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Our 2024 Judge Chairs

Group 1 - Disciplines
Matt Cooper began his career in the advertising business in 1988. Working his way up from the post room at Saatchi & Saatchi, he went on to join post production powerhouse the Mill, in the early stages of its business Cooper developed the revolutionary archiving and asset management tool, Beam TV. However, a pivotal career saw the beginnings of his latest innovative venture, Little Black Book. Over the past 12 years Little Black Book (AKA lbbonline.com) has grown from a humble guide about worldwide advertising hubs, to an editorially-led global news platform and creative industry fame factory. Hailed ‘THE communications business for the communications world’, LBB aims to celebrate creativity and grow fame for its members through bespoke tools and offerings. Now backed by some of the industry’s biggest names.

Matt Cooper – Director – LBB

Best Use of PR
Arjoon has over 19 years of brand building and business leadership across CPG via personal care products and food & drink. During this time, he has consistently established and grown a market for brands and created stakeholder viability, whilst always being a vanguard of cultural leadership. He started his career in beauty and worked across the 3 major brands of the L'Oreal Group (Garnier, Maybelline New York and L'Oreal Paris) for over a decade across Asia, North America and Europe/UK with 2 global & regional marketing stints at the headquarters in Paris. After making many beauty dreams a reality with skincreams and haircreams, in the summer of 2015, he transferred his passion for indulgence into super-premium ice-creams, with a much-loved childhood icon that remains eternally popular globally...Haagen-Dazs, giving his career a new orientation in the world of foods with the American giant General Mills for UK & Northern Europe. As of 2016, he added the 'better-for-you snacks' portfolio to his arsenal, including Nature Valley, the world #1 snackbar, which doubled its UK business under Arjoon’s leadership, together with his team. At the end of 2018, he transitioned into being a founding member of the General Mills New Ventures incubation team for Europe-Australasia setting up a Natural & Organic Business Unit, as well as a European Venture Capital arm seeking to offer organisational capabilities via direct equity mandates in emerging scale disruptive startups. Since 2020 Arjoon has helped set up and supercharge the Brand Experience function of marketing, driving bold brand building within General Mills. First, as Head of Brand Experience & Culture for Europe-Australia. And since then, expanded his remit in 2022 to become International Head of Idea Development & Creative, developing ideas, brand purpose platforms and equity partnerships alongside creatively executed multi-award winning campaigns, to bring growth to General Mills brands across the entire portfolio across the wider regions of Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East-Africa.

Arjoon-ShanghaiArjoon Bose – International Head of Ideas & Creative – General Mills

Best use of Brand Experience
After an influential career as a senior marketer with Kraft, Coca-Cola, BT and Tesco, Jeremy Stern became a successful entrepreneur when he set up PromoVeritas as the independent promotional verification service with the aim of protecting brand owners from disasters and reputational damage. Prior to setting up PromoVeritas, Jeremy was European Promotions Director at Coca-Cola where he was responsible for the company’s overall promotional strategy in Northern Europe and the coordination of Coca-Cola’s plans for the Euro’s, the Olympics and internet projects such as Coke Auction. Jeremy’s other senior positions have included European Marketing Director for Sega Europe, Head of Affinity Marketing at BT, Marketing Manager at Tesco, and Group Brand Manager at Kraft (where he was responsible for the launch of Kenco). Jeremy is a former Vice President of the Promotional Marketing Council of Europe and served as a board member on the CAP Committee of the Advertising Standards Authority (the governing body of the UK advertising industry) and a board member of AIME, the trade association for the Interactive Media industry.

Jeremy Stern – CEO & Founder – PromoVeritas

Best Use of Promotional Techniques
Jenny set up the7stars in 2005 after a career in media agencies including Zenith and Carat. In the last 18 years the7stars has grown to be the UK’s largest media independent agency with billings of over £425million and over 300 people. the7stars has been named Agency of the Year by Campaign Magazine (2015 and 2017), Media Week (2015), The Drum (2018) and Mediatel (2018) and most recently, Campaign’s Independent Media Agency of the Year (2022). They have won numerous awards including golds at Media Week and an IPA Effectiveness Award. Jenny is particularly passionate about workplace culture and personally leads a number of diversity and inclusion initiatives at the agency. She is particularly proud that the agency has been listed in the Best Companies to Work For consistently for the last ten years and in 2023 the7stars were crowned Campaign’s Best Places To Work: Top 5 Large Companies Winner. In 2016 Jenny launched the7stars Foundation to support under-privileged young people in the UK and the7stars donates 5% of profits to good causes via the Foundation. Jenny is a member of the IPA Media Futures Group, the ASA’s Industry Advisory Panel and the British Heart Foundation’s Marketing Committee.

