2021 Jury

Susan Irving
CMO
Kruger Products L.P.

Susan Irving is an industry leader with a passion for brands and a reputation for delivering business results through strategic integrated marketing campaigns. Now, as Chief Marketing Officer for Kruger Products L.P., Irving is responsible for leading the marketing team to set the vision, strategic direction, and drive business performance for all Kruger Products brands and marketing activities in Canada and the United States. She is also a key member of the Company’s Executive Team.

Irving is an accomplished, award-winning senior marketing executive with over two decades of experience leading many successful and well-known brands at Warner Lambert, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. She has a strong passion for brands and building high performance teams. She is a strategic business leader with experience that spans across all aspects of business management and consumer marketing including brand strategy; advertising and communications; P&L management; media planning; digital; social media; innovation; consumer insights; as well as sports and event marketing. Most recently at PepsiCo Foods Canada, Irving was the Senior Marketing Director for the Quaker Nutrition portfolio. During her 15 years at PepsiCo, she held several progressive roles including leadership of a Global Snacks team in New York where she was responsible for Doritos, Cheetos and Sunbites - three of the company’s billion dollar brands. Prior to that, Irving spent more than a decade at PepsiCo Canada leading teams of passionate marketers in creating successful campaigns that drove profitable growth for brands including Cheetos, Doritos, Lay’s, Ruffles and Tostitos. Irving is known for her collaborative approach of working with teams to deliver breakthrough, insight-driven consumer campaigns and programs that deliver growth.

As an accomplished marketer, Irving has been recognized with several industry accolades including CMAs, Cassies, Cannes Lions, The Bessies, Media Innovation Awards and Canadian New Media Awards. She was also among Marketing Magazine’s prestigious Top 30 under 30.

An avid sailor, Irving was a member of the Canadian Sailing Team, having campaigned for the 1992 and 1996 Summer Olympics. She is the President of the Leaside Hockey Association Board of Directors; the Jury Chair for the Globe and Mail’s Cannes Young Marketers Competition; a judge for several industry award shows; a key note speaker for North American Conferences and a committee member of WISE Canada (Women in Sport and Entertainment).

When Irving takes a break from Marketing, you can find her on a sail boat or a ski hill. As a busy mother of two young boys, you’ll also find her in hockey rinks, at road races and on the soccer field supporting their family’s passion of competitive sport.

Sandra Sanderson
SVP, Marketing
Sobeys Inc

As Senior Vice President of Marketing for Sobeys Inc., the second largest national grocery retailer and food distributor in Canada, Sandra oversees marketing across a broad portfolio of banners, including: Sobeys, Safeway, Thrifty Foods, Foodland, FreshCo, and Lawtons. She is accountable for transforming the way Sobeys Inc. connects with customers through its brand strategies & integrated marketing, insights & analytics, loyalty program, digital innovation, sports partnerships and community investment.

Sandra has extensive marketing experience across diverse industries in Canada. She was Chief Marketing and Quality Officer at Walmart Canada, where she led development of the new prototype store design and the marketing effort on the fresh food re-launch. She also launched Walmart Media Group and drove growth of Private Label through innovation. Sandra served as Senior Vice-President of Marketing at Shoppers Drug Mart, where she oversaw the growth of the Optimum program, the relaunch of Beauty Boutique and digital transformation efforts. Sandra also held senior marketing roles at many leading organizations including Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Canada Post, and Universal Studios. Prior to joining Sobeys Inc., Sandra was Senior Vice President of Marketing at White House Black Market in the U.S. where she led marketing across more than 400 North American fashion boutiques, outlets, and WHBM.com.

Throughout her career, Sandra has invested in giving back to the Marketing community. She was on the Canadian Marketing Association’s Board of Directors for four years and was most recently Vice-Chair of the Board. Sandra also served as Chair of Retail Council of Canada’s Senior Retail Marketing Committee and was on the Advisory Board of the Shopper Marketing Forum and Dx3. She has been recognized as Marketer of the Year by Strategy in 2012 and was winner of Canadian Grocer’s Star Women Award in 2015.

