The jury with a sense for creativity
For the 31st year, we proudly present our great judges who will be divided into an Advertising Jury and an Art Jury to award the best works. The chairman this year is Catalin Dobre, from the McCann Group. The jury session will take place from April 16 to 19, 2024.
President of Advertising Jury
Catalin Dobre
Co-CEO and Chief Creative Officer of McCann Worldgroup
Romania & Regional Creative Director McCann CEE
Catalin first studied philosophy. He started to work as a copywriter 19 years ago. He is now co-director of McCann Worldgroup Romania and creative director for Central and Eastern Europe. Over the years, he has won 4 Grand Prix Cannes Lions, 2 Titanium Lions and several gold, silver and bronze awards. He has also won awards at all major international advertising festivals including D&AD, Clio, One Show, Eurobest, Lia, New York Festivals, Cresta to Golden Drum. Catalin was part of the first Romanian edition of Forbes 30 under 30, received the Excellence Award two years later, and was also part of Adweek magazine's 100 best creatives of 2019. In 2023, he entered the Golden Drum Hall of Fame, the most important festival of creativity in Central and Eastern Europe, in recognition of his efforts to advance creativity in the region.
President of Art Jury
& Advertising Jury Member
Mike Martin
CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, OGILVY CZECHIA
His advertising career began in South Africa and over 25 years has taken him to five cities and earned him more than 100 awards including 22 Cannes Lions. He helped Ogilvy Cape Town and Ogilvy Johannesburg win #2 and #3 Agency of the Decade in EMEA in Cannes. Before that, he was part of the Leo Burnett Group and worked in offices in Frankfurt, Prague and Johannesburg. His most notable works include the #ShavetoRemember campaign for Philips (D&AD), Bread of the Nation for South African breweries (Cannes Golden Lion) and Bride Armour, the #NOEXCUSE initiative for the abuse of women (Cannes Golden Lion).
Advertising Jury Members
Barbora Ivánová
ART DIRECTOR
Barbora started her career as an art director in 2019, when she represented the Czech Republic in Cannes at the Young Lions competition in the print category. After a short experience at Ogilvy, she landed in the Prague branch of the Triad agency, where she worked for more than 7 years. There, she was primarily involved in the foreign communication of Velkopopovicky Kozel, from Italy to South Korea. One of her more well-known projects here in Czech is the IKEA Against Domestic Violence campaign, for which she won gold at the New York Festivals, and was shortlisted at Cannes.
Iva Nitkulinec
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, DDB PRAGUE
With a passion for design and a knack for crafting compelling visuals, Iva embarked on her advertising journey as a web designer 12 years ago. Once she mastered all the skills and “the art” of making the logo bigger, she started working as an art director in agencies, helping brands with their visual identity in her spare time. Her love for craft and big ideas led her to Kaspen/Jung von Matt as head of art where she worked on numerous award-winning campaigns for clients such as Ikea, Budějovický Budvar or Kofola. Iva is currently a creative director in DDB Prague.
Ivan Soukup
CREATIVE DIRECTOR - GAME, OUR LEGO AGENCY
Ivan Soukup started his advertising career some 12 years ago at Scholz&Friends Prague. Since then, he's worked at big network agencies as well as independent creative shops such as VCCP, McCann or Mustard. In 2021, he was finally able to merge two of his greatest passions, gaming and advertising, as the creative director at the global hub of DDB's newly founded gaming division FTW. His gamer-centric campaigns received much recognition at advertising festivals, including one of the first Entertainment Lions for Gaming ever at Cannes Lions 2023. Ivan keeps exploring the possibilities of play at the LEGO Group's in-house agency, OLA, in Denmark.
Julia Dovlatova
ECD VML PRAGUE / WPP AT CP EMEA
Julia hates bad advertising, which challenges her to lead her team to come up with the ideas she can share with the people outside of the advertising bubble, and really get them excited.
Her current focus is Hill’s Pet Nutrition for EMEA. She has the ambition to bring creative work to the next level of excellence.
Julia has had the privilege to be a jury member of many festivals of creativity across the globe. Her work has been recognised at major award shows and brought to the Czech Republic the first Cannes Lions in Digital Craft, Health and Innovation.
Juraj Bartoš
FOUNDER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR, FREE ANDY, BRATISLAVA
After more than a decade in agencies such as VCCP, Nydrle and Oliver CE, Juraj founded his own full-service agency, where he is also the creative director. Juraj has dozens of domestic and foreign awards for creativity in advertising. Of course, he is always most pleased with the last one, which is now the award from ADCE Europe. He is a member of the presidium of ADC Slovakia.
Kateřina Huňová
EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ZARAGUZA PRAGUE
Kateřina has been involved in advertising for over 15 years, during which she worked in the agencies Havas Prague, Made by Vaculík and Zaraguza. She started her career by winning the Cannes Young Lions international competition, and over the years she has added the Golden Lion to a number of other Czech and foreign awards. In addition to advertising, she also writes books. She published the sci-fi dystopia “Sweet dreams” in 2022.
