Organizers
Effie Romania Organizers:
- IAA Romania (International Advertising Association – Romanian Chapter)
- UAPR (Uniunea Agentiilor de Publicitate din România)
- The Institute – organizing partner
Steering Committee 2022
Ruxandra Rău – President of Romanian Effie Awards Committee 2022
& Director Brand & Communication Strategy, Telekom Romania Mobile
- Professional with high experience and creativity in branding, communication and media, leading strategic brand repositioning projects, developing effective performance tracking tools, implementing the highest quality standards and constant budget savings, through deep knowledge and understanding of consumer perspectives and proactive responses to their needs.
– Extremely efficient brand management, with significant impact on the brand and KPIs;
– Create a strong intimacy with consumers and adapt the most relevant proposals to the needs and perspectives of customers;
– Manages Telekom’s overall communication budget, maximizing performance through the best strategies;
– The most effective media strategy, constantly gaining a higher share of voice than the share spent;
– Improved perception and active interest through media communication, constantly proven by market research;
– Annual industry awards for brand and sales efficiency generated by communication campaigns.
Nicolae-Cătălin Cîrstea – Senior Brand Manager Flavored Non-alcoholic, URSUS
- A marketer with 8 years of experience in brand-building, Cătălin started his career in an entrepreneurial environment, at the Titi Aur Academy. Later he continued his career at Unilever, where he was part of the staff team that was responsible for the deodorant and oral-care categories, as well as the execution of the Rexona and Signal brands in 7 countries. Nicolae-Cătălin Cirstea is currently Senior Brand Manager at Ursus Breweries and is responsible for Ursus Cooler, the non-alcoholic flavored brand, for strategic brand positioning exercises and annual planning exercises, until coordinating the implementation of direct plans with direct and and cross-funcitional teams. Cătălin believes that any brand should be ambitious and always want to have an impact on society, more precisely to change a behavior in the lives of consumers.
Wenka Booij – Head of Brand and Marketing, ING Bank Romania
- Wenka started her marketing and communication career with KPN, the telecom market leader in the Netherlands, where she o.a. ran campaigns introduced a new mobile brand and set up an internal marketing academy. In 2011 Wenka joined ING, developing the employer brand for the management trainee segment. After heading the brand direction team at the ING Global Brand Management department in Amsterdam Wenka joined the Romanian organization in March this year. She combines creativity and strategy to build brands and create meaningful impact, aiming to do that not only in business but also in life.
Ileana Cociaș – Senior Marketing Director, Procter & Gamble South East Europe
- Strategic marketing leader with 15+ year experience in advanced marketing, Ileana Cociaș is passionate about building strong teams and partnerships. She is also results oriented, and driven to deliver strong market growth across the various EMEA regions and across various FMCG portfolios from grocery, to beauty, to pet food. She is in depth knowledge of both Eastern and Western Europe countries as well as a complex range of commercial business models ranging from distributor to direct markets. Ileana is passionate and experienced in end-to-end marketing from the design phase to the in-market sales plan execution.
Her core areas of expertise are:
- Organizational structure design
- Brand and portfolio management
- End to end marketing design and execution
- Marketing capability building
- Transition Management during Divestitures
- Agency and external partners management
- Key Accounts (Trade) management
- Team management (direct reports & multi-functional teams 40+)
- Budget management and cost optimization with focus on ROI
Mihai Trandafir – Managing Director, UM Romania
- 19 years of experience in advertising, in a leading Media Agency in Romania, UM Agency of the Year @ Festival of Media Global in 2016 (amongst over 10 other awards) European Media Agency of The Year at Eurobest 2015, Mihai is also a 28 Cannes Awards Winner and won another awards at advertising festivals like: 3 Grand Effies in the last 6 years, Gold in Media Innovation. In his career Mihai Trandafir was Member of the Jury in Festival of Media Global Finals, as well as in Cannes Lions in 2017, President of the Effie Romania Organizing Committee 2018.
His specialties: Media & Advertising Strategies, Connection planning, Research & Negotiations.
Bogdan Niţu – General Manager, Webstyler
- Bogdan is today the General Manager of the agency created by the merger of GMP Advertising and WEBSTYLER in 2018. Bogdan founded WEBSTYLER in 2000. Under his management, WEBSTYLER became the ‘Agency of the Decade’ and 7 times ‘Agency of the Year’ at Internetics, as well as the first digital agency to enter Top 3 at the Effie Awards. He also led WEBSTYLER to win international awards at Eurobest, Clio Awards or Golden Drum. Starting 2014, Bogdan is a lecturer at IAA School Digital Module, while between 2016 and 2018 he was a member of the IAA Romania Board. He believes brands have the power to go beyond business objectives and truly add value in people’s lives
Diana Crâșmariu – Head Of Strategy, Cohn&Jansen
- Diana has over 15 years of experience in advertising, of which she has spent more than half of her time in the strategy department. From there came countless campaigns that have been awarded at EFFIE in past years. This time he joins the Effie committee and will judge your campaigns “with a strategist’s eye”.