Federico Arreola
Chief Brand and Category Officer
Kraft Heinz Company

Tracey Cooke
SVP, Marketing & Commercialization
Nestle Canada Inc

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.

Yanik Deschenes
Managing Director, PR, Client Services
Sid Lee

Luc Du Sault
Partner, VP & ECD
lg2

In 2004, Luc and his friends founded the Quebec City office of lg2. Since then, they've created a fun place to find great ideas. He's led his teams on many projects recognized on the national and international scene like Cannes, D&AD, London Internationals, One Show and Clios. He's also been lucky enough to sit on numerous amazing juries including Cannes, the One Show and the Clios.

Luc fell in love with advertising at 4 years old, when his dad brought home a storyboard for a TV spot. That passion continued to grow at Cossette where he worked on General Motors, and McDonald’s. Now, he's leading a group of many different talents who are solving all sorts of problems for the Société de l'assurance automobile du Quebec, Farnham Ale & Lager, Krispy Kernels, Lesters foods, Bonduelle, the Quebec government and the Quebec dairy board.

Contributing to the success of lg2 has always made him feel proud, andheI will continue to create the way he always has - with the heart of a 4-year-old.

Richard Fofana
VP, Strategy
UM Canada

Richard Fofana is a marketing strategist and business leader with a passion for helping teams develop new and provocative ideas to drive growth. As VP Strategy at UM, he helps drive advantage for clients through brand consulting, strategic planning and media counsel. Under his leadership, UM has become one of Canada’s most decorated agencies for driving business results: the most awarded media agency at both the CMAs and Media Innovation Awards, and WARC’s Most Effective media agency in Canada.

Richard has worked across creative, media, digital and innovation worlds, working in senior leadership roles at Kraft Mondelez and Molson, before heading strategic planning at Publicis, Lowe Roche and TAXI.

He teaches Advertising Strategy at OCAD University, guest lectures at the Miami Ad School, and is uniquely qualified to judge the SIAs, having toiled happily for years as the chief grocery procurement officer at home for his family of five.

Mark Harrison
President and CEO
The T1 Agency

A lifelong entrepreneur, Mark is a passionate believer in purpose, be that brand purpose or encouraging people to be purposeful in everything that they do – beliefs that, 26 years ago, lead him to launch an award-winning marketing agency, The T1 Agency, and later, SponsorshipX, a global sponsorship marketing experience. More recently, Mark has become an Advisor at Humanity, a Toronto-based creative and strategic advertising agency. This year, Mark also founded the Black Talent Initiative, a movement dedicated to creative opportunities for young Black Canadians in the workplace and Co-Found Park Street Education, the first remote learning experience of its kind. In addition to these new ventures, Mark holds a Chair position on the Ontario University Athletics’ BBI Task Force, is Board Member at Large at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Toronto, and Volunteer at CAMH Foundation.

Lori Hatcher
Head of Marketing
Truss Beverages

Lori Hatcher is a brand builder, a challenger, an innovator and the Head of Marketing for Truss Beverage Co. She sees life as a continuous journey and is endlessly finding ways to create the new and different, and to enhance the experience for those around her. 

Having spent over 20 years shaping some of the world’s most iconic brands, Truss provided Lori with a unique opportunity - to bring together her passion for brand building, disciplined skills in CPG marketing and her start-up know-how to shape an entirely new category of beverages.

Under Lori’s leadership, Truss launched a world-class portfolio of cannabis beverages in August 2020 - in the middle of a global pandemic - built with consumers at the core. Employing co-creation, community input, and testing throughout the development process, Lori and her team listened directly to consumers to understand how cannabis beverages could best fit their preferences and lifestyles. Disrupting from the outset, as of January Truss had gained shared leadership of the category, with a 39% market share nationally. 

This consumer-centric approach formed the vision for the launch of one of the widest and most successful portfolios of cannabis beverages available in Canada today - ‘a beverage for every occasion’. Each of Truss’ beverages address a different beverage consumption occasion for adults, from personal relaxation to celebrating with friends, opening the door to a group of consumers previously left behind by the cannabis industry.

