toronto agency Zulu Alpha Kilo. Starting as a designer more than 15 years ago, Catherine’s career has evolved to see her lead campaigns for some of the country’s biggest brands including Bell, Kraft, Labatt, Unilever, Yum, American Express and Cadbury. Her work has been featured in both national and international publications and received recognition at numerous award shows including Cannes, Ones Shoe, D&AD, the Effies and Epica.

Justin Creally
Co-Founder
North Strategic Inc

Justin Creally is a creative strategist who works with our account teams to develop breakthrough brand-building campaigns. He leads strategy, ideation, and big thinking sessions for North clients, resulting in full 360 degree programs that include earned media, digital, and social. Justin’s brand experience includes Sport Chek, Tim Hortons, BMW, Budweiser, Xbox, and Canadian Tire, among others.

Justin thinks beyond the products and looks for ways to leverage all marketing assets to reach unique audiences and broaden emotional connections with consumers. A hands-on leader with a proven track record for inspiring innovative ideas, Justin drives his teams to find their creative voice to build brand affinity and tell unforgettable stories.

Ishan Ghosh
CEO & Partner
Barrett and Welsh

As CEO and Partner at Barrett and Welsh, Ishan leads a team of Idea Generators. Ideas that help build our clients businesses. Ideas that engage and change the game in the markets that its clients operate in and which give them the cutting edge.

As a marketing entrepreneur for two decades and having worked in network agencies in several markets around the world, Ishan guides the agency’s clients, to recognize the relevance and criticality for marketers to engage the Diversity and Inclusion market in Canada and helps them see the limitless business opportunities that it brings.
Ishan also lectures in Branding and Integrated Marketing Communications at the Rotman Business School of Management, University of Toronto, as part of the MBA and Commerce programs. He is a frequent speaker at several forums such as the Canadian Institute, Conference Board of Canada, The Indo- Canadian Chamber of Commerce, etc and conducts workshops on Consumer Marketing and Insights for several organizations. He is also a frequent commentator in many journals in the marketing industry and an occasional columnist in Strategy Magazine, providing commentaries on branding. Ishan is a founding advisory board member of Canada’s Next Top Ad Executive, a program created 8 years ago as a bridge between academia and the advertising industry.

Ishan’s 30+ year career has spanned branding and advertising companies such as JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Leo Burnett and Vickers & Benson. He has been involved in the marketing and development of several international brands such as McDonald’s, Kellogg’s, Bata, Holiday Inn, P&G brands, Unilever brands, TD Canada Trust and the Bank of Montreal.

Denise Gohl-Eacrett
Director, Brand and Customer Experience
Fountain Tire

As Director, Brand and Customer Experience, Denise is responsible for external communications from awareness through to long-term customer relationships across 160 Fountain Tire stores in Canada. She recently led an exercise to reinvigorate the company brand. With it, her team and agency partners launched a series of award-winning, experiential activations to communicate safety, problem-solving and community spirit, all delivering on the company’s brand promise, “We’re on this road together.” Denise’s commitment to delivering creative executions based on consumer insights and continually drive an exceptional customer experience led her to be one of strategy’s 2019 Marketers of the Year.

Stephane Mailhiot
President and Head of Strategic
Havas Montreal

You can hear Stéphane on Bêtes de pub, a segment of Médium Large, broadcast on Ici Radio-Canada Première. With Arnaud Granata, Stéphane analyzes and comments on current events in the fields of communications and marketing. Together, they wrote “Tout ce que les publicitaires ne vous disent pas,” published by Éditions La Presse. 

Prior to joining Havas, Stéphane was a strategic planner at lg2, where he led brands such as Desjardins, Honda and Agropur - OKA Cheese. He also contributed to several campaigns honoured for both their creativity and performance. 

Craig Markou
VP, Creative Director
The Mars Agency

From shooting super bowl commercials in LA to judging award shows in Hong Kong, Craig’s advertising career has literally taken him around the world. In the process he has learned how to lead creative teams to craft powerful ideas, regardless of medium. Craig has been lucky enough to have worked with top global clients including Anheuser-Busch, Campbell's, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, PepsiCo, PGA, Toyota, and Walmart. Along the way he has won at every major international award show including Cannes Lions, Clios, D&AD, Effies and One Show.

