2026 AGENCY OF THE YEAR RESULTS
AGENCY
BRAND EXPERIENCE AGENCY
Salt XC
Last year, Salt was recognized as Campaign Canada’s Brand Experience Agency of the Year. This year, we submit our case not on momentum. Not on a story of incredible growth. We submit on one of sustained excellence and doubling down on a belief we’re doing it differently and better. This entry serves as a regroup, a snaps...
Diamond
2025 was the year Diamond set a new standard for brand experience in Canada. Forty plus awards, the most in our history. Nine significant new clients across CPG, retail, financial services, and non profit. Two nationally recognized Chief Creative Officers joining the agency. And a 20 year partnership with TD, one of the longest agenc...
Mosaic North America
At Mosaic, we believe the strongest brands are built by people — not processes, platforms, or templates. Every person in our agency brings a distinct perspective, skillset, and lived experience. That individuality forms the foundation of our identity: every Mosaic “M” in our logo is hand drawn by our team members, a symbol of the belie...
Publicis Sport and Entertainment
Success doesn’t happen overnight, but Publicis Sports and Entertainment’s (PSE) meteoric rise has happened in astonishingly short order. Quickly emerging as one of Canada’s premier experiential partners, the agency is motivated by a simple belief: that the most powerful ideas live at the intersection of experience and storytelling....
CREATIVE AGENCY
Courage
In just three years, Courage has grown from a three-person startup into one of North America’s fastest-growing independent creative agencies, proving that a human-first philosophy paired with bold creativity drives both cultural impact and measurable business growth. Built on the belief that courage enables extraordinary outcomes...
Diamond
2025 was a defining year for Diamond. Forty one awards. Shortlisted for Strategy Creative Agency of the Year for the first time. Nine significant new clients. Expanded creative leadership with Craig McIntosh and Jaimes Zentil stepping in as Chief Creative Officers, alongside four new creative teams joining the agency. They arrived...
FUSE Create
FUSE Create is a full-service independent advertising agency based in Toronto, Canada. We are 65 people strong, united by one mission: to Turn Heads. To craft work that captivates and brands that are genuinely adored. Over the past 18 months, we’ve achieved more than at any other point in our agency’s 23-year history. In 2025 alo...
Leo Toronto
In 2025, we emerged as a new Leo. We took a bold step in dropping the Burnett name and fully embracing a redefined agency, one that harnesses the best of Leo: human intelligence, creativity and culture defining work that drives meaningful change. We introduced new AI technologies, a refreshed leadership structure, and brought in key hi...
No Fixed Address
In an industry increasingly driven by fear, speed and automation, No Fixed Address has always stood for something else: a safe space for bold ideas. This submission tells the story of how, in one of our most volatile years yet, we protected and nurtured play, curiosity, and risk, so creativity could move beyond what’s expected an...
Rethink
For the past 25 years, Rethink has redefined what it means to be an independent creative agency. We exist to rethink what's been done before in pursuit of setting the standard for the industry. This year, we doubled down on creativity, grew our business by 10%, dominated the awards circuit, and launched two new expert-led practic...
The Kitchen North America
Five years ago, The Kitchen set out to prove an agency could do more than deliver campaigns. Today it operates as a culture engine, business accelerator, and global creative force inside Kraft Heinz. We have evolved from producing content to building brands end to end across twenty seven portfolios. More than one hundred seventy ...
Zulu Alpha Kilo
At Zulu Alpha Kilo (Z.A.K.), fighting sameness isn't just our creative mission—it’s why we exist. In 2025, that unwillingness to conform drove global success and growth. When brands want to challenge convention, Z.A.K. offers work that is never expected, but always feels right. The unexpected showed up in many forms this year, from a g...
DESIGN STUDIO/ BRANDING AGENCY
Zulu Alpha Kilo
At Zulu Alpha Kilo (Z.A.K.), fighting sameness isn't just our creative mission—it’s why we exist. When brands want to challenge convention, Z.A.K. offers work that is never expected, but always feels right. The unexpected showed up in many forms this year, from reaching younger audiences for the Art Gallery of Ontario with a witty mix ...
