Dianne Wilkins, CEO
Inspired by my family, the warmth of the sun & The West Wing
Dianne Wilkins is the CEO of Critical Mass, a digital marketing agency that creates extraordinary experiences on behalf of some of the world’s most admired brands. In her 13 years with Critical Mass, Di has served as managing director, coach, entrepreneur, and leader for teams and clients. She got her start with Critical Mass in Stockholm leading Saab on a global basis. After two years, she relocated to Calgary where she took on varied roles before being promoted to CEO on January 1, 2006. She’s had active involvement in clients as diverse as Citi, P&G, Mercedes and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Her roots in client service helped to sharpen her strategic leadership skills and have been the hallmark of our focus on flexibly serving the needs of clients on mutually rewarding terms.
Di received her MBA and began her career as a golf pro. Her passion for the game attracted her to Critical Mass and our early heritage doing instructional CD-ROM’s for golf. She saw the potential of digital and the Internet and has helped to shape the company from those early days. While her handicap has suffered, Critical Mass clients and team have benefited from her leadership and strategic guidance.
During her tenure, Critical Mass and its affiliate organizations have grown from 25 people in Canada to over 600 employees and numerous locations around the world. The agency has been recognized for their work across world-class brands and digital experiences. As CEO, Di’s passion is doing extraordinary work for our clients and their customers.
Chris Gokiert, President
Inspired by what’s next.
Chris Gokiert is the President of Critical Mass. With the agency for nearly a decade, Chris manages the operations of the company across our network of seven offices. His strategic leadership and dedication to client service have been instrumental in the launch of major multi-channel initiatives for Infiniti, Budweiser, Adidas and AT&T.
From transactional sites to brand building experiences, he brings a relentless focus on excellence and pushing our teams to over-deliver. He is responsible for overseeing the growth of the company and evolving our services to keep pace with the changing digital landscape.
During his tenure at Critical Mass, Chris considers the re-launch of Dell’s new website one of his most notable achievements, bringing in the world’s largest e-commerce site on time and on budget, to an audience of more than 80 countries in 18 languages.
Neil Clemmons, President
Inspired by simplicity.
With more than 25 years of marketing experience, Neil Clemmons is President of Critical Mass U.S. In this role, he is focused on helping to drive the strategic direction of the agency, while also providing executive level leadership to a variety of clients and internal teams. He has executive responsibility for the planning, business development, marketing, and technology disciplines at the agency. His leadership has influenced the successful launch of strategic initiatives for clients across varied industries including financial services, technology, retail, consumer goods, and healthcare industries. An avid fan of technology as an enabler and connector, Neil has an intense passion for leveraging digital channels and engagement to help our clients deepen relationships with their customers. Neil’s career includes global marketing and sales leadership assignments at 3Com, U.S. Robotics, and Apple. He’s been at Critical Mass for 11 years. He’s married with two children and lives in Chicago.
Lee Tamkee, CFO
Inspired by Dow Jones, Black Jack and a week in Maui.
With over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurial, start up, turnaround, and corporate environments, Lee is well-equipped to lead Critical Mass’ pursuit of operational excellence. In addition to leading the Support Services group at Critical Mass, Lee collaborates with the Leadership team to ensure that employees have access to the best resources, the best facilities, and an inspiring environment to work in. He champions Critical Mass’ cause for profitable growth and operational success—all while never failing to appreciate the importance of having a good time.
Prior to Critical Mass, Lee was an integral member of the executive team behind the successful launch of Bell Canada’s brand & cellular operations into Western Canada, an accomplishment finally realized after 120 years in business.
While he is not quick to tell you, Lee is an accomplished athlete having represented Canada in many international competitions as a member of the National Field Hockey team. It’s clear to see that the inherent drive for success, commitment to excellence and passion for teamwork in any athlete, has followed Lee into his role with Critical Mass.
John McLaughlin, COO
Inspired by levity, brevity, and a suggestive ellipsis...
