CMA Announces 2026 CMA Awards Co-Chairs and Introduces Four New Awards to Recognize Excellence in Canadian Marketing

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 21, 2026--

The Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) today announced the co-chairs for this year’s CMA Awards: Nuno Bamberg, senior vice-president, brand and marketing at Sleep Country Canada Inc. and Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, chief creative officer at TBWACanada. Both bring immense industry expertise to lead this year’s celebration of marketing excellence, as the CMA also introduces four new categories reflecting the industry landscape.

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“Marketing plays a vital role in contributing to our economy, our society and our culture, and excellence in marketing deserves to be recognized. I’m delighted to welcome Nuno and Nancy as co-chairs for this year’s CMA Awards. Their leadership, expertise and passion truly reflect the values of our industry, and the CMA’s mission to elevate marketing,” said Esther Benzie, president and CEO of the CMA. “I’m also excited to introduce a new discipline and four new featured awards that shine a spotlight on the incredible work happening across Canadian marketing.”

Bamberg is a brand strategist known for reshaping some of Canada’s most recognizable brands through an entrepreneurial and insight-driven approach. As senior vice-president of brand and marketing at Sleep Country Canada, he leads brand strategy and marketing across a multi-brand portfolio including Sleep Country, Casper and Endy, with a focus on strengthening customer connection and supporting long-term growth. He is known for pairing commercial clarity with a people-first approach. Under his leadership, the company earned national recognition as Brand of the Year in 2025, marking a significant milestone in its brand transformation.

“The CMA Awards are an opportunity to recognize the work that is shaping the future of marketing and driving meaningful business impact,” said Bamberg. “I’m honoured to help celebrate the talent and ideas pushing the industry forward.”

Crimi-Lamanna is a globally recognized creative leader known for translating brand purpose into impactful ideas, products and experiences. As chief creative officer at TBWACanada, she has played a key role in elevating the agency’s creative reputation, contributing to its recognition on the global stage and across major industry awards. Her work spans integrated campaigns, digital innovation and brand storytelling, with a focus on creating ideas that drive both cultural relevance and business impact.

“Having served on juries, panels and advisory boards, being chosen as a co-chair for the CMA Awards is both exciting and meaningful,” said Crimi-Lamanna. “It’s an exciting time in Canadian marketing as new technologies and evolving platforms continue to reshape how brands connect with audiences and bring ideas to life.”

New awards reflect an evolving marketing landscape

For the first time, the CMA Awards will include sponsorship as a dedicated signature award discipline. Sponsorship has evolved into one of the most strategic and measurable pillars of modern marketing. While elements of sponsorship appear across multiple disciplines, including brand building, customer experience and shopper marketing, engagement and PR, there has historically been no dedicated discipline. The addition recognizes sophisticated, multi-channel programs that drive brand affinity, community impact and business outcomes, and ensures the CMA Awards reflect the full breadth of contemporary marketing excellence in Canada.

Along with the new discipline, this year’s ceremony will also include four new featured award categories:

Each year, the CMA Awards show honours marketing professionals who have set new standards and created award-winning campaigns that have made a lasting impact in their respective industries. This year's CMA Awards will be presented at Toronto's Westin Harbour Castle on November 13, 2026.

Judging applications are now open, with a deadline of June 11, 2026. Entries for the 2026 CMA Awards will open April 27. As well, $10 from each signature award entry will go towards a donation to National Advertising Benevolence Society (NABS), supporting people in the Canadian marketing community with wellness and career support. Additional information on important dates can be found here: https://thecma.ca/awards/2026-important-dates.

About Nuno Bamberg

Senior vice-president, brand and marketing at Sleep Country Canada Inc.

Nuno Bamberg is a business builder and brand strategist who has reshaped some of Canada’s well-known brands through his entrepreneurial vision and mindset. As senior vice-president of brand and marketing at Sleep Country Canada, he oversees the company’s full multi-brand portfolio. His work focuses on building an insight-led, modern marketing engine that strengthens customer connection and supports long-term growth.

Nuno has more than 20 years of experience across brand strategy, marketing, creative leadership and commercial management. Prior to Sleep Country Canada, he spent nearly a decade at Publicis Groupe Canada, where he built and led The Pub, the company’s content and creative production division.

Under his leadership at Sleep Country, Bamberg led a significant brand transformation, with the company named Strategy Magazine’s 2025 Brand of the Year, marking its first appearance in the ranking and reflecting its evolution into a more modern, culturally relevant brand.

