2024 GLOBAL ACE AWARD JUDGES

Orlando Baeza
Chief Revenue Officer & Chief Marketing Officer (Formerly)
Flock Freight
 

Global marketing and commercial growth expert Orlando Baeza was most recently the CRO and CMO at Flock Freight, where he led a new inbound commercial growth strategy to drive even more profitable revenue growth. Prior to Flock, Orlando led B2C and B2B marketing at Medable, Kajabi, and Buzzfeed. He also held roles in global marketing at Activision, Nike and Adidas. Orlando’s thorough and nuanced understanding of brand and growth marketing has been instrumental in significant financial success through P&L ownership upwards of $80M, leading teams of 150+, securing pivotal acquisitions, and driving fundraising campaigns to the tune of more than $750M in total capital.

David Bernstein
Chief Creative Officer
The Gate

David is the Chief Creative Officer of The Gate/New York. During his tenure at the agency, David has won over 100 industry awards and, through an odd twist of fate, co-wrote a best-selling business book. A print ad he, Beau Fraser and Bill Schwab created for the agency caught the eye of the editor-in-chief at Disney’s Hyperion Books and resulted in Death to all Sacred Cows. The book has been translated into eight languages. Nine, if you count the proofreader who helped us with our English. Prior to joining The Gate, David worked at creatively-driven shops such as Ammirati & Puris, Angotti Thomas Hedge and Merkley Newman Harty. His work has been honored by the One Show, the Clios, Graphis and the Museum of Modern Art.

Scott Buschkuhl
Creative Director
Prophecy

I’m a creative director, design educator, and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience. Lately I’ve been working for Prophecy and as a professor at the School of Visual Arts. Previously I founded Hinterland, a multidisciplinary branding studio, did art direction for The New York Times and LIFE, and worked as a senior designer with Abbott Miller and Woody Pirtle at Pentagram. I develop and lead teams to build bold brands for FORTUNE 100 companies, as well as creating new identities from scratch for startups and upstarts. Collaboration, open-mindedness, and meticulous craft are at the heart of what I do. I have worked with ADP, American Express, American Museum of Natural History, Cannes Lions, Exelon, Nakamura Keith Haring Collection, New York Times, among many other cultural institutions, publications, and corporate partners.

Matt Casey
Chief Creative Officer
ArmstrongB2B

A conceptual and strategic Creative Director with a proven track record in work that engages and ultimately delivers against the brief. With over 30 years of experience in the creative/marketing industries, I have had the pleasure of working at some of the best agencies in the UK. A large portion of those years has been dedicated to building and leading teams with the same passion and appetite for great work whilst nurturing an inspiring and fulfilling environment to thrive. I believe the power of creativity and strategy can help companies achieve their purpose. If you successfully harness the power of both, you can deploy it across every single sector and have a strong chance of success. I have always loved conceptual and thought-provoking ideas that are executed with the highest production levels in equal measures, and I don’t ever see that dedication and commitment to the craft diminishing.

Paul Cash
CEO
Rooster Punk

Paul Cash is a creative entrepreneur and author on a personal mission to humanize B2B marketing.  In the past 20+ years he has successfully founded the fastest growing marketing agency in the UK, published his book ‘Humanizing B2B’, developed the 13 stories approach to B2B marketing, won over 30+ industry awards and been recognised as one of the Top 20 most influential B2B marketers.  In 2014 following the sale and exit of his previous company he set up Rooster Punk. In just under a decade he has turned the agency into a multi-award-winning business and the go-to name in B2B storytelling. His client experience covers fintech brands like Currencycloud, Funding Circle, Divido and Crowdcube as well as blue-chips like Microsoft, HP, Samsung, TCS, Cisco, KPMG, Elavon, Bupa Global and many others.

Christine Connor
Head of Strategy
The Croc

Christine is a senior strategist with extensive experience in FMCG, IT, finance and automotive. She has worked at senior levels at Accenture Interactive, Ogilvy and Kantar for major brands including Nestle, IBM, American Express, BP and Canon. That eclectic spread of experience has given her a unique insight into how great brand communications can be made even greater with digital, data and technology. She puts those insights into action at The Croc where she heads up a team of creative thinkers. Together they’re reshaping the ways that B2B brand experiences are delivered.

Aaron DaSilva
Executive Creative Director
PJA Marketing + Advertising

Aaron has built his career helping brands in virtually every category tap into truths their buyers care about to create stories that are both rationally and emotionally engaging. He’s worked with B2B and B2C brands big and small, producing work that’s been honored by the One Show, Lurzer’s Archive, the Effies, The Hatch Awards, ANDY, MITX, and the BMA and ANA Awards. He's judged numerous award shows including The Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX), The Global ACE Awards, The New England ADDY’s Awards, The NEDMA awards, and The global Drum Awards. While incredibly proud of the work PJA produces, he’s more grateful for the talented teams — internal and external — he works with that push him to become a better creative thinker every day.