INDEPENDENT AGENCY (MEDIA)
Cairns Oneil
Cairns Oneil is the only media agency of scale that operates as an agent. We’re an agent to our clients and proud of it. Which means we don’t package and resell media. We are bringing the craft of media back to Canada and leading our clients to business success through our work and values. Our business has grown because of this appro...
Glassroom
Glassroom is disrupting the "black-box" media industry through a fierce commitment to Radical Transparency and a simple, powerful philosophy: Every Dollar Counts. As a proud Canadian independent agency, they have proven that agility and integrity can outperform global giants, recently securing the Metro mandate across all banners in Qu...
Horizon Media Canada
Horizon Media is the largest independent full-service media agency in the world, with offices across the U.S. and Canada. Independently owned and guided by the principle Business Is Personal, Horizon delivers fully integrated communications strategy, planning, investment, analytics, and content capabilities. Its independence enables th...
INDEPENDENT AGENCY (PR)
Craft Public Relations
Craft Public Relations is a Toronto-based, female-founded independent agency celebrating ten years of impact in Canada’s PR industry. With a team of 40, Craft delivers outsized results by aligning three core pillars: exceptional people, loyal clients and award-winning work. In 2025, 88% of clients reported that Craft exceeds expectatio...
Hype PR
Hype PR is a Toronto-based PR and influencer marketing agency specializing in sports marketing, talent partnerships, and purpose-led social impact work. Our DNA was forged in the viral success of the Ladyballs campaign – proving that bold, disruptive creative can shift national discourse to action. Today, we carry that “impact by desig...
Narrative XPR
Audiences don’t care about what brands say. They reward them for how they behave. Narrative XPR is an independent Toronto-based agency rebuilt for this new era of communications, seamlessly integrating reputation, community and experience. We move brands from simply telling their stories to actually living them. In 2025, our firs...
Proof Strategies
Proof Strategies is Canada’s independent leader in trust‑based, integrated communications and a personification of “elbows-up” tenacity and success. For 31 years, we’ve helped Canadian and international brands succeed in Canada through audience‑first strategies, bold creative thinking and breakthrough storytelling. In the 2024–2026 eli...
Rethink PR
For the past 25 years, Rethink has redefined what it means to be an independent creative agency. Our vision, “To change the industry for the better,” has steered our operations from day one. One year ago, Rethink PR launched with the ambition to rethink the traditional approach to public relations. In a year since launch, Rethin...
INFLUENCER / CREATOR AGENCY
Diamond
2025 was a defining year for Diamond’s influencer practice, delivering close to 30 percent year over year growth and welcoming five new brands including Samsung, Pepsi, Wonder Brands, and Ontario Power Generation. But performance is only part of the story. Our differentiation is how we approach the discipline. We do not treat infl...
Clark Influence
Founded in Montreal in 2017, Clark Influence is a fast-growing, independent agency focused on influencer marketing, content creation, and social media management. With offices in Montreal, Toronto, and Paris, the agency operates across key international markets while remaining deeply rooted in the Canadian ecosystem. Clark Influence is...
MEDIA AGENCY
Initiative
2025 marked a breakthrough year for Initiative. Guided by a simple belief that great work creates growth, we turned sustained investment in craft excellence, media creativity, and advanced analytics into measurable business impact for our clients and unprecedented momentum for our agency. In the past 18 months, Initiative deliver...
Cairns Oneil
Cairns Oneil is the only media agency of scale that operates as an agent. We’re an agent to our clients and proud of it. Which means we don’t package and resell media. We are bringing the craft of media back to Canada and leading our clients to business success through our work and values. Our business has grown because of this appro...
Media Experts
In 2025, as global instability, AI acceleration, and industry consolidation put pressure on media agencies, Media Experts made a deliberate choice to lead differently. The agency introduced its Year of Care framework, focused on Care for Each Other, Care for the Craft, and Care for Canada, turning culture into a strategic operating mod...
