Omnicom digital agency Critical Mass is bringing on Ara Kurnit as Chief Innovation Officer, a newly created role. Kurnit will be tasked with accelerating innovation globally across clients like Nike, Mars Wrigley, and Diageo.  

Her remit also includes driving 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, the agency said. 

Kurnit joins the Critical Mass executive team from the New York Times, where she was Vice President, Managing Director of Strategy, Advertising. Earlier she was a director at ?What If! Innovation Partners, where she led strategic thinking on global innovation project work across sectors like pharmaceuticals, insurance, CPG, and beauty, among others.  

“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.