Charlena Metcalfe
SVP, Co-Managing Director
Jungle Media

Sheri is a founder of the highly successful media agency Jungle Media, which launched 9 years ago. In that short time, Jungle has enjoyed momentum with a top tier client roster of brands such as IKEA, Nordstrom, Wealthsimple, Little Caesars, Capital One, Sleeman Breweries, and NIKE to name a few. Jungle Media was named Strategy Magazine’s Media Agency of the Year in 2013 and has been in the top 5 every year since. Moreover, Sheri was named Media Director of the Year in 2010.
Jungle Media delivers industry leading Client Satisfaction scores year in and year out, and V7i (Jungle’s parent company) has been named “One of the Best Places to Work” in Canada.
Sheri’s driving passion is to develop outstanding business results for clients rooted in strong consumer insight. Breakthrough media ideas and strong inter-agency partnerships are Jungle’s obsession.
Sheri has over 20 years of experience as a media practitioner, running high-profile retail and CPG clients. Sheri is an active participant within the industry, having served on the CMDC, COMB and PMB Boards. Sheri is the outgoing Chair of the CMDC Board. Sheri loves connecting, mentoring and learning from up and coming talent. As such, Sheri has taught Connection Planning at the ICA, and was instrumental in launching the CMDC Youth Ambassador group 4 years ago. Sheri has also served on industry panels, written articles and has judged several prestigious award shows such as the MIAs, The EFFIES and The Cassies to name a few.

Brian Murray
Chief Creative Officer
Ogilvy

Brian Murray is Chief Creative Officer for Ogilvy Canada – the 2019 Effie Awards Canada "Agency of the Year" and 4th on the Strategy Magazine 2019 Agency of the Year list. Brian has won hundreds of awards, been ranked amongst the top creatives in the country multiple times by Strategy magazine and has an MBA from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. (Advertising is a business after all.) Brian was excited to join the SIA jury because he enjoys shopping, innovating and awards.

Jeremy Oxley
VP, Marketing, Strategy & Insights
Danone Canada

Jeremy currently serves as Vice President Marketing, Strategy and Insights at Danone and has over 13 years of experience in the CPG industry in various Marketing and  Sales positions. Prior to joining Danone, Jeremy was the Head of Retail at Tim Hortons where he was responsible for leading the CPG business across North America. Prior to that, Jeremy held various positions at Mondelez such as Customer Vice President Loblaw and Shoppers Drug Mart business across Canada, General Manager for the Canadian Confectionery business and Director of the Chocolate business for North America.

Max Valiquette
Chief Strategy Officer
Diamond Integrated Marketing

Jess Willis
VP & ECD
Mosaic

Jess’ over 15-year career has spanned some of Canada’s most recognized ad agencies like TAXI, Ogilvy & Cossette, across a variety of disciplines from design to digital to more traditional mediums and now, experiential. This unique combination of skills, as well as an appetite for learning new things has allowed her to transition easily between clients, departments and projects. Moreover, it has shaped her into a channel agnostic Creative Director who is just as strategically minded as she is creatively sound. Her work has been recognized at Cannes, ADC, One Show, Cassies, CMA, ADCC, Marketing, Coupe and Applied Arts. She’s been featured in Lüzers Archive, Fast Company, BuzzFeed, Wired and Devour. Since joining Mosaic just four short years ago, the agency has jumped 43 spots in the Creative Rankings and in 2018 had its most winningest year worldwide.

Candace Woods
Head of Marketing
Metro Ontario Inc.

Candace Woods is the Head of Marketing for Metro Ontario Inc., a leading Canadian grocery retailer and food distributor. Candace’s previous career spans over 20 years with one of the world’s largest food company’s – Nestle. Prior to joining Metro, Candace was the Director of Marketing for Frozen Meals and Ambient Culinary at Nestle Canada, where she defined core brand identities and led creative development for brands such as Stouffers, Lean Cuisine, MarketPlace and Maggi, resulting in sales of over $150 million.

As head of Marketing for Metro Ontario Inc., Candace leads a high-performance team that is responsible for the development and execution of brand and shopper marketing strategies. She is responsible for building integrated marketing solutions for the Ontario market across all channels for the Metro and Food Basics banners. This includes consumer promotions, mass media and ensuring messaging is consistent across customer touch points. Since coming to Metro in 2018, Candace has used her CPG experience to champion initiatives that led to an increase in brand perception, customer acquisition and share of voice in the increasingly competitive grocery retail industry.

Candace is a strong communicator and mentor known for motivating her team to peak performance. She shares her knowledge and experiences through her personal approach. With a strong passion for transforming the way retailers interact with customers, Candace is committed to building local community connections.

Darren Yada
Managing Partner Strategy
Rethink

Darren is Managing Partner and Head of Strategy for Rethink Canada's Vancouver office. He leads a growing team of strategists, analysts and amplification experts fuelled by a desire to help brands challenge the status quo. Darren's passion for disruption began while leading digital strategy at the Nettwerk Music Group, where he had a front-row seat to the transformation of an entire industry caused by digital innovation.