5 inspiring female leaders in the advertising world

Meet the execs you need to know...
Shutterstock

Images are the currency of the modern age: whether you are a brand or an individual you must be seen to be heard. And so those who direct the camera wield a great amount of power, for they’re responsible for how we see the world.

Predictably, most of these people are still men. According to data from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, only 30 per cent of leadership positions in the industry are filled by women.

The world is still refracted through the filter of the male gaze. But luckily, London has a crop of incredibly talented woman who are changing the picture. Here are five of them.

Vicki Maguire

Joint executive creative director at Grey London

Vicki McGuire

Maguire has spent 15 years working for agencies including Ogilvy, Wieden & Kennedy and now, Grey London — where she was promoted last year from deputy executive creative director. Last year, she created a commanding campaign for influential forum Mumsnet, which used a 999 call from a five-year old girl made after her mother collapsed during an epileptic fit.

Kate Stanners

Global chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi

Kate Stanners 

Stanners does a sharp line in wry advertisements: her most recent projects include a Pampers ad of babies gurning (called Pampers Pooface) and an ad for HomeAway, an Airbnb rival. Unlike Airbnb, HomeAway invites customers to rent an entire home; the ad riffs on the risks of the sharing economy — for example, finding hair on the soap — without once mentioning its rival’s name. Cheeky.

Victoria Appleby

Business director at MediaCom UK

Victoria Appleby

Appleby works on planning, convincing bigwigs to invest in new mediums. Her most innovative project was the 2014 Share a Coke campaign — which you’ll remember because all your mates with “wacky” names complained they couldn’t find one with their name on. In its iteration on 4OD, the campaign featured the first personalised video-on-demand advert — each viewer would see a version of the ad with their name on the bottle. It was prescient: today, “bespoke” advertising is commonplace.

Inspiring British women on Instagram

1/21

Alex Holder

Executive creative director at Anomaly London

Kate Holder

Holder has worked on campaigns for Smirnoff, Stella Artois, Nokia and Amnesty International, and notably worked on the viral Make Them Pay campaign, about closing the pay gap — it later got a public endorsement from then Prime Minister David Cameron.

Caitlin Ryan

Executive creative director at Cheil London

Caitlin Ryan 

While working at another agency, Karmarama, Ryan devised the #whatnormalfeelslike campaign for breast cancer charity, Coppa Feel! It aimed hoped to “desexualise and re-feminise” how women talk about their breasts, while also educating them about the symptoms of cancer. It gathered huge momentum, and captured the open, enlightened and unashamed mood of modern feminism.

With these women in charge, hopefully the whole picture will change.

Follow Phoebe Luckhurst on Twitter: @phoebeluckhurst

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in