About Nancy Crimi-Lamanna

Chief creative officer at TBWACanada

Nancy Crimi-Lamanna is a globally recognized creative leader who has helped lead the creative resurgence of TBWACanada (formerly FCB Canada), elevating its position on the global stage.

Under her leadership, TBWACanada has received major industry recognition, including North American Network of the Year at the Cannes Lions for seven consecutive years, Adweek’s Global Agency of the Year and top honours at the One Show, Effies and WARC. Her work has been presented to the United Nations and includes several Canadian-first Cannes Lions wins.

Crimi-Lamanna is known for pushing creative boundaries, with work that has helped position TBWACanada as a leader in digital and creative commerce. She is also an active industry leader, serving on international juries including Cannes Lions, Clios and D&AD and contributing to advisory boards and initiatives supporting the next generation of creative talent.

About the Canadian Marketing Association

The CMA is the voice of marketing in Canada, and our purpose is to champion marketing’s powerful impact. We are the catalyst to help Canada’s marketers thrive today, while building the marketing mindset and environment of tomorrow.

We provide opportunities for our members from coast to coast to develop professionally, to contribute to marketing thought leadership, to build strong networks, and to strengthen the regulatory climate for business success. Our Chartered Marketer (CM) designation signifies that recipients are highly qualified and up to date with best practices, as reflected in the Canadian Marketing Code of Ethics and Standards. We represent virtually all of Canada’s major business sectors, and all marketing disciplines, channels and technologies. We advocate with government stakeholders, while also providing Canadian consumers with information to help them better understand their rights and obligations. For more information, visit thecma.ca.

Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, chief creative officer, TBWACanada

Nuno Bamberg, senior vice-president, brand and marketing, Sleep Country Canada Inc.

LONDON (AP) — Apple's next CEO John Ternus is a company veteran who rose through the iPhone maker's hardware engineering ranks but until now has maintained a low profile.

Ternus will take over as chief executive in September for Tim Cook, who turned Apple into a $4 trillion, tech colossus during his 15-year reign after the death of co-founder Steve Jobs.

Ternus, 50, has spent almost his entire career with Apple. He joined the company 25 years ago and has spent the past five years overseeing the engineering that underlies the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

It's made him a prime contender to succeed Cook who on Monday, when Apple announced the change in leadership, hailed Ternus as “without question the right person to lead Apple into the future.”

Ternus worked on some of Apple's signature products under Cook, including the Apple Watch, AirPods and Apple Vision Pro. He was also involved in the MacBook Neo, "arguably one of the most disruptive products” that Apple has released in a while, said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.

“This mentorship will undoubtedly ensure a smooth transition, and initially, I expect very few changes to the company’s strategy,” Wood said.

The appointment appeared to be carefully timed, following Apple's 50th anniversary celebrations and ahead of its annual WWDC developers conference in June.

The change also arrives at a pivotal time for the Cupertino, California, company. While Cook led Apple through an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity, Apple has fallen behind in the artificial intelligence race. Apple has stumbled in its efforts to deliver new features built on AI, as was promised nearly two years ago.

“The challenge for the new CEO is really to make sure Apple is able to crack AI as the new user interface and reinvent human machine interaction," Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson said.

Wood says attention at WWDC will be on the new CEO's AI strategy, and what the company will do next after turning earlier this year to Google — an early leader in the AI race — to help make the iPhone’s virtual assistant Siri more conversational and versatile.

“A big strategic question is how far Apple will invest in building its own AI platform versus relying on other companies’ models and platforms,” Wood said.

Ternus will also be tested by host of other challenges that don't involve his expertise in hardware.

“Apple faces a turbulent market amid geopolitical uncertainty and macroeconomic pressures,” Wood said. “The consumer electronics industry faces a perfect storm, with memory chip shortages and the war in the Middle East having widespread implications for consumer confidence. Apple will also need to decide how much it wants to continue its deep reliance on China for manufacturing.”

Ternus is not well known outside of the Apple universe. He joined the company in July 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile, which does not have any posts.

Before joining Apple, he spent four years as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. He graduated in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the swim team and for his senior project developed a mechanical feeding arm for quadriplegics controlled by head movements.

In a 2024 commencement speech to the university's engineering school, Ternus said he was intimidated when he first started working at Apple and wasn't sure he belonged. He learned to “always assume you’re as smart as anyone else in the room but never assume you know as much as they do.”

“There will always be new skills to master and new people to learn from,” he said.

Ternus said in Apple's announcement that he was "humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”

FILE - Apple's John Ternus speaks during an announcement of new products at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Monday, June 5, 2017. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)