Corina Bratu – Planning Director, Leo Burnett
- For 12 years in the industry, I am still just as excited to be paid to ask questions, to solve human nature issues, and to advocate for what I think is right. I am lucky to have smart colleagues and clients from various industries, from FMCG to Telco, and from everyone who steals every day, on local and regional projects. In 2019, I graduated with another MBA founded by Seth Godin, a fantastic experience, which reconfirmed to me that I am exactly where I need to be.
Irina Pencea – Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Jam Session Agency
- Irina Pencea is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Jazz, one of the most awarded independent agencies in Romania, both locally and internationally and has 22 years of experience in communication and brand strategy, business development and management.
Roxana Mătăşel – Marketing Director, Sphera Franchise Group
- For over 16 years in the field of Marketing and Communication, 13 years exclusively employed in advertising agencies and 3 years in Marketing in the company in which she still works, Roxana began her career in the Customer Service department. She was promoted until she reached the position of Group Account Director, and then worked to the Strategy department. The main agencies for which he worked are Young & Rubicam, Gray (formerly Geometry) and Mccann, during which time he gained experience on accounts in various categories such as: P&G, Vodafone, Doncafe, Bancpost, Mastercard, Caroli Foods, Unilever, Heineken, Nestle, KFC , PizzaHut.
Simona Panait – Corporate Marketing/SEROM/Principal Professional/Samsung Electronics
- Simona Panait has over 16 years of experience in marketing, previously holding the position of Operations Marketing Manager for Romania and Moldova at Coca-Cola Company, as well as Global Marketing Manager for Ilko Coffee International, a joint venture between Coca-Cola Company and illy Caffe. In the past, she coordinated the marketing and management team in Coca-Cola HBC Romania as National Marketing Manager. Simona Panait joined the Samsung Romania team in the summer of 2016 as Marketing Manager in the Southeast Europe region. She currently holds the position of Marketing & Online Director Romania and Bulgaria, being responsible for marketing and communication strategy, digital and e-commerce activities for the entire product portfolio, respectively corporate citizenship and public affairs activities.
Bianca Mănescu – Head Of Strategy, Kubis Interactive
- For 12 years she has strongly believed that she has advertising in her blood, and her obsessive passion for strategy has grown day by day. Bianca tells us that she has the luck and the opportunity to grow an ambitious and talented team of strategists and to help brands from various industries to show empathy, but also a dose of courage. For her, Effie is the annual review of strategies and the most desired scene for the team she leads.
Adrian Țuluca – Managing Partner, Propaganda Creative
- Adrian Țuluca is the entrepreneur who founded in 2002 the Propaganda agency, one of the most well-known independent creative agencies operating in Romania. In 2013, the company had 5 divisions, including the media, digital and branding division. In the past, Adrian also worked for McCann Erickson for five years, gaining experience in advertising.
Mircea Stăiculescu – Founding Partner, Headvertising
- Strategic thinker with a solid background in business and communication, Mircea has worked with most industries in the 25+ years since in marketing & advertising and had developed a knack for tackling challenging projects in order to find effective solutions. As he says, he has completed a wide range of advertising projects which contributed to increase of sales and marketing figures for various clients in most industries: agriculture, automotive, banking, beverages, construction, consumer foods, health care, hospitality, household goods, insurance, media, pharma, real estate, telecom, transportation, utilities.
Cătălin Albu – Head of Client Business Management, Publicis Groupe
- Cătălin is one of the old (literally) guys, celebrating 18 years going on 50 at Publicis. Currently Head of Client Business Management, managing the entire client portfolio of the agency and leading a team of 30+ professionals. A long-time Effie lover, contributor and winner nad a strong believer in #EffieThinking. Catalin is for the first time in the Steering Committee this year and looking to bring his contribution to what he considers the most relevant Marcom competition in Romania. He has climbed a few mountains over 5.000 meters and have run a few marathons (OK, just one and it was really a semi), not counting the ones at the office.
Attributions of the Committee: supervises preparations, supports, controls and centralizes the Jury’s activity.
Roles of the Organizing Committee
- Define categories
- Set up President of the Jury
- Set up criteria for the jury and form the jury
- Judging rules-open or closed
- Give support to the participants during the Call for Entries period