OMD
OMD operate with two clear commitments. We are raising the roof on transformation by pushing innovation in AI, creativity, data, and influence. At the same time, we lift the floor on delivery by strengthening systems, operations, and reliable execution. Quite simply, our ambition and discipline are moving together. OMD Canada is Medi...
PHD
In 2025, PHD Canada advanced its transformation from media buyers to strategic orchestrators, delivering meaningful impact for clients, talent, and the industry. Guided by visionary leadership, PHD achieved zero account attrition, a significant rise in client satisfaction, and a substantial reduction in employee churn, while climbing f...
Spark Foundry
Spark Foundry Canada’s continued momentum reflects a deliberate focus on modern media thinking, strong partnerships, and disciplined growth. As one of the industry’s youngest global media agencies, we operate with the agility to challenge convention while delivering solutions grounded in data, creativity, and real business impact. ...
Starcom
Starcom, the Strategy Awards Gold Agency of Year for 2025, is the largest agency within Publicis Media Canada. We offer top-tier, full-service media planning and buying solutions. We strive to be more than just a media AOR for our clients – we aim to be their true business partner. At Starcom, our greatest asset is our people. By...
UM
Over the past 18 months, UM has been anything but bland. We’ve raised the bar on inclusive practices, achieved an industry-low turnover rate and industry-high client satisfaction scores. We’ve onboarded nearly a dozen new clients and won a staggering 161 awards for our work (including Cannes, Festival of Media, Effie trophies). And we’...
MULTICULTURAL AGENCY
Ethnicity Matters
Over the past year, Ethnicity Matters has solidified its standing as Canada’s foremost multicultural marketing agency through its strategic, data-driven approach to inclusive communication. With over a decade of experience and a diverse team of 97% visible minorities and 75% foreign-born professionals, we bridge cultural gaps to create...
AVC
AVCommunications (AVC) delivers exceptional business performance through groundbreaking multicultural innovation. Our 3-year average revenue growth exceeding 100% and Globe and Mail Top Growing Company recognition validates our market leadership. In September 2025, we launched our proprietary Cultural Intelligence Framework, revolution...
Balmoral Multicultural Marketing
For over 35 years, Balmoral has led the evolution of multicultural marketing in Canada. Under the leadership of marketing visionary Sharifa Khan, the agency has helped move minority marketing into the mainstream, delivering culturally intelligent strategies that drive real business impact. With offices in Toronto and Vancouver, and aff...
Barrett and Welsh
Barrett and Welsh is the most awarded multicultural agency in Canadian advertising history. We are a Certified B Corporation®, a founding Charter Member of the Multicultural Marketing Alliance of Canada, and a CAMSC-certified Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier. We are a 100% minority-owned agency, a status very few other “multic...
Visionnaire
Visionnaire has 40+ years of experience connecting brands to the fastest growing markets in Canada, including Chinese, South Asian, Arabic, Filipino, Haitian Canadians and Indigenous audiences, in over 27 languages. We provide full-service multicultural marketing expertise, across multicultural media, strategy, creative and more...
PR AGENCY
Craft Public Relations
Craft Public Relations is a Toronto-based, female-founded independent agency celebrating ten years of impact in Canada’s PR industry. With a team of 40, Craft delivers outsized results by aligning three core pillars: exceptional people, loyal clients and award-winning work. In 2025, 88% of clients reported that Craft exceeds expectatio...
Agnostic
Agnostic is a dynamic, women-led public relations agency that has rapidly established itself as a leader in Canada. Founded on the principle of ‘Better Thinking, Better Results,’ Agnostic challenges traditional agency models by believing budgets should drive better thinking, not bureaucracy, by prioritizing insight-driven, attention-ea...
APEX Public Relations
Founded 27 years ago, APEX is an independent, woman- and LGBTQ+-owned agency built on a simple philosophy: we are a practitioner-lead agency, where strategy sets direction, creativity drives impact, investing in people shapes culture, and exceptional client service makes the difference. APEX’s advantage isn’t a single headline c...