Lluis Rotger
HEAD OF DESIGN, GIRL&BEAR / VCCP
Originally from Menorca, Lluis began his career during his university years as a co-founder of an advertising agency Jirada. Later he moved to the UK and then he settled down in the Czech Republic. He worked for Havas, Geometry and DDB. Today, he's the head of design at Girl&Bear Prague at VCCP. He works beautifully at the intersection of being a people-driven leader and crafting work. Lluis has had the pleasure of having his work recognised many times in festivals such as Cannes Lions, The One Show, Clio, LIA, EuroBest, ADC or Golden Drum to name a few. Additionally, he was also a part of jury panels in festivals such as New York Festivals, Lisbon International and Young Cannes Lions among others.
Martina Bechyňová
CREATIVE DIRECTOR & HEAD OF TROLLING, LIFTAGO
Martina Bechyňová is the creative director of Liftago and a representative of the Creative Copywriters Club. She has been in the advertising world for 12 years. She moved from the position of influencer to, as she said, a more funny one. She has experience from agencies Bubble and Scale, as a freelancer (for clients such as Ambiente, Matuška, Liberecký Region) and even from the client side. Her fight with trolls on Liftago social media won a number of awards including the ADC Czech Creative Awards, an ADCE shortlist, and talent of the year at Zlatý Středník.
Ondřej Peša
EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR, B&T AGENCY
Ondřej has been working in advertising for over ten years. He decided to start his career as an account manager and changed several agencies before realizing what a bad idea it was. He became a copywriter at Triad in Prague and today works as Executive Creative Director at B&T Agency. He is signed under the campaigns of clients such as Pilsner Urquell, Kofola, Rohlik Group, Jihlavanka and many others. At B&T, among other things, he stood up for the decision not to submit any work to creative competitions on his own initiative. The only award he won here remains the trophy for the first person to come to Brno for a meeting which was actually held in Prague.
Art Jury Members
Atila Martins
CREATIVE DIRECTOR CONSULTANT
Atila is a Brazilian Creative Director based in Prague with 20+ years' advertising experience. His accomplishments include awards from Cannes Lions, D&AD, Clio and many other major international shows from across the globe. He has won 17 Cannes Lions in 6 consecutive years amongst many other awards, making him one of the most awarded professionals in the country. He has worked locally and internationally for brands such as Skoda, Ceska Sporitelna, T-Mobile, Forbes, Xiaomi, NBA, La Liga, NFL, Harley Davidson and many others. He is also a photographer and was proud to have his photo of the Czech Republic featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 2022.
Jiří Horut
FILM DIRECTOR, HEAD OF CRAFT AND VISUAL ARTIST,
MCCANN PRAGUE / PLANETARY
Born and raised in Stuttgart Germany, he has now been active in advertising and film for over 15 years, working with global networks such as WPP, VML, Publicis, OLIVER as well as McCann, mostly for ATL campaigns with a deep focus on Film&Fine craft, Concept Design, Film Directing and Creative Leadership. His portfolio includes several international clients from Germany, Australia, Czech Republic, UK, US and Asia, such as Porsche, Pilsner Urquell, SK-II, Vodafone, SKODA, O2, Coca Cola, ING, Kozel and many more. His passion for Cinematic art and design got him awarded, named and published several times in Lürzer’s Archive (Best Digital artists worldwide), Cannes Lions, ADWEEK, Little Black Book, Golden Drum, ADC Czech Awards, ADCE, Clio Awards as well as Effie Awards.
Klára Javůrková
CREATIVE LEAD, LEO BURNETT
Klára currently works as creative lead at Leo Burnett. She entered the waters of Czech advertising eight years ago as a junior copywriter at Comtech. She grew creatively as a senior copywriter at WMC Grey and has currently moved into the role of team leader. During her eight-year career, she has received local and international awards, including Cannes Lions. She loves bold creative work that combines punk, humor and raw emotions.
Richard Axell
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, TRIAD
Richard is the current creative director of Triad agency and also a founding member of the AI Hub, which was established as a part of AKA. He absorbed a mix of classic creativity and innovation during 18 years of experience in network agencies BBDO, Y&R, McCann, Grey and Ogilvy. He is the recipient of a Golden Lion from Cannes and an Effie Grand Prix. He is actively involved in presentations and workshops about artificial intelligence and its implementation in creative processes. He enjoys watching eSports and is a fan of William Gibson.
Art Jury - Design Experts
Aleš Mička
CREATOR, DESIGNER, ADVISER
A graduate of the School of Applied Arts, he began his professional career in the late 90s in worldwide agencies such as Leo Burnett Prague, Gray Worldwide Dublin and Euro RSCG. He gradually focused exclusively on the field of graphic design, with particular emphasis on the creation of corporate identities in his own design studio Touch Branding, which he left in order to better fulfill his visions. He has won a number of awards at the ADC Czech Creative Awards for his work, and has participated several times in the juries of creative competitions. He was also a member of the ADC committee for several years.