Keith David
Senior Marketing Director
Bloomberg

A 20-year marketing veteran, Keith David is currently a Senior Marketing Director at Bloomberg L.P. In his role, Keith oversees a team of marketing strategists who support the Financial Solutions sales teams at Bloomberg with awareness, demand generation, engagement, and sales enablement campaigns and initiatives. Previously at Bloomberg, Keith oversaw the global marketing strategy for non-financial corporations and the Bloomberg Intelligence research team. Earlier in his career, he served as a marketing manager for the commercial technology division of the New York Stock Exchange and for the Investment Technology Group (ITG).

Chris Duffey
Head of Adobe GenStudio
Adobe

Chris Duffey is a leading figure in technological futurism and creative growth strategies, known for his 25+ years of digital innovation with world-renowned companies and spearheading Adobe's strategic development partnerships for Generative AI. His expertise spans AI, AR/VR, the Metaverse, and more, earning global recognition through media features and influential roles with organizations like ANA and CTA. Chris is author of the award-winning book Superhuman Innovation, the world’s first book co-authored by AI about AI which was named one of the best product innovation books of all time by BOOKAUTHORITY. In 2023 Chris published Decoding the Metaverse: Expand Your Business Using Web3.

Renaye Edwards
Managing Director
Digital Radish

Renaye brings over 20 years’ agency and in-house marketing experience, having directed the marketing efforts of global technology, data and consultancy businesses. Her intricate knowledge of the client side has enabled her to train, develop and retain a first class account management team. Her talent for quickly understanding and connecting with every person she meets underpins the friendly and insightful atmosphere of Digital Radish.

Mike Fredrick
Chief Creative Officer
Nelson Schmidt

Mike Fredrick is the Chief Creative Officer at Nelson Schmidt in Milwaukee. A copywriter by craft, he has worked on multichannel campaigns for clients ranging from Fortune 100 behemoths to local non-profit organizations. Mike has proudly dedicated his entire career to working at agencies in his home city, ignoring the notion that creativity is relegated only to certain locales. His philosophy is that creativity is the most powerful weapon in business today, and he works closely with clients to infuse their brands and organizations with a creative competitive advantage. When not at work, you’ll find Mike’s face in a book or his butt on a bike.

Michael Gividen
Chief Executive Officer
Omne

Michael Gividen is CEO of Omne, the strategic and creative agency that partners with the world’s best foodservice and hospitality brands. With over 25 years’ experience, Michael leads strategy, insight, brand development and creative activation in clients such as Unilever, Arla, Kellanova and McCain; tackling the specific creative challenges of making famous B2C brands relevant in a B2B space. Omne is now Europe’s largest specialist foodservice agency.

Tom Greenwood
SVP, Group Creative Director
McCann New York

Tom Greenwood is a creative director with two decades of experience building brands in industries from tech to telecom, farming to finance. Driven by the belief that there’s potential in every brief, Tom stays focused on the big picture while never losing sight of the details that make good ideas great. He’s made award-winning work for some of the world's most venerable brands and helped create some new ones along the way. Currently at McCann New York, Tom co-leads the creative for State Street Global Advisors.

Ty Heath
Director, Market Engagements
The B2B Institute at LinkedIn

Ty connects people with information needed to make intelligent decisions, studying the future of B2B marketing and decision making. With research, she engages the industry in partnerships with the leading marketing effectiveness thinkers. This effort helps define the category, so customers can drive growth through marketing. Marketers benefit from Ty’s marketing experience at Google, consulting within IBM and leading her B2B consulting practice. Ty serves on the Digital Marketing Institute’s Global Advisory Council, on the Board of Directors for the American Advertising Federation and as an Adobe Insider with top executives and experts.

Kenneth Hein
Chief Communications Officer
Code and Theory

Kenneth Hein is an award-winning executive with extensive content, marketing and media relations expertise. He is Chief Communications Officer at the Code and Theory Network. Previously, he was U.S. Editor of The Drum, where he led the publications' resurgence in the U.S. Prior to the Drum, Hein led dentsu's U.S. communications during a period of historic growth. Hein was promoted from his global communications role at dentsu's gyro where he elevated the independent start-up to the Advertising Age and ANA B2B Agency of the Year. Hein also spent nearly a decade as an editor covering marketing at Brandweek and Adweek. He is the recipient of the Jesse H. Neal Award for Excellence in Journalism, a D&AD Pencil and the Ad Club President’s Award.