As Chief Operations Officer, John is charged with overseeing the quality and efficiency of the Agency’s process and work product. With Critical Mass since 1999, John has led teams for several of Critical Mass’ largest clients and programs. Providing digital strategy and client service for Hyatt, NASA, Procter & Gamble, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), has given John a great understanding of the challenges encountered by dynamic, complex organizations and the strategies and tactics to improve quality and profitability.
With a master’s degree in Integrated Marketing from Northwestern University, John believes in the power of data and analytics to drive business and organizational decisions. John also holds a degree in journalism with a concentration in advertising and business administration from Ohio University. When not crunching numbers, John enjoys Major League Baseball, Scrabble, and reading…
Darren Delichte, SVP, Executive Creative Director
Inspired by Owen and Ella.
Darren, one of the founding members of Critical Mass, has built a team of industry-leading creative talent over the last fifteen years. With Dianne Wilkins, Darren built our Stockholm office before returning to lead innovative creative solutions for Dell, Rolex and Home Depot to name a few. His fire and passion for the digital space fueled Critical Mass’ reputation as a digital pioneer, and continues to drive its mission to create extraordinary experiences for the agency’s clients and their customers.
Under Darren’s creative leadership, Critical Mass has garnered the industry’s top honors, including the Cannes Cyber Lions Grand Prix, London International Advertising Awards, The One Show and The Webby Awards as well as recognition by Applied Arts Magazine.
Scott Ross, SVP, Executive Technology Director
Inspired by complexity and the monkeysphere.
As SVP, Executive Technology Director, Scott is responsible for unifying our technology strategy and vision as an agency, putting the core processes and systems in place, and ensuring that technology can fully enable the extraordinary experiences we create—from site to mobile, social and distributed experiences. Scott helps lead our clients and teams in the formulation of strong technology strategies, selection of tools that enable speed and flexibility, and development of partnerships that extend our capabilities.
With Critical Mass since 2008, Scott previously served as VP of Technology in our Toronto office working across Citi, Infiniti, Gucci and other clients. Prior to Critical Mass, Scott spent ten years with MacLaren McCann where he led their technology practice and served such clients as General Motors, Nestle, Microsoft, Rogers, Johnson & Johnson, Air Transit, Staples and RBC.
Scott’s first foray into the industry was in 1992, developing CD-ROM training and educational materials for BMO and IBM. To pay the bills, he developed everything from shareware collections to multimedia bar guides to digital music magazines. In 1995, he made the switch to the web and, nearly 20 years later, he’s never looked back—bringing his passion for technology to the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Susanne Jones, SVP, Managing Director, London
Inspired by accomplishment through collaboration and community.
As Senior Vice President, Managing Director of our London office, Susanne is responsible for spearheading Critical Mass’ expansion into the European market. Equally adept at operations, client and account management, and production, Susanne brings a breadth of expertise and global experience to the role.
Prior to joining the team in London, Susanne served as Head of Operations and Production for RIOT, the digital arm of 180 Amsterdam, where she co-led the setup and evolution of a 60-strong team in establishing and delivering against a meaningful constant communications model for adidas Sports Performance globally. Before that, Susanne served various roles at Critical Mass, including Vice President Client Partner for Citigroup Global Direct Banking, as well as, Program Director across the Citigroup North American business. The breadth of initiatives Susanne has overseen includes intense discovery work (including primary and secondary research), strategy and planning, intense stakeholder sell-in and user testing, global and regional site redesigns, digital marketing campaigns, site/media campaigns, social media strategy and execution, content planning and production.
George Panopoulos, SVP, General Manager, Calgary
Inspired by Lego and 5-year-old imaginations.
