[In-Person] CMA Marketing Week: CMAfutureproof, presented by LG2

Sean Stanleigh
Director of Globe Content Studio, The Globe and Mail

Sean Stanleigh is Director of Globe Content Studio, the content-marketing division of The Globe and Mail. His team blends audience data with journalistic intuition and experience to craft great storytelling on behalf of brands, positioning them as thought leaders with influential audiences across multiple platforms. Sean's background is rooted in journalism, and he has held senior editing roles at The Globe and the Toronto Star in disciplines that include national, foreign and local news, business, and entertainment. He has a keen interest in entrepreneurship as former co-founder of a networking events company. Sean was co-chair of The Globe’s innovation lab and past host of its Industry Interrupted podcast. He participates as a judge in business competitions, and he regularly appears at events as a host, speaker and moderator.

AI is transforming all aspects of business decision-making – creating game-changing opportunities for us in marketing. Successful campaigns are dependent on the quality of the data behind them. In this session, Jan Kestle, President of Environics Analytics, highlights what is required for responsible, effective innovation now and next.

Jan shares why trusted, privacy-first, Canadian data are a critical advantage in an AI-driven world. And it has never been more important or possible to measure impacts and learn what really works. Strong data, consumer-protecting privacy practices and great tech (built for Canada) help organizations move faster with confidence.

Jan Kestle, President & Founder, Environics Analytics

President and Founder of Environics Analytics, Jan Kestle, has been a leader in data and analytics for over five decades. An expert in using statistics and mathematics to solve social and business challenges, she has worked with hundreds of organizations in all sectors to support their data-driven decision-making. Jan is a former member of the Canadian Statistics Advisory Council and is the Dean’s Advisory Council Emeritus for the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, and on the advisory boards of the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University, and the Morrissette School of Entrepreneurship at the University of Western Ontario. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics from Western University and is a recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).

Choose from three concurrent breakout sessions tailored to enhance your event experience. After registration, our Events Team will reach out to help you select the session that best fits your interests and goals.

Registration confirmation and breakout session selection will be handled by the CMA Events Team following your event registration.

Tucker Bryant
Innovation Keynote Speaker | Renowned Poet

After spending a decade alongside world-class innovators at institutions like Stanford and Google, Tucker Bryant discovered an unexpected solution to help leaders and their teams unlock their potential for transformation — the outlook of a poet. As a renowned poet and sought-after keynote speaker, Bryant challenges leaders to unlock growth by Turning the Page™ on the status quo and unlock creativity, collaboration, and competitive advantage in the areas of business that matter most.

Bryant is an entrepreneur and innovation strategist. After nurturing his craft at Stanford University, he went on to become a lead product marketing manager at Google. This was where he discovered the potential of applying creative tools that poets have relied on for millennia to the corporate world to drive innovative leadership. After a decade in Silicon Valley, Tucker left Google to help leaders worldwide overcome universal barriers to change and unlock innovative leadership and sustainable growth.

Bryant’s innovative keynotes blend poetic storytelling with business insight that is tailored to each of his audiences’ business context. His performances have garnered millions of views online and been featured at TEDx, The New York Times, and dozens of other organizations across the globe. Bryant has shared the stage with such influential individuals as Mark Cuban, Malcolm Gladwell, Gary Vaynerchuk, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, and Mel Robbins, as well as governors and executives from scores of Fortune 500 companies

AI-powered search, chatbots and agents are reshaping how consumers discover, evaluate and choose products and services online.

AI-generated summaries now appear before traditional blue links. Product comparisons and price checks increasingly happen inside tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. In some cases, transactions are beginning to occur without a website visit, sales call or e-commerce checkout.

The history of digital consumer behaviour suggests that convenience wins, and AI-powered search and shopping are delivering that. The question isn’t whether this shift will happen, it’s whether your brand will be visible when it does.

This session explores what’s changing and what to do about it. You’ll learn how large language models are compressing buyer journeys, shifting brand visibility from rankings to citations and moving decision-making into AI-powered environments, including emerging agent-driven experiences. Members of CMA’s AI Committee will outline structural shifts redefining digital discovery and share practical strategies to help brands remain visible, trusted and commercially competitive as AI continues to reshape the web.

Chris McLellan, Marketing Consultant, Friends Electric

Chris McLellan is Principal at Friends Electric, a GTM consultancy focused on marketing knowledge bases, AI optimization (AIO), event marketing, content engines, marketing agents, and custom-built lead magnets. In 2016, he founded AskAI.org, a nonprofit dedicated to showcasing Canadian AI innovation and helping professionals navigate AI in the workplace through interviews, short videos, and free guides. A multi-time founding marketer at startups backed by Sequoia, Union Square Ventures, and Sir Richard Branson, Chris also volunteers at the Digital Governance Council of Canada as co-author and Technical Committee Lead for the Data Collaboration Framework, a Canadian and international digital innovation standard.

Sheng Sinn – Chief Client Officer, WTD

Sheng Sinn is Chief Client Officer at WTD – Canada’s leading CRM and personalization agency. Founded with a focus on engineering modern marketing systems, WTD has built a reputation for combining deep CRM expertise, advanced marketing technology, and Agentic AI to deliver measurable growth for ambitious brands., advanced marketing technology, and applied AI to deliver measurable growth for ambitious brands.

Sheng is a deep believer that all marketing aspires to be empathetic, timely and 1:1 and has spent his entire career spanning mass, digital, social, XM, promotions, CRM, and martech working to deliver those experiences with an ever-evolving toolkit.

Alexis Zamkow, IBM Global Marketing & Experience Transformation Lead

As a member of IBM’s Global Marketing & Experience Transformation offering team, Alexis guides clients in the application of leading technology platforms, process, and AI/GenAI solutions to deliver impactful experiences and optimal ROI. Alexis brings a wealth of knowledge in leading complex data-driven transformations from both an agency and client perspective across industries. As an advocate for the responsible use of AI to elevate customers and employee experience, Alexis works with enterprise clients to understand, and activate solutions for AI Search as a critical enabler for the future.