Ara Kurnit Joins Critical Mass as Chief Innovation Officer

Digital agency Critical Mass is bringing on Ara Kurnit as chief innovation officer, a newly created role. Ara will be tasked with accelerating innovation globally across clients like Nike, Mars Wrigley, and Diageo.

Ara joins the Critical Mass executive team from the New York Times, where she was vice president, managing director of strategy, advertising.

“Ara brings together unique expertise in the media, tech, and publisher space - a point of intersection where we’re seeing the most potential for rapid innovation among our clients into the future,” said Chris Gokiert, CEO of Critical Mass. “This moment in time feels similar to the early stages of the web for our industry. There’s unbound potential, but it can be overwhelming for CMOs. Ara is the kind of leader who can guide clients through innovation solutions that drive impact, and we’re so excited to have her on the CM team.” 

Ara’s remit will be to drive the agency’s capacity to deliver innovation in a way that gets to market more quickly for more clients, while engaging a wider array of partners.

“Innovation is in my DNA,” said Ara, “and so I feel right at home at Critical Mass. I am thrilled to be moving into this role at such an exciting time. Technology is revolutionising our industry, with massive disruption on the horizon. This is uncharted territory, and I'm looking forward to tapping into an incredible new toolset to unleash potential for CM's unbelievable roster of brands in a way that is deeply resonant with people and grows business." 

The hire comes at a moment of growth for Critical Mass, as it expands its client roster and talent globally. Chris points out that the agency firmly believes that merging powerful, emerging technologies and uncompromising design standards is often the key to transforming brand ecosystems, delighting consumers, and growing a client’s business beyond expectations - a philosophy that has proven itself with successive years of double digit growth and industry recognition (most recently, Cannes Lions wins for Mars Wrigley and the Omnicom team, as well as the Campaign US Agency of the Year awards, where Critical Mass took home silver in the Digital Innovation category).

Prior to the NYT, Ara was a director at ?What If! Innovation Partners, where she led strategic thinking on global innovation project work across a wide range of sectors - pharmaceuticals, insurance, CPG, and beauty, among others.