Citizen Relations
Citizen Relations has cemented its position as Canada's most indispensable PR agency - not just a communications shop, but a true business advisor for the country's most ambitious brands. Led by President Stephanie Hurst and a powerhouse leadership team, Citizen Canada’s 90+ team from coast to coast delivered a defining year of strateg...
Heads+Tales
Three years since its inception, Heads+Tales has redefined the modern PR agency model. Founded by industry heavyweights Amanda Shuchat and Katie Muir, the agency has quickly become a powerhouse, shortlisted for Campaign Agency of the Year and Strategy Agency of the Year at the two year mark, securing global brands like Kraft Heinz, Cam...
Middle Child
Middle Child is a nationally recognized, award-winning Canadian communications agency built to help brands earn relevance in culture, not just attention. Rooted in public relations and powered by a digital-first mindset, Middle Child operates across earned media, influencer strategy, experiential, content, and creative storytelling to ...
Veritas Communications
Veritas Communications enters this year’s Agency of the Year competition as a re‑energized, strategically sharpened organization anchored in a simple, definitive promise: Truth, period. In 2025, the agency formalized strategy and creative as dedicated disciplines, strengthened by its integrated creative engine M&P and expanded national...
SMALL AGENCY
AndSo
AndSo is a species of one. We aren’t built like an ad agency, and we don’t work like one. If anything, we’re structured closer to Santa’s little workshop than an agency. That’s not us trying to be cute but real: We define ourselves as “a modern creative company” for brands, builders and innovators. AndSo is a full-service shop s...
Accrue
In an industry where clients pay for senior strategy but receive junior execution, Accrue was built on a different model: a 12-person team where every strategist is senior, every founder manages accounts directly, and every client receives the full depth of our expertise. Founded by three former Amazon leaders who collectively ma...
Akcelo Canada
WE BUILD BRANDS FOR THE EXPERIENCE ERA Akcelo was founded with a powerful belief: game-changing ideas have the power to shape the future. We’re not an ad agency. We’re a brand experience and innovation company, created to build brands in the experience era by fusing Creativity, Culture and Code into everything we do. In 20...
Feast
Feast is an independent strategic creative agency built on a simple belief: you don’t need a big agency to do big work. Founded in 2010, we set out to prove that senior-led teams, grounded in research and obsessed with craft, could outperform larger networks, especially in complex, high-stakes categories. We specialize in human-centr...
Hard Work Club
Hard Work Club is a proudly independent, craft-obsessed agency built for ambitious brands that want work people actually feel. Hard work is the method. Club is the mindset. We keep teams small, senior and close to the work, with strategy, design, account leadership and creative working side by side. No hand-offs, no theatre, faster dec...
Here Be Monsters
Here Be Monsters is trying to prove something: that small agencies can thrive without compromising on what matters. We've proven that you can retain clients (above the industry average) while growing revenue annually. That you can win Canada's largest mortgage brokerage as AOR while choosing pro bono work for food banks and grief...
The Garden
Founded a decade ago on a defiant observation that the business world was changing while most big agencies remained rigid, The Garden has spent ten years proving that the most powerful asset a brand can own is Brand Love. Operating in the "third lane," we bridge the gap between the operational rigour of a management consultancy and the...
The Local Collective
The Local Collective is built on a simple philosophy: energy moves people, and people move brands. We are an intentionally small, Canadian agency that believes impact comes from focus and accountability. Because we are small by design, leadership is deeply involved, decisions are made quickly and ideas are protected from brief to...
SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY
We Are Social Canada
We Are Social Canada leads social with culture-first creativity, platform expertise, and meaningful impact. In 2025, we welcomed 10+ major clients, strengthened long-term partnerships with iconic brands, and produced award-winning work recognized by Cannes, Clios, Webbys, Shortys, and Campaign Canada.We launched We Are Social Sport in ...
PEOPLE & TEAMS
ACCOUNT PERSON
Alex Karayannides
Courage
Alex Karayannides is one of the driving forces behind Courage’s rapid rise as one of Canada’s most culturally impactful independent agencies. As Group Account Director, he has helped shape both the agency’s client partnerships and internal culture from its earliest days, embedding an approach built on authenticity, honesty, and team-fi...