Jenny Biggam – Owner – the7stars

Best use of Media
After starting his career in the world of media planning, Harry’s passion for sport and brand development led to a move to Sky. Here, Harry was fortunate to work across Sky’s portfolio of brands, developing and delivering campaigns most notably for Sky Sports. In 2016, Harry joined Wimbledon (AELTC) to lead the development of Wimbledon’s global brand proposition and the eventual evolution of marketing’s role to one of audience growth. Having grown a passion for ‘the fan’ and its value to rights holders, Harry joined the Premier League in 2023 to help drive their own fan development and growth as part of the Digital Media team.

Harry KerrHarry Kerr – Head of Digital Partnerships and Distribution – Premier League

Best use of Social Media

Asaf Paz – Agency Head – Google

Best use of Google Media
After building her career in the Sales and Marketing teams at Kellogg's, developing brands such as Pringles and Crunchy Nut in the UK & Ireland, Catherine moved to SMG to further her expertise in Shopper Marketing, working alongside partners such as Co-op and Morrisons to develop effective retail media networks for the UK's favourite CPG brands. Now working for AG Barr, Catherine's passion for creating omni-channel campaigns that work for the brand, retailer and shopper is delivering great impact in store and measurable business results with brands like IRN-BRU and Rubicon.

Catherine McGarry – Shopper Marketing Controller – AG Barr

Best Shopper Campaign

Dan Heffernan – SMB Regional Agency Lead; UK, Nordics, DACH, Central Europe and Israel – TikTok

Best use of TikTok
Chris oversees the delivery of the website. mobile apps and other digital activations for Wimbledon. This includes defining the overall product strategy and roadmap for products used to enhance the experience for a broad range of users, from players to fans around the world. He also leads other digital engagement work including the WimbleWorld experience in Roblox, Race to Wimbledon in Fortnite and digital collectables/artwork. Chris is currently a non-executive director for Badminton England, with over 10 years’ experience as a charity trustee. A speaker at multiple conferences, he is particularly passionate about utilising AI to enhance user experience.

chris-clementsChris Clements – Digital Product Lead – Wimbledon

Best Digital Product
Group 2 - Craft
Rob Pothier is the Senior Marketing Manager for Doritos at PepsiCo. He has been a marketer for 14 years and built 21 brand campaigns driving over $500 million in revenue and 10 billion earned media impressions. He has partnered with LeBron James, Nike, Universal Pictures and Burger King, and his work has been featured in the BBC, CNN, NBC and Reuters.

Rob Pothier – Senior Marketing Manager – Doritos

Best Idea/Concept
Rankin is a British photographer, publisher, and film director. Alongside being head of the eponymous agency RANKIN, which hosts an 80+ strong team that puts strategy, creative and production all under one roof.

Rankin – Founder – RANKIN CREATIVE

Best use of Art Direction and Design
Mat O’Brien is Executive Creative Director of Three Mobile. For the last 3 years, he has worked alongside senior leadership to build and develop their in-house, integrated, creative agency offering. Prior to this, Mat was Senior Creative Director at VCCP Good Relations. He has over 10 years senior management experience overseeing and mentoring creative roles at every level, with a proven track record in launching and evolving departments and growing agencies. His work has been recognised at both national and international award shows for both creativity and effectiveness. He is also an accomplished producer and director creating visual art and media for bands and artists.

Mat O’Brien – Executive Creative Director – Three Mobile

Best use of Copy
Group 3 - Sectors
Since starting out as a WPP Group account exec, Linda’s two decades as a marketer have spanned agency, start up and financial services roles. As Head of Commercial Education and Events at Lloyd’s, she leads collaborations with brand partners across the arts, science and community worlds and leads an annual programme of over 200 events worldwide.

Linda Miller – Head of Commercial Education and Events – Lloyd’s

Best B2B Campaign
After a Master degree in economics, with a thesis on “How health & wellbeing would change forever the marketing for FMCG companies” in 2005, Claudia left her home country to start her career in the UK, precisely in Nestle UKI as a grad, to then move to Kellogg’s UKI, where she worked on a few initiatives namely launching a limited edition Rice Krispies Squares to celebrate the partnership with Red Nose Day but also developed via the use on Semiotics, the pack design for Kellogg’s Cornflakes, a design that was then kept on pack for the best part of 10 years. She then progressed her career by moving to the newly formed Mondelez where she spent 9 years working on Cadbury. Launching plastic tubs, reshaping the Christmas sharing cartons, launching successful innovation (Cadbury Dark Milk and Cadbury Caramilk to name two) as well as leading successful marketing campaigns such as multi award winning Cadbury Donate your words in 2019 /2020. After over 15 years in FMCG, more recently Claudiajoined The LEGO Group UKI, leading the kids brand team a talentfull team of marketers with the sole objective of inspiring the builders of tomorrow.