Kateřina Handlová
CREATIVE DIRECTOR, RÜCKL
Kateřina Handlová is the creative director of the glass factory at the Czech lovebrand Ruckl. She has been involved in the environment of glass and glassworks practically since she was a child, she comes from a family of glass artists. After studying at the glass atelier at the VŠUP in Prague, she worked for 3,5 years as a senior designer for the Lasvit company at its branch in Dubai. Later, she worked as a designer for the Swarovski company in Austria, for example, or the Bomma brand, for which she designed the Shibari light collection, Tied up romance and etc. She has extensive experience with glass/glassware, sculpture for lighting design and lamps, all for private clients, brands, and also for the hospitality sector.
Pavel Fuksa
ART, CREATIVE, DESIGN DIRECTOR, FUKSAWORKS
Pavel runs his own advertising, visual and design studio, where he prepares solutions for clients of all budgets and sizes from all over the world, regarding graphics, identity, packaging design, advertising campaigns, consultations, illustration or animation. He has worked as a creative director in advertising agencies on three continents (Kaspen, Y&R, TBWA Dubai, JWT Dubai and Cairo) and he will celebrate 20 years in the advertising business in 2024, during which he has won global and local awards of all colors and sizes.
Petr Štěpán
GRAPHIC DESIGNER, SUPERLATIVE.WORKS
Petr Štěpán studied typography under professor Jan Solpera at the University of Applied Arts in Prague. He worked at Studio Najbrt for ten years. He founded his own studio Superlative.works in 2016. He deals with the design of books, posters and complex visual styles, including orientation systems. Among his realizations are, for example, the visual style of Czech Railways and the logo and visual style of Czech Television. He has been collaborating for a long time on restaurant identity designs for the gastro group Together. He is the co-author of the logo and transport designs for Prague Integrated Transport, as well as the visuals of Prague City Tourism. He designed the logo and design of the winning presidential campaign of General Petr Pavel. He is the recipient of the Czech Grand Design Award (2007), the Czech Lion (2010), the Red Dot Design Award (2022) and the Most Beautiful Czech Book (2023).
Art Jury - Craft Experts
Alžběta Jungrová
PHOTOGRAPHER
Alžběta started taking photos in primary school. She considers documentary and reportage to be the basis of her work, because she is interested in the lives and fates of her contemporaries. She has traveled to various corners of the world for her subjects and has often photographed in borderline situations. Among other things, she received an honorable mention from Czech Press Photo for a report on drugs on the Afghan-Pakistani border, a series of pictures about children working in a brick factory in Peshawar, Pakistan, and a prize from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for photos taken at a Burmese refugee camp in Bangladesh. She is involved in many charity projects and is one of the founding members of the 400ASA group.
Pavel Hejný
PROFESSIONAL ADVERTISING PHOTOGRAPHER
Pavel graduated in photography at the Academy of Arts Architecture and Design in Prague. His client list includes Volkswagen, Škoda, Samsung, Erste, Societe Generale, McDonald’s, Pilsner Urquell, Vodafone, M.A.C, BNP Paribas, Adidas, Unicef and more. Pavel has been part of the Creative Embassy family since 2015. He has been on numerous international jury panels. He won gold and silver Cannes Lions in the print category with a campaign for Newsweek magazine (in collaboration with Y&R Prague). In 2018 he photographed a campaign for Reporter magazine which won 2 silver and 1 bronze Cannes Lions, Clio Awards and Golden Drum Grand Prix, Gold and Silver and also the Lucie Award for Print Advertising Campaign of the Year, gold medal in the Craft category at the ANDY Awards and award for best advertising photographer of the year at MIFA.
Pavel Soukup
DIRECTOR, EDITOR, FREELANCE
Pavel, a native of Prague, is a member of ARAS (Association of directors, screenwriters and dramaturgs) and ČFTA (Czech Film and Television Academy). He has been active in the advertising, television and film world for more than 7 years. He won several local and international awards for his work, including the ADC Young Director (2017), the prestigious Czech Lion film award (2021), the main prize for a TV series at the international Serial Killer festival (2023) and he was the first Czech to receive an International Emmy Award (web series category, 2020).
Robert Hloz
DIRECTOR
Robert studied directing at film school in South Korea and in Zlín. For his short films Mlýn and The Numbers, he received numerous awards, including the Kodak Student Gold Award, and a nomination for the Czech Lion. He was recognised at Berlinale Talents and in the semi-finals of the Student Oscar. His film The Crumbs won in the Straight8 section at Cannes 2020. During his studies, Robert started working as an advertising director. His experience with trick and classic film direction allows him to combine a precise technical visual style with great acting. His feature-length sci-fi film Bod Obnovy is considered the first Czech sci-fi film in sixty years, and was sold to more than 30 countries.