With Critical Mass for 5 years, George is Senior Vice President, General Manager of our Calgary office. Prior to this role, he served as Vice President, Client Partner on the Budweiser, Autotrader and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority accounts. Before that, George oversaw the Dell global business in Austin, Texas. He has spearheaded many digital initiatives at Critical Mass including global and regional site redesigns, digital marketing campaigns and site/media campaigns for a diverse range of clients, including LVCVA, Dell, Michelin and Georgia Pacific.
George started his career with Critical Mass as an E-marketing Director, working with clients to fuse the mix of digital media and site into integrated strategic campaigns.
When he’s not working with his team on the next big strategic launch, he hangs out at home with his 3 year old terrorizing his wife. It should be noted that George’s rugged looks often publicly mistake him for Patrick Dempsey, Remington Steele or Superman.
Cindy Nelson, SVP, Group Director, New York
Inspired by hip hop, the North Woods and two little boys.
A seasoned digital and financial industry expert, Cindy Nelson is Senior Vice President, Group Director, in the Critical Mass New York office. Prior to joining Critical Mass, Cindy Nelson served as the VP/Group Director of Strategy & Analysis for Digitas. She was focused on strategy and client relationships for clients like IBM, Samsung, TIAA-CREF and others. As the strategic team lead, Nelson was engaged in brand strategy, new business development, global campaign development, campaign measurement, CRM, site design/redesign, and marketing strategy including advising clients on organizational structure, process improvement and new media. She also led the Learning & Development program for the NY Strategy & Analytics practice at Digitas.
Her four years at Digitas marked Nelson’s move on the agency side, after years within the financial services arena for Smith Barney, Kidder Peabody and Morgan Stanley. In her ten years at Morgan Stanley, she moved from an Associate in the Equity Division’s Client Technology Group to the Executive Director of Interactive Marketing. There, she was primarily responsible for client portal strategy and integration of products, services, and content across equity and fixed income web offerings. Her financial background includes technology, marketing and customer experience leadership in a variety of products and segments and an extremely deep understanding of the industry and marketplace.
Amanda Levy, SVP, Group Director, Nashville
Inspired by faith, family and fun.
Amanda Levy is Senior Vice President, Group Director, managing the Critical Mass Nashville office and our Nissan North America relationship. Prior to this role, she was the Director of Integration on the Dell account working across Critical Mass offices, agency partners and client groups to drive tighter coordination and improved communication throughout the teams. She also led numerous new business opportunities with key wins including: Nissan, Infiniti, Clorox, Harley-Davidson, Budweiser, and Tyco Electronics.
Prior to joining Critical Mass, Amanda served as the West Coast Director for OMD Digital where she managed the Los Angeles and San Francisco offices. Some of her key clients included: Nissan, Infiniti, Apple, Sony Playstation, Hilton and Clorox. Amanda truly understands clients’ needs since she worked on the client side for over five years at Dell Computer. During her time at Dell, she managed Dell Consumer’s online demand generation vehicles, was responsible for the site strategy and performance, and led global browse and application layer projects cross-functionally.
Amanda has an MBA in eCommerce and a BA in Economics, both from Vanderbilt University.
Joe Scartz, SVP General Manager, Chicago
Inspired by family, friends and the next 90 ft.
Joe is Senior Vice President, General Manager of the Critical Mass Chicago office. With Critical Mass for more than six years, he has cultivated digital marketing solutions for Fortune 500 clients across a range of industry verticals—from travel and hospitality to consumer packaged goods, automotive and branded manufacturing. Previously, he served as Vice President, Client Partner, leading integrated marketing and technology teams for TE Connectivity, Moen, Nissan Commercial Vehicles and Budweiser. Before joining Critical Mass, Joe worked client side on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority business. He was instrumental in driving the digital launch of the “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” campaign for this renowned tourism destination.
With more than a decade of digital marketing experience, Joe earned his MBA in Marketing and Ecommerce from Loyola University Chicago and a Bachelors degree from Ohio University. When not perusing the digital landscape, Joe has been known to watch a few Red Sox games, foul out in softball games and throw perfect games in whiffle ball.