In more normal times, Lori loves bringing her friends together over a delicious meal, as well as vacationing with her family at her cottage in Newfoundland. It’s here she gets to explore her true passion for being outdoors and connecting with nature… But right now, like the rest of us, she’s just trying to take life one day at a time.

Loretta Lam
Chief Strategist
Focus Communications Inc

Loretta is founder and chief strategist of Focus Communications Inc. Established in 1994, the award-winning Canadian agency offers strategic counsel and services on diversity communications, brand building, public relations, and cross-cultural training to client corporations in North America.

With over two decades of professional experience in marketing and public relations, Loretta has formerly held management and consultant positions at leading multinational firms Hill & Knowlton Canada and Ogilvy Asia.

Loretta pioneered 360 Multicultural Marketing which others follow. She instigated the “recognizing the multicultural market potential” initiative in 1995 when she was president of Chinese Canadian Advertising Marketing Media Association. She has successfully introduced ethnic marketing to mainstream industry associations and media, including industry’s first special editorial feature on Canadian Multicultural Advertising Awards, which evolves to become the ongoing annual Multicultural Marketing Report and Awards.

Some of her award-winning client projects include: Integrated multicultural marketing and branding for Clover Leaf, Alzheimer Society and TD Bank Group, and establishing the PepsiCo North American Asian Advisory Council; conducting CEO media tours for Sun Life and General Motors; branding and national launch for ORBIS and Bell; media and B2B relations programs for Ernst & Young Management Consultants in Canada and the U.S.A.; Industrial Commercial Bank of China and O-Connect “One Belt One Road” Canadian launch, and Metropolitan Hotels’ B2B PR in New York and Shanghai.

Loretta’s affiliations include: Governor of York University’s Board of Governors; Advisor, TRIEC Professional Immigrant Networks; Advisor and founding council member on Diversity & Inclusion at Canadian Marketing Association; Senior Advisor, North American Association of Asian Professionals (NAAAP); Founding Director and Past President of Multicultural Marketing Alliance of Canada (MMAC); Advisor and Past President Chinese Canadian Advertising Marketing & Media Association (CCAMMA). She is also an active contributor and member of International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). She is currently working with a few leading industry associations on mentorship programs and industry best practice and advocacy.

Loretta is winner of the ACCE Entrepreneur Awards in 1998, and an active speaker and frequent article contributor in areas of entrepreneurship, diversity and marketing in Canada, including invitation to the Blue Ribbon Judge Panel of IABC’s global Gold Quill Communications Awards since 2017, and speaking at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, CIBC World Markets’ Conference on Retail Marketing, and Marketing Magazine’s Multicultural Conference. Loretta has recently founded a non-profit platform ParentConnect.ca to promote positivity and parent education.

Wendy Montgomery
VP, Marketing
Arterra Wines Canada

Wendy Montgomery is an accomplished marketer who has learned a lot from 25+ years working with some of Canada and the world’s best-loved brands.  She’s currently learning all she can about the wine industry as Vice President Marketing at Arterra Wines Canada, where she oversees the strategy and communication for national brands like Bodacious, Inniskillin and Canada’s #1 wine brand, Jackson-Triggs.  Her role also includes leadership of Arterra’s flagship estate properties in Niagara, Prince Edward County and the Okanagan Valley.

Wendy started her career in a variety of marketing roles at Danone, Kellogg and Pepsi before embarking on a 15 year odyssey as a marketing consultant.  In her consulting capacity, Wendy was able to touch many other functions beyond marketing including Sales, Customer Marketing and Corporate Strategy in companies like Mondelez/Kraft/Cadbury, KAO Brands and Tim Hortons.  She also provided interim leadership at Revlon as Vice President Marketing and Weston Foods as VP/GM Packaged Bread.

Wendy is proud to have been a part of many award winning projects and teams, with work recognized by the CMA’s, The Bessies, Media Innovation Awards and The Cassies.

When Wendy isn’t trend surfing with her daughter across a multitude of social platforms, you can find her addicted to her new Peleton community or teaching virtual yoga classes.

Ira Baptiste
EVP, Managing Director
Brandfire

With 34 years of experience as a successful marketing and advertising executive, Ira has a wealth of knowledge and experience under her belt. She has had the pleasure of working with multi-national advertising companies and small independently owned agencies across Canada and Europe. She has been instrumental in their success and continues to do so as Executive Vice President, Managing Director at Brandfire Marketing.

