HELEN GALANIS

Executive Sponsor

As  CEO of Initiative, Helen leads a growing Canadian team in a relentless pursuit of excellence. Applying her skills as a former client, Helen values diverse skill sets, spurring her to build a team of passionate experts with varied backgrounds in marketing, media, tech, experiential, and sales. A dedicated leader, Helen is personally involved and invested in helping clients navigate the new media landscape through cultural connections that drive meaningful business outcomes. Under Helen's leadership, Initiative was awarded three gold Strategy Media Agency of the Year awards in the last 5 years and been named WARC’s Top 50 Most Effective Media Agencies in the World.  She was also awarded Strategy’s 2019 Media Leader of the Year.

SARAH SIME

Business Lead

As one of Initiative's business leads, Sarah plays a pivotal role in ensuring her teams deliver best-in-class media solutions. Known for her ability to build trust quickly and effectively, Sarah leverages these relationships to drive superior plans and outcomes, expertly orchestrating the best of Initiative and IPG Mediabrands to drive results for clients. Fueled by a deep understanding of organizational structures and a consultative approach, she works with a diverse portfolio of clients to solve marketing and media problems through collaborative and efficient partnerships.

SAMMY RIFAI

Strategy Lead

Sammy leads the strategic craft at Initiative Canada. With over 14 years of experience spanning both the media and creative disciplines. Sammy’s unique creative and media background allows him to champion and orchestrate cross-craft collaboration to build a unified approach to optimizing brand growth. His unique ability to bring actionable cultural insights that inspire creative thinking, and a deep-rooted understanding of consumer behaviour has helped drive transformational results for his clients. Sammy is a pivotal part of the Canada leadership team that was recognized as Canada Strategy Agency of the year in 2024 and was recently shortlisted for Campaigns 2024 media planner of the year.

CHRISTY MACLEOD

Audience Lead

Christy leads our professional services and solutions practice with a focus on developing and delivering market-leading services, including custom audiences, first-party data strategy, martech and adtech consulting, consumer insights, unified retail media, and platforms and intelligence solutions. Her expertise in data, technology and business operations has allowed her to significantly impact digital ad processes and ensure our client solutions are performance-driven, future-forward, and growth-driven. During her tenure in the IPG Mediabrands network, Christy has been pivotal in building forward-thinking solutions that apply intelligence to tackle the constant shifts in our industry, providing brands the clarity and confidence to move forward.

JUAN PANLILIO

Analytics Lead

Juan is a versatile media professional with eight years of agency-side experience, coupled with experience spread across client, government, non-profit, and start-up environments. He excels in blending analytical, creative, and service-oriented skills to provide maximum value for clients. Leading the Decision Sciences team, he combines technical expertise with business acumen to drive client success. He collaborates with various teams, managing over 40 brands and achieving impressive results. Notably, he's optimized Voila's audience targeting and BMO's yield for Everyday Banking and Credit Card products.

JAMIE CAMDEN

Strategy

Jamie Camden brings over a decade of media expertise to his role on the strategy team at Initiative, where he develops innovative, insight-driven campaigns that fuel business growth across diverse industries. He has spearheaded impactful work for top-tier brands like Amazon, Harley-Davidson, Canada Goose, CBC, Parkinson’s Canada, and Nintendo—contributing to multiple award-winning campaigns recognized on both national and international stages.

EMILY JOHNSTON

Strategy

Emily brings seven years of media experience across a range of industries, including retail, quick service restaurants (QSR), finance, travel, and real estate. She is adept at navigating strict regulatory frameworks and employs comprehensive 360-degree planning and activation across digital and traditional media. Emily skillfully integrates insightful strategies with data and analytics to drive business growth and customer acquisition. She has led communication design for prominent accounts such as the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Wendy's Canada, and Home Hardware.

CHRISTIAN KERN

Strategy

With ten years of experience in media, planning and marketing, Christian brings his high-level strategic thinking to clients and internal teams to improve planning, storytelling, research, and building insights. Working across multiple verticals, Christian ensures that the quality of ideas and plans continues pushing boundaries and raising the bar for client results. Christian's work has been recognized with a number of awards.