Claudia Miceli – Brand Director UK&I – Lego

Best B2C Campaign

Alice Anson – Director of Digital – Nector 360

Best Retail Campaign
Mark is an incredibly talented and experienced marketer who combines creative skill with a commercial approach. For more than 13 years, Mark has enjoyed an impressive tenure at General Mills – a leader in food, “making food the world loves”. For the past two years, his role at General Mills has been Marketing Director for Europe and Australasia, leading the marketing function for General Mills EUAU across all brands, with specific international responsibility for Old El Paso and Snack Brands. Mark has an impressive pedigree in FMCG and has previously worked Kraft, Kerry Foods, and Weetabix.

Mark Brown – Marketing Director – General Mills

Best FMCG Campaign
James leads efforts to drive awareness and consideration of the Amex Gold and Amex Cashback Credit Cards, through a range of upper funnel channels. Prior to this he was responsible for the product proposition, customer engagement and comms strategy for Amex Gold. He also leads the team behind the award-winning Amex Gold Unsigned music initiative.

James Bates – Acquisition Marketing Manager – American Express

Best Professional Services Campaign
Richard has 22 years Marketing experience encompassing alcoholic drinks (Magners, Carlsberg, Bacardi & Heineken), bakery (Kingsmill), quick service retail (KFC) in both local and global roles. He is currently at Heineken looking after the beer portfolio in the UK. Last year Richard was our chair for the FMCG awards and is excited to chair the Best Entertainment, Travel and Leisure category in 2024.

Richard Barnes – Global Strategic Marketing Manager – Heineken

Best Entertainment, Leisure and Travel Campaign
Sian is a Director at Unseen UK, a charity working towards a world without slavery. Sian is a part of the Senior Leadership Team and joined Unseen in May 2022 to lead the fundraising, communications, and operations teams. Her career to date spans both the non-profit and commercial sectors and she brings a wealth of experience and knowledge in the areas of people development, marketing, communications, fundraising and operations to the table.

Sian Hartstill – Director – Unseen UK

Best 'Not for Profit' Campaign
Chrissy Levett - Positive Creative Activist. UK based Designer and Creative Director, who studied at the Royal College of Art in London. She’s won a number of creative industry awards, is a TEDx speaker, a visiting lecturer believing creative thinking is vital for us to solve the world’s greatest challenges. Now Co Founder & CEO for Creative Conscience a global movement set up to empower, reward, train and support creative thinkers to use their talents for social & environmental impact. Chrissy has an Honorary Doctorate in Design and is passionate about behaviour change and creativity as a force for good.

Chrissy Levett – Co Founder & CEO – Creative Conscience

Best Purpose Driven Campaign
Tina is the advertising lead for the growth advertising business across the UK, Netherlands and Central Eastern Europe. In this role Tina, helps advertisers who are new to Microsoft Advertising or who are looking to grow their businesses. She is responsible for driving scaled motions across a diverse group of customers and has a additional focus on supporting agencies, as a whole, across the world. Previously, Tina had worked in B2B marketing roles at Microsoft Advertising but also other tech and media businesses. Tina is passionate about people and spends a lot of time nurturing and growing individuals across the industry to help them reach their potential. In addition, Tina is a key member of the Microsoft Diversity and Inclusion community raising awareness and supporting a number of employee resource groups across the business, with a key passion around allyship and accessibility. The D&I community also establishes key partnerships with local communities to support critical issues such as homeless, employability and mental health. It’s part of the culture, and one more way we live the Microsoft mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Tina Aird – Growth Advertising Lead – Microsoft Advertising

Best International Campaign
Special Awards
Matt Bourn is Director of Communications for the Advertising Association, the trade body that brings together advertisers, agencies, media owners and tech companies from across the UK advertising industry. He oversees the association’s communications on key policy areas and helps to steer the industry’s work around Public Trust, Talent & Inclusion and Climate Action, including the formation of Ad Net Zero. With 25 years’ experience, previously he was Managing Director of Braben, working for companies such as Sky, Channel 4, Disney, and Sony. In 2024, Kogan Page published Sustainable Advertising that Matt co-authored with Ad Net Zero Chair Sebastian Munden, which sets out a manifesto for the world’s advertising industry to help build a sustainable economy and support a better future. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattbourn/

Matt Bourn – Director of Communications – Ad Association

Agency Purpose

Gellan Watt – Creative Chair

Freedom Awards

Mary Keane Dawson – Board Advisor and Executive Chair – NED

MAD//Fest Female Leaders Club Award
Awards Sponsors
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