Decision Making Under Pressure

• Marketing managers and senior managers responsible for campaigns, budgets, portfolios or small teams
• Senior marketing specialists and functional leads who make recommendations and influence decisions
• Marketers coordinating work across departments, agencies and external partners
• Agency account, strategy and client-service professionals responsible for guiding client decisions
• Emerging professionals taking on increasing decision-making responsibility

Participants will learn how to:

• Clarify what actually needs to be decided, so attention is focused on the right question rather than the loudest or most immediate issue
• Make better use of available evidence, context and professional experience, so growing volumes of information improve judgment rather than overwhelm it
• Determine whether to act, test, wait, revise or stop, so the response reflects the level of uncertainty, opportunity and risk
• Turn a decision into clear direction, so teams, agencies and partners understand the intended outcome, ownership and what happens next

• A practical, repeatable process for making marketing decisions under pressure
• Greater clarity, focus and confidence when priorities compete or information is incomplete
• A stronger ability to combine data, customer signals, context and professional experience
• Clearer, more consistent decisions that help teams and partners move work forward

David Edward

Founder, Chief Strategy Officer, Strategic Initiatives Group  |  Creator of the Performance Ecosystem

David Edward is a senior brand and leadership strategist who built his career inside some of the world’s most influential advertising agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Grey Canada.

David likes to say advertising chose him. The realization came on a university field trip to Ogilvy, where he decided, then and there, that this was the place he needed to work. What hooked him wasn’t the polish of the ads. It was the insight into human behaviour and the profound creative ways agencies found to meet it. A fascination with what drives people never left him. It eventually led him to the Italian Renaissance, and to a deep belief in raising the human condition.

David went on to hold senior leadership roles in the agency world, before founding Strategic Initiatives Group as a brand consultancy. The work evolved from there, shaped by his client’s needs for aligned brand and organizational performance. The work was still about human behaviour. It had simply moved from how people respond to a brand, to how people respond to the conditions they work and live in.

That throughline became the Performance Ecosystem, shaped by David’s research into the Italian Renaissance, what made it possible, and the principles that shape the success of modern business and brands. It now anchors a broader belief he calls Human Brilliance: organizations get their best results when leaders build the conditions for people to do their best work.

When he’s not helping leaders find the conditions for better results, you can find David digging into Renaissance history or plotting his next trip to Florence.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

1. Organizational Performance and the Conditions That Drive It
2. Leadership Development and Decision‑Making Under Pressure
3. Brand Strategy and Integrated Marketing Communications
4. Culture as the Mechanism That Converts Strategy into Results
5. AI and Organizational Readiness
6. Executive Facilitation

Cancellation or transfer of registration must be received by e-mail to learning@thecma.ca no later than ten (10) business days prior to the date of the training to receive a full refund. No refunds will be given for cancellations made less than ten (10) business days prior to the training date. If you registered for a training but are unable to attend, substitutions* are welcome any time prior to the original registration training date at no extra cost.

*Substitutions refer to the transfer of a registration from one individual to a colleague