Adam Ball
Rethink
Adam is Rethink's secret weapon in fostering relationships that lead to momentum-building creative opportunities. He knows that trust and strong relationships are the key to unlocking ambitious, best-in-class creative work and has the results to prove it. His role is equally about identifying opportunities for his client partners and i...
Kayla Christenson
Broken Heart Love Affair
Kayla is a rare kind of leader: a velvet hammer. She leads with empathy, building trust-based partnerships that consistently unlock meaningful business growth. In an industry that often equates leadership with volume and visibility, Kayla stands out as a powerful introvert, listening deeply and guiding clients and teams with calm confi...
Mandi Courteau
Mosaic North America
Over nearly 14 years with the agency, Mandi Courteau has exemplified integrity, authenticity, and people-first leadership—qualities that define her as an exceptional account leader. Grounded in trust, emotional intelligence, and strategic clarity, she builds enduring client and team relationships while fostering a culture of accountabi...
Serene Gaspar
Publicis Toronto
Every agency has its usual suspects — the champion, the enforcer, the comedian, the strategist. Rarely do they arrive in one person. Enter Serene, the quiet engine behind Publicis Toronto’s new era. Equal parts strategic clarity, creative ambition, and human leadership with a dry wit that makes a spreadsheet funny, she distills complex...
AGENCY PRODUCER OR TEAM
Giordan Sora
Diamond
Giordan Sora is redefining what it means to be a modern producer. During the 2026 submission period, he led over 500 activation days for Fortune 500 brands including TD, Samsung, Pizza Hut, and more, growing Diamond’s experiential portfolio while maintaining a zero-escalation standard of execution. From delivering Samsung’s natio...
Clair Galea
Courage
Clair Galea is a world-class Executive Producer whose leadership has transformed Courage’s production discipline into a creative and commercial powerhouse. With 25 years of experience spanning top agencies and one of Canada’s most sought-after freelance careers, Clair joined Courage in 2022 to help build a modern production model insid...
Koa Padolsky
Publicis Toronto
Koa Padolsky, Senior Producer at Publicis Canada, leverages 30+ years of global production expertise to navigate high-profile campaigns for the agency’s largest client, Rogers Communications. Her "What if?" mindset, infectious optimism, and creative problem-solving transform challenges into opportunities, embodying the agency’s "Lead t...
CREATIVE LEADER
Dhaval Bhatt & Joel Holtby
Courage
Dhaval Bhatt and Joel Holtby did not set out to build a traditional creative agency. They set out to build a place that helps people and brands find their courage. Where bold ideas thrive in the face of the realities that often weaken them. Dhaval’s journey, arriving in Canada at 21 without industry connections, shaped a leadersh...
Alexis Bronstorph & Kelsey Horne
No Fixed Address
Creative leadership today is measured by what you protect and what you grow. Alexis Bronstorph and Kelsey Horne have done both. As Co-Chief Creative Officers of No Fixed Address, they have spent the past 18 months building an ecosystem where creativity thrives—expanding the agency’s capabilities, elevating its reputation and prod...
Angus Tucker
Leo Toronto
Angus Tucker is the co-founder and former Chief Creative Officer of john st., one of Canada’s most celebrated and awarded agencies of the past two decades. In 2024, he joined Leo Toronto, bringing with him 35 years of creative leadership and an enduring optimism that continues to unlock bolder thinking for the agency and its clients. ...
Mike Dubrick
Rethink
Mike Dubrick is the creative force behind Rethink’s global reputation for breakthrough, culturally resonant work. As Chief Creative Officer of Toronto, he sets and protects the creative standard across the agency network, ensuring that every idea that goes into the world is distinctive, craft-driven and impossible to ignore. Over the p...
Simon Au
The Kitchen North America
Simon Au has redefined what creativity can achieve in Canada and beyond. As Executive Creative Director of The Kitchen North America at Kraft Heinz, he transformed a 15-person pilot team into a 170-strong, cross-border agency overseeing 27 brands. Under his leadership, The Kitchen has become a social-forward, culturally fluent powerhou...