Mandy Janicki
Head of UL Solutions Creative Studio
UL Solutions

Mandy Janicki has spent her career fully in-house for the past 18 years for companies based in Michigan, California and Chicago. In her current role Mandy founded the Creative Studio in 2015 to serve as UL Solutions first in-house agency—an innovative solution that greatly reduced UL Solutions dependence on external agencies and strengthened the quality of marketing collateral and brand messaging. Under Mandy’s leadership, Creative Studio is responsible for telling UL Solutions brand story with innovative, easily consumed and visually engaging experiences. Mandy leads a global team of writers, designers and UX experts, as well as managing 35 agency relationships. In recent years, Mandy broadened Creative Studio’s portfolio and extended its reach to meet global demands—an evolving journey that includes onboarding staff worldwide.

Matt Kandela
Co-Founder & CEO
Dear Future

Matt Kandela is Co-Founder and CEO at Dear Future. He launched the agency to help guide businesses to the future that they dream of. From high growth start-ups to established companies, Dear Future has sought to bring new ways of thinking to the Industry with a “low overhead-high talent” business model and an approach to design and branding that always seeks to break the same-ness. Since launch, Dear Future’s work has been honored by Fast Company and of course at The ANA NYC Awards in consecutive years. Prior to starting Dear Future, he spent 20 years in advertising at agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi where he partnered with some of the biggest brands in B2B both in the UK and US.

Jonathan Keebler
Creative Director
Stein IAS

Jonathan Keebler is a Creative Director at Stein IAS. With a background as a musical theatre writer, Jonathan has brought a passion for storytelling to B2B marketing in his near 10 years at Stein IAS. Across engaging brand work and cut-through campaign creative, Jonathan always strives to rise above the cliché and the ordinary. He looks to seamlessly blend complex B2B messages with deep emotional connections. He has led the development of creatively effective and often award-winning work for a diverse range of clients, including ABB, GE Healthcare, ETS, the Federal Reserve, Labcorp, Lexmark, Mack Trucks, Merck, Republic Services, WeightWatchers, and many more. He continues to be invigorated by the trajectory of B2B marketing and is excited to continue to be part of shaping its future.

Jason Komulainen
Group Creative Director
Martin

Jason’s career has spanned 28 years (so far) and just about every channel possible. As a jack of all trades, master of some, he’s had experience in B2B, B2C, B2H and B2K. (That last one is made up.) Direct Mail? Check. Global brand redesign? Check. TVC, social, events, 728X90 banners, hip hop songs…check, check…you get it. He’s helped create and lead award winning work for UPS, TIAA, Walmart, GM, ExxonMobil, Discover Card, Charles Schwab and more. This variety of industries and the challenges they pose has taught him one thing: nothing matters. It doesn’t matter the product, the complexity or the tiny budgets. We are just people trying to talk to other people. Empathy, honesty, trust and listening more than talking will always win.

Clara Kowalkowski
Client Services Director
Earnezt

Clara is the Client Services Director of Earnezt, the New York office of Earnest, London, leading all North American brand and campaign initiatives. Her passion lies in marrying deep strategic insights with impactful creative, and chasing the humdrum out of B2B marketing. With a decade of experience working with brands across retail, fintech, healthcare, non-profit, insurance, higher education and more, she brings a unique, cross-industry perspective to all that she does.

Gian Carlo Lanfranco
Co-Founder & CCO
L&C NYC

Gian is a Peruvian immigrant in the US, who has spent the past 18 years of his career working as a creative director of some of the most prestigious advertising agencies around world before starting his own agency, L&C, in New York City. In only two years L&C became the most awarded Independent Agency in the world. L&C New York is Ad Age’s A-List Newcomer Agency of the year 2022, Best Independent Agency at The One Show 2022, Best New Agency at The Andy Awards 2022, Best Boutique Agency at the ADC 2022, Best Independent Agency at the Clio Awards Health 2022, #1 Impact Agency at D&AD 2022, Global Independent Agency at London International Awards 2022, and Top 5 Independent agency at Cannes Lions 2022, after winning the coveted Grand Prix for Creative Business Transformation. Gian was recently awarded by Campaign US Creative Person of the year 2023 and by Adweek as one of the most innovative and inspiring individuals of 2022 in their coveted “Creative 100 List.”

