Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2026

Mel is CEO of McCANN. She spent the vast majority of her career as a Strategist, making award-winning and effective work for brands such as Nike, Google, Absolut, Peroni Nastro Azzurro and British Airways, spanning everything from global relaunches to branded entertainment and lifestyle. Before taking the CEO role, Mel was Chief Strategy Officer at McCANN and was named the number-one female Strategist in the UK, and fifth overall, by Campaign Magazine. Mel is passionate about creativity, people and culture. She keeps standards high and has honest and rewarding relationships with her clients.

Programme Director is Jim Stengel , President/CEO of The Jim Stengel Company. A prolific writer, thought leader and advisor, Jim is the author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies, and Unleashing the Innovators: How Mature Companies Find New Life with Startups. He is also host of the highly acclaimed The CMO Podcast, an Adjunct Professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and an investor and Board member at BERA. Jim is widely known for his leadership in the brand purpose movement and for his commitment to building leading-edge marketing capabilities. In 2011, he was selected for the first-ever Fortune® Executive Dream Team. He has been named multiple times by Ad Age as the number one ‘Power Player’ in marketing and is a 2017 AMA Marketing Hall of Fame inductee. Jim served as Dean of the Young Marketers Academy at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity from 2011 to 2020 and in 2013 pioneered the CMO Accelerator programme at the Cannes Lions Festival. Jim is the former Global Marketing Officer of Procter & Gamble and a former member of the Board of Directors for AOL and Motorola. Jim grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. He holds a BA from Franklin & Marshall College, and an MBA from The Pennsylvania State University, Smeal School of Business. Jim and his wife Kathleen have two children and split their time between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Coronado, California, USA.

Suzanne Tosolini is a Brand Strategy Consultant with over 30 years’ experience. She started her career in brand management at P&G, where she worked for 20 years running businesses locally and globally in Western Europe, North America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. She led brand strategy and communication best practices for the company globally and then left in 2009 to join Jim Stengel as a consultant. She now consults with some of the biggest companies in the world across industries as varied as consumer packaged goods insurance, high-tech, pharmaceutical, prestige beauty, telecom and luxury goods. Suzanne has partnered with Jim to co-lead and tutor the Cannes Lions CMO Accelerator and the Brand Marketer Academy at Cannes Lions since 2011. She is on the strategic advisory board of a US-based ad agency and volunteers her time and passion for strategy as a mentor for a large start-up incubator. Suzanne holds a degree in Business and Social Studies from Trinity College in Ireland, where she grew up within an Irish/German household. She currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her Italian husband and has two sons in college in the US.

Daniel Arsham is an artist whose work blends sculpture, architecture, performance and design into a singular vision shaped by time, memory, and material experimentation. His now-iconic “eroded” aesthetic – artifacts rendered as if excavated from the future – has become a signature visual language that speaks to impermanence, nostalgia and transformation. Born in Cleveland and raised in Miami, USA, Arsham became the youngest artist ever to work with legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham. His work is in the collections of the world’s most acclaimed museums, and he has collaborated with major brands from Dior to adidas.

Manuel “Manolo” Arroyo is EVP and Chief Marketing & Customer Commercial Officer of The Coca-Cola Company. In this dual role, which he assumed in 2026 after six years as Global CMO, Arroyo leads the marketing for the company's iconic portfolio of 200 brands. His scope spans Integrated Marketing Experience (creative, media, digital, design, and partnerships), Human Insights, Marketing Innovation, Data & Tech, and Global Commercial Leadership. Since joining Coca-Cola in 1995, Arroyo has held numerous global leadership roles, including managing the Iberia and Mexico business units and serving as President of the Asia Pacific group. He also briefly stepped away to serve as President of APAC for S.C. Johnson and CEO of Deoleo. Arroyo holds double majors in business administration and law from Madrid's ICADE and sits on the board of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.

Adelise Ashdown has spent 20 years at the intersection of brand, demand and client experience – believing all three must work together to justify marketing impact to the boardroom. At JLL, she serves a dual role as Global Head of Brand and Client Experience and Regional Marketing Lead across sixteen APAC markets. She transformed client experience from an annual survey into an enterprise-wide listening framework, using data to directly inform strategy. She has led ambitious brand moments, including the launch of JLL Falcon – commercial real estate’s first AI platform – and repositioned Iron Mountain to a purpose-led brand. She believes the best B2B work is business to human – brave, emotionally resonant and built for real people making real decisions. Recently, that belief manifested as a 16-foot LED tower in Grand Central Terminal: an immersive brand statement in a category not known for making them. A founding board member of the IAA’s APAC B2B Advisory Council and two-time Effie winner, she is recognised for her work across the brand and performance divide. Outside work, she explores the world with her two young daughters. She is based in Singapore.

Obi Asika is a pioneering force in Nigeria’s creative and cultural industries, with more than three decades of impact across entertainment, media, technology and public policy. Appointed Director-General of the National Council for Arts and Culture in January 2024, he has played a critical role in shaping and globalising Nigeria’s creative economy. Before his appointment, he built one of Nigeria’s most influential entertainment brands through Storm 360 and Storm Records, helping launch and elevate some of Africa’s biggest music talents. His executive production credits include Big Brother Nigeria, The Apprentice Africa, the FIFA U20 World Cup 1999, Calabar Festival 2008, and The Omniverse. Obi Asika also co-founded Social Media Week Lagos, Africa’s largest new media and technology conference. A globally respected thought leader, he has spoken at institutions including Harvard, MIT, Wharton, and SXSW, while contributing extensively to Nigeria’s cultural, media and innovation policy development.