Vini Dalvi
Publicis Toronto
In his second year as Publicis Toronto CCO, Vini Dalvi led the agency through the most creatively, commercially and culturally successful year in its history. Overseeing one of Canada’s largest creative departments, he balances scale with a hands-on leadership style, remaining close to the work, teams and clients. Vini believes transfo...
CREATIVE TEAM
Nick Noh & Jordan Darnbrough
Rethink
Nick and Jordan are a Creative Director team at Rethink who harness cultural tension to generate talk value—making brands part of the public conversation. Their work combines sharp conceptual thinking with exceptional craft, producing some of the world’s most effective and talked-about campaigns. Over the past 18 months, they...
Devon Clarke & Peter Sreckovic
Publicis Toronto
Conventional wisdom dictates that when it comes to creativity, you can either be ‘quick’ or ‘good’ but rarely both, sacrificing either timeliness to achieve perfection or quality to get something done fast. But in certain exceptional moments in an advertising career, you come across a team with the rare ability to turn that dichotomy f...
Lily Coyle, Sarah Sheppard & Ben Kasprow
Mosaic North America
Lily Coyle (Associate Creative Director), Sarah “Shep” Sheppard (Senior Copywriter), and Ben Kasprow (Art Director) represent the next evolution of modern creative leadership at Mosaic. In just over a year of collaboration, the trio has delivered high-impact work across iconic brands, driving measurable business growth and secur...
Steve Ierullo & Hemal Dhanjee
Courage
Steve Ierullo and Hemal Dhanjee have been building ideas together since advertising school, united by a shared belief that great work should make you feel something first and sell something second. Now Creative Directors at Courage, they’ve helped redefine how brands like KFC, Nestlé and Skip show up in culture. Their philosophy ...
Stuart Macmillan & Jean-Philippe Dugal
No Fixed Address
At No Fixed Address, Stuart MacMillan and Jean-Philippe Dugal have turned their culture clash, a sharp-eyed Quebecois designer and a writer whose craft was forged across the creative hubs of Europe, into the agency’s most versatile engine for growth and impact. Over the past 18 months, this duo has redefined what Creative Team of...
HEAD OF AGENCY - CREATIVE/ADVERTISING
Mike Sutton
Zulu Alpha Kilo
Mike Sutton, President and CEO of Zulu Alpha Kilo (Z.A.K.), is a unifier. When many independents contracted, Sutton's leadership earned Z.A.K. global success, sustained growth, and a strong creative culture. Across offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and New York, and in-house divisions Zulubot (production) and Zulumatic (media), Su...
Aaron Starkman
Rethink
Over the past 18 months, Aaron has led Rethink through a defining period of growth, evolving one of North America’s most creatively ambitious independents from a pure-play creative agency into a multi-practice network built on creativity. Crucially, he has done so without compromising the agency’s founding mission: “to change the indus...
Brett McIntosh
Publicis Canada
Industry leader. Agency president. Partner to Canada's most influential CMOs. And, notably, one of the advertising world's most genuine figures. As president of Publicis Toronto, Brett navigates the complexities of leading Canada's largest advertising agency—alongside a roster of specialist disciplines—in an increasingly demanding la...
Niki Sahni
Courage
Niki Sahni has been an integral part of the agency’s success since helping to open its doors four years ago, working with clients to produce award winning work that drives their business forward. Clients rave about Niki’s straightforward, no-marketing-lingo communication style. She’ll tell you her favorite part of the job is digging ...
Rachelle Claveau
Broken Heart Love Affair
Rachelle Claveau is one of Canada’s most senior and accomplished agency leaders, currently serving as EVP & National Managing Director of Broken Heart Love Affair & Agence BHLA. Over the past 18 months, she has simultaneously led the Ontario business and launched and scaled the Québec office, delivering growth, profitability, and cultu...
