MEDIA EXPERTS RAISES 132,001$ FOR LOCAL NON-PROFIT ON OUR OWN, OVER 1 MILLION TO DATE
September 22, 2023
Get to know our history, our people, and what’s happening with us these days!
Media Experts was founded in Montreal in 1981. Back then, the ad agency world was made up of predominantly full-service agencies. Companies such as Media Experts (specializing in the art of media buying) were thought to be rebels. To this day, we honour our maverick roots by always striving to be nimble, adaptive, and ahead of the competition in an ever-changing media landscape, allowing us to grow our customers’ businesses.
We have, and continue to be privileged to provide high performance media solutions, driving the sales of some of Canada’s leading brands and most savvy marketers. We provide advertisers with proven, award winning media solutions across all traditional, digital and emerging platforms. We deliver the best of both worlds: an agency with an entrepreneurial, independent spirit backed by best-in-class global resources. The result is agility, efficiency, and innovation.
Business growth does not just happen. You need always-on, active leadership; leaders with the foresight to know where the industry is headed, and how to capitalize on those changes for each client. Collectively, our leadership team has over 280 years of tenure at Media Experts – a rate unsurpassed by any agency in the country. Meet the people who grew our business with their hands-on approach to each and every client.
Deeply knowledgeable and forward-thinking, Karel has an extensive agency background and unique perspective on the needs of Canadian marketers, enabling him to help clients and agencies navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape. In his role overseeing Media Experts, Karel is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the business, identifying growth opportunities, and guiding the team.
Karel has demonstrated an unshakable commitment to getting brands ahead of the curve—and keeping them there. He was also instrumental in launching Media Experts' search practice, Canada’s first Business Intelligence offering, and Xpeto, Canada's first agency programmatic trading desk.
Karel continues to play a pivotal role in launching and customizing globally developed products and solutions in the Canadian market. Over the course his twenty-year career in digital media, he has delivered high-yield campaigns and measurable results for some of Canada's most successful brands, from BMW and MINI to WestJet and Bell Canada. His leadership and understanding of the digital landscape have led Media Experts to win several industry awards in Search, Mobile, and Digital innovation.
An exceptional negotiator with over 30 years of experience in extensive cross-platform media buying and planning, Richard’s talent in bringing innovative and custom-designed strategic direction to Media Experts’ clients has been finely tuned over his career.
Richard consistently draws on his unique consumer insight skills, incisive analysis, and contagious enthusiasm to develop media plans for clients such as Bell, Michael Hill, Planet Fitness, Interac, and Kayak/Open Table. In his current role as Chief Procurement Officer, Richard not only oversees the Investment and the Broadcast teams, he is also responsible for all media investment and for managing relationships with our media vendors. He ensures that our clients consistently enjoy superior media value by institutionalizing bespoke trading strategies, procedures, and tactics that maximize customization, innovation, and advertising effectiveness.
Richard spins his natural leadership and industry know-how to gold, winning top honors at the Media Innovation Awards for his work with Bell. Outside of Media Experts, Richard has volunteered on a Habitat for Humanity build in the Philippines. He has also participated in the Executive Sleep Out for Covenant House and served as a mentor for a Covenant House young adult.
Unfailingly personable and resourceful, Flavia D’Orazio brings over 20 years of media research, planning and buying experience to her role as Executive Vice-President, Client Services, Head of Quebec. Her extensive experience across all media channels, combined with a highly results-focused approach, underpin Flavia’s commitment to the growth of our customer’s businesses. A lifelong student of human nature, she draws on her Sociology Degree to understand and analyze consumer behavior.
Whether negotiating with our partner suppliers or leading Media Experts teams in the execution of custom-designed media plans, Flavia searches relentlessly for the breakthrough solution that ensures our customers’ needs are attentively, and cost-effectively, delivered.
The collaborative relationships Flavia nurtures with creative and vendor partners continue to enable innovative and award-winning results. In 2010, Flavia mobilized her teams to conceive and execute campaigns that captured two Media Innovation Awards.
Flavia has been instrumental in the continued growth and success of the Bell Let’s Talk Day awareness campaign and is a champion for the Défi Candarel run for cancer research in Montreal.