Ira’s tenure in marketing has had her working with a variety of clients in the CPG Beverage Alcohol, Agriculture and Non-Profits organizations to name a few..  The breadth of experience across these clients have included strategic positioning to consumer execution in the areas of digital, social, shopper marketing, consumer activations etc.

As her career unfolded, she has had many positive experiences as the only person of colour at the table, but she has also experienced what we are talking about openly now – racial biased comments, interactions and assumptions.  The fact of the matter is that this subject was something that wasn’t even talked about even when it should have been because there was not an acknowledgement or understanding of what was actually happening.  Over time, the conversations have started to happen and she has been in the fortunate position to be able to give voice and action to Black representation of talent in Advertising.

During her free time, Ira enjoys nothing better than getting on the tennis court to try and reach the Serena Williams that she is convinced lives somewhere inside of her.

Marlene Browne
Director, Research & Insights
Perennial

More than 20 years supporting clients across countless verticals has made Marlene an expert at turning research findings into actionable insights and recommendations. Using her extensive knowledge of research methodologies and techniques, she has delivered powerful consumer insights to support business, brand, communications and design strategies for clients including Royal Bank of Canada, Metrolinx/GO Transit, Spencer’s Retail Limited (India), Cervus Equipment and Marsh and McLennan. As Director of Research & Insights Marlene shepherds a team of research analysts to uncover crucial information regarding market and consumer intelligence. Marlene holds a Bachelor of Science, Biology from McMaster University and an AOCAD Diploma, Fine Arts – Drawing & Painting, Ontario College of Art & Design.

Sandra Duff
SVP, Strategy Activations & Operations
Jackman

Sandra is SVP Strategy Activation & Operations at Jackman – a customer engagement reinvention company delivering actionable human insights which rapidly ignite momentum and create value. Working directly with future-focused CEOs who are looking to stay relevant with changing customer expectations, Jackman’s team employs proven methodology to convert insights into action and deliver bold and innovative solutions to help companies become a Category of One business. Sandra’s ability to partner with business leaders to build momentum and get to action fast has helped a multitude of companies achieve their desired results. Known for getting people motivated and engaged, Sandra has helped shape the culture at Jackman and also manages operations within the organization.

Adrianne Gaffney Wotherspoon
Managing Partner, Chief Strategist
6Degrees

Adrianne Gaffney Wotherspoon is a Managing Partner and Chief Strategist at 6Degrees, Canada’s largest shopper agency. She leads the agency’s insight-led approach to building shopper journeys that drive conversion for many of Canada’s best known brands. Throughout her career she has held account management, strategy and leadership roles at McCann, BBDO and Traffik. She also sits on the Executive Board of the Account Planning Group of Canada, co-chairing Education initiatives.

Janelle Lister
Shopper Marketing Lead
GSK

Steve Savic
EVP, ECD
Critical Mass

For over 20 years, Steve has been creating cutting-edge digital experiences that put people right in the action. As EVP, Executive Creative Director, his work covers the digital spectrum, from breakthrough transactional to brand-rich campaigns for Mercedes-Benz, Dell, Rolex, Nike, and Nissan. His efforts in creating culturally-inspired, integrated programs have been recognized by Cannes Lions, Effie Awards, Clio Awards, The One Show, D&AD, and many more. The result—millions of engaged consumers and deep brand connections. Steve started his career in Calgary, Alberta, at the foot of the Canadian Rockies, where he spent his weekend trading design work for ski passes.

Karen Zakeri
Director, Customer Marketing and Walmart Connect
Walmart

Karen is a seasoned marketer with over 15 years of marketing, customer service, sales and brand strategy experience.  As the director of Customer Marketing and Walmart Connect, Karen leads B2B and B2C strategies on the Walmart Weekly shop categories (Food, Consumables, Health & Wellness, etc.) and with some of the world’s leading CPG vendors. She is results oriented, a passionate story teller, a customer centric thinker, an Omni-platform content/media planner and a motivated leader.