Tom Evans
The Kitchen North America
Tom Evans is redefining agency leadership by challenging how agencies have traditionally operated and rebuilding the model from inside the business. As Head of The Kitchen North America at Kraft Heinz, Tom transformed a 15 person Canadian pilot into a 170+ person agency serving 27 brands across Canada and the United States. Rat...
HEAD OF AGENCY - MEDIA
Karel Wegert
Media Experts
In 2025, as industry pressure, rapid automation, and market uncertainty challenged agency culture and performance, Media Experts’ CEO Karel Wegert introduced the Year of Care, a leadership framework built around Care for Each Other, Care for the Craft, and Care for Canada. The approach formalized a long-standing belief that sustainable...
Ben Seaton
UM
In just two years as CEO of UM Canada, Ben Seaton has not only propelled the agency’s success to new heights, but has spearheaded a media renaissance–championing curiosity, culture, and human intelligence as critical drivers of meaningful business growth. Through his visionary leadership Ben has cultivated an environment where UM's peo...
Devon MacDonald
Cairns Oneil
Devon MacDonald is redefining media leadership in Canada by proving that transparency, independence, and craft can drive both trust and growth at scale. As President of Cairns Oneil, Devon leads the only scaled Canadian media agency operating fully as an agent for its clients; free from principal-based buying, hidden incentives, and ...
Erica Kokiw
PHD Canada
Since becoming CEO of PHD in September 2024, Erica Kokiw has quietly set a new benchmark for media agency leadership. Her vision has moved PHD from reactive management to sustainable growth, fostering a culture of innovation and trust. Under Erica’s guidance, PHD has secured major new business wins, strengthened client relationships, a...
Véronik L'Heureux
Starcom
Véro, CEO of Starcom Canada, is widely recognized for a leadership style rooted in empathy, trust, and a deep commitment to culture. Throughout her career in the Canadian media industry, she has consistently championed the belief that outstanding work is the byproduct of an environment where people feel empowered, respected, and united...
MEDIA PLANNER
Winner: Jennifer Blenkhorn
Cairns Oneil
NEW BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT TEAM/ PERSON
Brooke Makarchuk, Olivia Mactavish, Taylor McCloskey
Publicis Media
The Business Development team at Publicis Media is small but mighty, overseeing business development across all agencies in Canada under the Publicis Media umbrella – Starcom, Spark Foundry, Zenith, and Publicis Collective. The team is led by Brooke Makarchuk and comprised of Olivia Mactavish, and Taylor McCloskey. In the last 18-month...
Caralia Gosling
Mosaic North America
In fall 2024, Mosaic restructured its North American New Business Development function to sharpen market focus, clarify its value proposition, and strengthen pipeline discipline. Leading this transformation was Caralia Gosling, Vice President, Client Growth, a 20-year Mosaic veteran whose leadership has driven the agency’s most signifi...
STRATEGIST
Erin Brittain
Publicis Toronto
Erin is a VP of Strategy at Publicis Canada whose non-traditional path has made her a rare kind of brand leader: deeply curious, rigorously analytical, and relentlessly focused on raising the standard of the work and the people behind it. She’s strongest in foundational strategy - positioning, architecture, and platform development - a...
Carly Miller
Broken Heart Love Affair
Carly is an exceptional leader defined by care and courage. She sets high standards not out of ego, but from a deep sense of responsibility to the work, the people who create it, and the audiences it serves. Grounded and deeply human, Carly brings cultural insight and lived experience into her thinking, believing that the most powerful...
Kristy Pleckaitis
Broken Heart Love Affair
Kristy Pleckaitis is a strategist who has redefined the role of strategy within the agency, elevating it from a supporting discipline to a central driver of growth and impact. Over the past 18 months, she has reshaped how success is measured, directly linking strategic thinking to revenue performance, smarter investment decisions, and ...
Sydney Hill
Courage
In just six years, Sydney has rocketed to the top of her field, building a track record of award winning strategies for iconic brands like KFC, Sephora, McDonald’s, and Molson Coors. A Senior Strategist at Courage, Sydney has quickly become a driving force behind some of the agency’s most high-profile accounts. Within her first m...