Digitally dexterous and growth oriented, Patricia “Patty” Gray has 22 years of experience planning and buying online media for major brands across several categories including telco, government, travel, auto, finance and CPG, in addition to regionally specific and highly targeted campaigns.
Patty’s digital acuity is nothing new. Instrumental in launching Media Experts Digital practice, her passion for the rapidly evolving digital space ensures that she stays current by managing relationships with our digital vendors and positioning our customers to benefit from new opportunities, emerging technologies, and the early insights gained from leveraging first-to market opportunities.
In her current role as Senior Vice President, Digital, she leads Media Experts’ Digital Center of Excellence, helping them shape their role as digital thought leaders and navigating our client business through this ever-evolving landscape.
Patty’s guidance has pushed her teams to take home twenty industry awards in Mobile, Search Marketing and Digital innovation in the past two years for clients such as MINI, BMW, WestJet, and Pizza Pizza.
Patty sits on the Board of House of Hope and is one of two employees in the Ottawa area.
Armed with over 25 years of financial and business management experience, Vasso plays a pivotal role overseeing all daily financial and accounting operations of the company. Vasso combines her ability to attract great talent with strong leadership skills to motivate and coach her team members to achieve all established objectives. She ensures Media Experts payroll, administration, billing, collection and financial reporting teams adhere to industry-leading processes.
Under Vasso’s detail-oriented leadership, the Finance Department ensures the rigorous scrutiny of all customer expenditures and the clear and concise administration of all customer billing and adjustments.
Working closely with all levels, throughout all departments, Vasso ensures reliable systems of internal controls are in place to safeguard assets and provide accurate reporting on financial results.
A strategic, creative leader with more than a decade of experience in the industry, Morgan is known for consistently delivering big wins for the brands he works with. His sound media knowledge, rooted in research methodology, make him an important asset for the Media Experts leadership team, where he has been instrumental in the agency’s growth.
During his time at Media Experts, Morgan has increased the agency’s presence in the West through close collaboration with our SBU and network partners, as well as through thought leadership initiatives, spearheading such industry events as The Future of Privacy, Leveraging Today’s Data for Tomorrow, The Impact of Culture, and Connecting with Impact for Marketing Effectiveness. In his current role as Vice-President, Client Services, Head of Western Canada, Morgan works to ensure that clients have access to the resources and expertise needed to achieve their goals and to continue to thrive within the ever-evolving market. He is also focused on elevating the conversation around marketing effectiveness and media responsibility, ensuring that we are making the right investments for our clients from an ROI, DEI and ESG perspective, enabling us to protect our clients’ brands and grow their businesses. His diverse roster of clients over the years has included BC Hydro, ATB Financial, Earth’s Own, Best Buy, Whitecaps FC, Science World, Subway, and Specsavers.
Morgan’s passion for media extends well outside the office. He is a proud supporter and advocate of NABS, acting as chair for their Cannes Screening charity event for three years in a row. He was also recently appointed to the BCAMA board. Effective in July 2022, his role will include supporting and advancing the media dialogue in the Vancouver market, leading the development of their Senior Executive Program.
A creative leader with over 10 years of experience in the digital sphere, Emily brings a deep understanding of this ever-evolving industry to her role, making her a powerful force who consistently overdelivers on objectives.
With extensive experience working with clients across various industries from government, B2B, tourism and retail to name but a few. These have included heavy hitters, such as Best Buy, Bell, SiriusXM, Royal Canadian Mint and Export Development Canada. Emily has also been instrumental in developing the Media Experts Digital Maturity audit, a clear path for our customers to ensure digital excellence.
In her current role at Media Experts as VP, Client Service brings her performance and digital expertise to a wide variety of client accounts, forging a clear and comprehensive path to reaching their business goals.
Always striving to learn more, he has also spearheaded several innovative campaigns that were shortlisted for industry-leading media awards.
With over 15 years of experience in 360 strategy and planning, Adrian has worked on a large range of major brands across several categories including travel, alcoholic beverages and automotive, where he has honed his expertise in niche audience targeting and both large and smaller scale regional campaigns.
Adrian has a proven ability to reach multiple, and in some ways similar, audience groups in clever ways that help differentiate the brands from one another while driving results across the board. Through creative approaches to all accounts he works on, he has shifted brand metrics in positive ways and garnered fantastic outcomes in both paid and earned media.