Steve Long
Creative Director
Gravity Global

Steve Long joined Gravity Global in 1993, with considerable creative experience gained from years at well-respected agencies such as Grandfield Rork Collins, McCann Erickson and Y&R-Wunderman. He has worked on many prestigious accounts including Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Esso, RAC, Canon and Barclays, as well as serving as Creative Group Head for Ford. At Gravity Global he works across the entire client portfolio. He has sat on several creative judging panels including IPA, IAC, B2B Marketing and The Drum. Outside of work he puts his creative skills to use by writing crime novels and has a weekly radio show called ‘The Collective’ every Friday night on 60North Radio.

Andy Mamott
SVP, Creative Director
Mower

Over the course of a 25-year career, which ultimately landed him in Chicago, Mamott’s professional life included breakthrough work for some of the nation’s top B2C and B2B agencies, including BBDO, FCB, Ogilvy, Gyro and currently Mower, where he is a creative director on the Carhartt account. Mamott’s work has been awarded by Communication Arts, The One Club, The Drum, The Effie’s and the Addy’s. He discovered his passion for creative ideas at the Portfolio Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where he studied both graphic design and art direction. In his spare time, Mamott enjoys photography and fishing, at least when they can be squeezed in between coaching his son’s travel baseball team or watching his daughter's ballet recitals.

Cos Mingides
Co-Founder & Head of Effectiveness
True

Cos is Co-Founder & Head of Effectiveness at True, named Creative Agency of the Year at the 2020 and 2022 Global Ace Awards. He oversees the strategic and creative output of the agency, ensuring it meets core principles of creative effectiveness and is a regular contributor for leading industry publications and events such as IPA EffWorks, WARC and The Drum. Since co-founding True in 2012, Cos has been on a mission to make B2B marketing more effective, more human and more creative. He is a strategic partner to some of the world’s most recognised B2B brands including Volvo, Logitech, Worldline and KPMG, helping their communications live up to the agency’s mantra of ‘Make it memorable’.

Jennifer Ogden
Head of Brand and Communication Strategy
The Ricciardi Group

Jennifer has spent a career building some of the world’s biggest brands to category-leading positions, winning industry accolades for breakthrough work that drives business results. Jen led global consumer brands for Grey Advertising, Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy before starting her own consulting practice, helping corporate brands better connect with stakeholders.  She believes the heart of any brand lies in its intersection with its customer’s life. Tell that story well and you build an authentic connection that is hard to break. She has brought that mindset to leading brand and communication strategy for the Ricciardi Group, helping tell the story of brands from Visa and Royal Bank of Canada to Coinbase and iCapital.

Sophia Pellettiere
Managing Director
SMA NYC

Sophia Pellettiere is the Managing Director at SMA NYC (Growth Marketing for Complex Clients). She is a 25-year account management veteran with rich experience in both small and big agency worlds. Sophia grew up running a variety of CPG, food, automotive, association, energy, and technology businesses in both B2C and B2B environments. She loves helping to drive full-communications solutions, especially in B2B, where bringing together true collaborations from diverse strategic and creative disciplines is so important to success.

Brian Pike
Group Creative Director
Doremus+Co

Brian started out as a copywriter and has spent the past seven of his 15 plus years in the industry with Doremus+Co where he writes and oversees work on a variety of B2B accounts as a Group Creative Director. Over the course of his career, he’s developed and led campaigns for brands like The Meth Project, Intel, Ryder, T-Mobile for Business, Lego Education, Visa, Google, PepsiCo, and Constellation wines. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts, FWA, Creativity, ANA, and others. Brian is a big believer in the power creativity has in moving the needle and that no matter what you’re selling, you have a much better shot when you can connect on a human level.

Michael Pogson
Executive Creative Director
Twogether

Mike has spent over a decade protecting ideas on their difficult journey from birth to fully-fledged campaign. His experience spans consumer, B2B, prescription, and over-the-counter products across every imaginable media channel. With over one hundred industry awards to his name, including eight Cannes Lions, Mike’s work has not only changed the opinions of people but the fortunes of brands.

Dan Schrad
Executive Creative Director
The Marketing Practice

Dan Schrad is the executive creative director (ECD) over North America and APAC regions for The Marketing Practice. Schrad most recently served as creative director and ECD of the newly acquired Account Based Marketing (ABM) agency, 90Octane. He is an agency veteran with deep experience leading creative teams to develop outstanding B2B brands, campaigns, and experiences. Dan lives in Denver, Colorado with his family and enjoys spending as much time outside as humanly possible.