In his current role, he drives success for our clients through a thorough understanding of their needs, helping them identify the root of their challenges and a clear path forward. Armed with solid media knowledge and an audience first approach, he ensures that brands are set up to make a big impact on consumers, driving results that will bring their business to the next level.
Adrian's work has been widely recognized in the industry, earning him several awards over the years, including several Media Innovation and Canadian Marketing awards.
Innately curious with a passion for consumer insight and growth, Lindsay Garfinkle brings over 10 years of experience and knowledge to her role of VP, Strategy, where she is key in developing hard-working, results-oriented solutions for our clients. Unafraid of the ambiguity and challenges that come with an ever-changing market, her deep understanding of culture and human truths translates to a unique perspective that constantly drives innovation.
Throughout her years at Media Experts, she helped us take our craft to the next level. Working across a multitude of industries including government, telco, fashion retail, e-commerce and pharma, she collaborates with all Media Experts teams to guide continuous improvement in terms of strategy, planning product, and the development of consumer insight in the ever-evolving media landscape.
Lindsay has made a huge impact on our clients by sharpening the work and helping the teams tell better stories. Her efforts have been recognized in the industry, including a Media Innovation Awards win for her work on Bell Residential.
A forward-thinking leader with an unshakable passion for data, Jennifer ensures that Media Experts’ clients continuously evolve and innovate within the digital space. Since getting her start at the agency over 10 years ago as a search analyst, which first sparked her love of data and analytics, she has continuously and successfully applied her ambition and strategic thinking across several industries, including Telco, Fashion, Retail and Automotive,
In her previous position of Managing Director, Audience and Analytics, Jennifer led the growth of Media Experts’ Business Intelligence practice and helped launch Audience and Analytics, a specialty service that encompasses business intelligence and offers premium audience development and optimization to get media working harder and smarter.
In her current role as Senior Vice President, Head of Audience and Analytics, Jennifer educates advertisers on the optimal usage of targeted marketing with the most advanced technology and reliable data sets to speak to the right audiences in order attain the real-world business results that tie directly to the impact of their advertising efforts.
Jennifer is the senior digital lead for clients such as BMW/MINI, CAA and EQ3, and her efforts have gained some high- profile recognition within the industry. Amongst others, her Media Innovation Awards wins for her work on MINI and BMW campaigns showcase her ability to create innovative solutions and drive outcomes that matter for her
clients.
Resourceful and solutions-oriented, Rachel has been a key contributor to Media Experts’ operational excellence since joining the agency in 2006.
After getting her start on the Media Experts Broadcast team as a Media Coordinator, Rachel quickly climbed the ranks, eventually finding herself on the operations team, where she discovered her true passion for streamlining and automating processes within the agency. She continues to play a pivotal role in ensuring compliance to process and data security according to company principles and practices.
In her time as Managing Director, she provided subject matter expertise regarding key business process decisions related to media execution and operational workflow. She was also responsible for overseeing the Financial Operations, Business Solutions and Project Management teams.She has been an essential collaborator with respect to developing solutions for IPG, bringing value to the entire network.
In her current role as VP, Operations, is responsible for Media Experts’ overall operational goals, which branches out to all teams including the SBUs.
An expert negotiator with 15 years of experience, Pina handles cross-channel vendor relations with resourcefulness and foresight.
Pina has elevated Media Experts to the next level of its broadcast business. Instrumental in efforts to future proof the agency, she transformed what was primarily a traditional TV and radio team into a full-service digital broadcast team, fully equipping them to thrive within today’s landscape.
Having started at Media Experts as a Media Coordinator, she quickly climbed the ranks of the organization, occupying key roles on the buying and planning teams with a focus on luxury automotive and retail. Through these experiences, she acquired strong media knowledge and discovered her passion and talent for negotiating. She has brought this expertise to her roles ever since.
Pina has a solid 360 foundation in traditional media buying, planning and investment. She has closed agency-wide deals across all media channels, which were hugely beneficial for the agency and its client roster. A hands-on leader, she has led the charge to ensure her teams were trained to hunt for the best possible value across all channels.
In her current role as VP, Investments, she oversees all media buying and will continue to manage the broadcast, digital investment, and centralized buying teams. She is also responsible for the growth of Media Experts’ connectivity to IPG partner agencies, teams and media vendors.