Billy Seabrook
Senior Partner, Global Chief Design Officer
IBM iX

Billy has spent over 25 years creating innovative digital strategies and customer experiences for leading brands around the world. As the Global Chief Design Officer within IBM Consulting, he leads a team of over 7,000 experience consultants, multi-disciplinary designers, and developers to create smarter businesses through human-centered design and technology. Prior to joining IBM, he held executive creative leadership roles at Digitas, eBay, and Citi where he managed the growth and change of the organizations and the day-to-day activities of global creative teams. Billy strives to discover the unique intersections between art, science, commerce, and storytelling and has won numerous awards for his distinctive work.

Russell Suthers
Creative Director
Park & Battery

With over 15 years in the B2B creative realm, Rusty emerges as a seasoned Creative Director who’s been imagining strategies to life for some of the world’s most successful brands. A force in both agency and client spheres, he delicately balances strategic wisdom and creative finesse to weave narratives that resonate beyond the boardroom. A pusher of boundaries and maker-upper of all things, he nurtures and crafts ideas that amplify brands and creative cultures. At Park & Battery, Rusty lives for the satisfaction of shaping purposeful work, looking to continuously move the needle that will push our industry forward and leave an impactful imprint on the B2B canvas.

Scott Thibodeaux
US, VP, Creative Director
Transmission

As his name might suggest, Scott Thibodeaux grew up in a tiny Cajun town near New Orleans—just miles from where they make Tabasco. As if by fate, his first ad campaign was for a hot sauce, and he soon moved to Dallas and DDB, the agency that handled the Tabasco account. There, Scott built an award-winning portfolio working on Pepsi, and that work brought him to the AT&T Wireless account at McCann Erickson in San Francisco, where he’s lived ever since. Scott has creative directed brand identities, advertising, and social engagements for clients such as NetApp, AT&T, CBS, CNET, Google, HP, HPE, Microsoft, Nokia, Pepsi, Samsung, and Visa. At Transmission, in keeping with his hot sauce roots, Scott leads a scorching team of creatives on a hot streak for account wins and awards around the world.

Lewis Tierney
Chief Client Officer
Ledger Bennett, a Havas Company

Lewis is a client services and marketing leader with deep B2B expertise, working across award-winning agencies in both New York and London. He has extensive experience supporting Enterprise organizations across multiple industries, including manufacturing, professional services, technology and education. In his current role as Chief Client Officer at Ledger Bennett, a Havas Company, Lewis is responsible for the commercial performance of the agency as well as the strength and sustainability of client relationships. He has built his reputation building high-performing teams, and delivering creative, integrated, go-to-market strategies that connect marketing with the growth goals of clients.

Chris Turney
Head of New Business and Marketing
JOAN Creative

Chris Turney is Head of New Business and Marketing at JOAN Creative. Previously Head of Strategy at JOAN, her background and passion is in the challenge of finding new ways for brands to grow through creating an outsized share of culture. With a career spanning B2B and B2C, luxury auto to telecom to the stock market, her work has resulted in myriad acknowledgements, including Cannes Lions, Effies, and Jay Chiat Awards.

Jason Williams
Creative Director
Agency Ingram Micro

A graduate of Cal State University Fullerton and The Book Shop, Jason has been a marginally effective copywriter/creative director in the technology industry for the last 29 years. Despite crippling mediocrity, he has managed to contribute to award-winning work for the likes of Cisco, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Dell and countless others, and helped Agency Ingram Micro take the Global ACE Awards In-House Agency of the Year award two years running. Away from the creative trenches, Jason can be found enjoying historic re-enactment, silversmithing, tabletop games and Formula One.

Kim Wright
Creative Director
BOL Agency

Kim has created transformative campaigns for some of the most recognized brands in the world, including Toyota, and earned a Cannes Finalist award in the process. Before joining BOL as a Creative Director she was collecting One Shows, Archive, and Addy's in the B2C world by pushing creative boundaries. She has worked for shops like Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Chiat/Day, Deutsch, and 72 and Sunny, and ran her own agency, Bridge13 for a decade. Her main objective has been to elevate and bring conceptual and breakthrough design to the B2B space.

Denise Zurilgen
Global Executive Creative Director
Ogilvy

Denise Zurilgen is a Global Executive Creative Director at Ogilvy, where she leads creative on the IBM account. With a focus on purpose driven, strategic work with a big dose of visual personality, she’s led creative for some of the worlds’ biggest and innovative brands, including jetBlue, Xfinity, Georgia Pacific and Edgewell. An alum of Art Center College of Design, Denise has previously held creative leadership roles at MullenLowe NY, Droga5, Ogilvy, and TBWA\CHIAT\DAY. Her work has been recognized by Cannes Lions, The One Show, the Effies and many other industry award shows.

More judges to be announced!