Abbie Baehr is CSO of VML NA. With 2,300 talented people networked together, VML NA is the key market for best-in-class capabilities integration, offering the best of BX, CX and Commerce all under one roof for clients like Colgate Palmolive, Coca Cola, New Balance, Dell, Mondelez and Ford.

Originally from London, Abbie has lived in NYC for the last 13 years, leading to an identity crisis, and picking up multiple awards in effectiveness and creativity for American Express, Walmart, SAP, Verizon, and Coca-Cola.

When she’s not inside the office, she’s outside in the fresh air: skiing, hiking, and gardening with her husband, Max, and their rat-bag dog, Pickles.

Rana Barua is a visionary leader in global advertising and marketing, with nearly three decades of transforming businesses, fostering award-winning cultures, and driving industry growth. An advocate for corporate governance, sustainability, and policy innovation, he leads with a purpose beyond profits. Guided by a philosophy of balancing people, profit, and the planet, Rana champions business as a force for good, creating a lasting impact on clients, industry bodies, and the larger community.

Rana joined Havas India in 2018 and has since transformed the company into a thriving ecosystem of 24 agencies with over 2,500 employees, united under the ethos of One Havas, building Meaningful Brands. In 2024, his leadership remit expanded to include nine additional markets. As Group CEO of India, SEA and North Asia, Rana now oversees 10 dynamic markets: India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan.

Rana is a prominent global leader in advertising and marketing, holding influential roles that shape industry innovation and growth. Currently serving his second term as President of The Advertising Club (TAC) and Vice President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), Rana drives transformative change in the sector. He serves as an advisor to the AME Board of the prestigious New York Festival and AIM Elevate Ventures, championing inclusivity and empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs.

As Chairman of The ABBYs Award Governing Council, he has been instrumental in revitalizing the ABBYs and forging its partnership with The One Show. A member of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Board, Rana also contributes to the International Advertising Association (IAA)–India Chapter and has served on the governing council of IFCCI. Additionally, he is a Charter Member of TiE, furthering innovation and entrepreneurial growth globally.

In 2024, Rana won 1st Runner Up awards at the prestigious WEP awards by the United Nations in the Leadership Commitment category. In 2021, Rana was named the Trailblazer of the Year in the Indian advertising industry.

Rana has initiated several progressive collaborations. Havas India became a founding member of the UN Women Unstereotype Alliance India Chapter that Rana has spearheaded since its inception in 2021. It is a groundbreaking initiative promoting gender equality where harmful stereotypes in advertising are being tackled. Rana also led Havas India and all the agencies under it to obtain the Great Place to Work® certification two years in a row, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.

A Wharton alumnus, Rana Barua nurtures future leaders as a speaker at top MBA institutions. A fitness enthusiast and wine connoisseur, he also finds joy in exploring new destinations and cheering for Manchester United while grooving to Dire Straits.

Saul is the former Chief Marketing Officer of the UN World Food Programme, Chief Strategy Officer of VMLY&R EMEA/ WPP Global, Cognitive Psychologist and TedX speaker.

He is a Preceptor (tutor) in Strategy & Innovation; Expert Adviser and Mentor for the MBA Programme and Alumni at Said Business School, University of Oxford. He is an Advisory Board Member to various organisations including MyMynd, a revolutionary Mental Health Platform, New York Festivals and the CMO Council.

He is also a Senior Advisor and Fellowship Faculty member of the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building in Northern Ireland, running their Growth Programme.

Nicky Bullard is the former Group Chief Creative Officer for MullenLowe Group UK. She was the first creative woman to become chair of a UK marketing agency, that being multi award-winning MRM//McCann in London. Creatively recognized across nearly all the major shows, Nicky thinks she’s probably worked across every media and sector - but direct and digital are where her heart lies. She’s been writing professionally for 30 years and despite running a huge operation, she also keeps her hand in writing and ideating as often as she can. She is a fierce champion of the customer and believes insight is all. She is also hugely passionate about effectiveness - it’s only great work if it works.

Nicky says that the campaign of her career is the one we’re all living right now, the campaign for equality. Nicky has been featured in the Financial Times HERoes list for the last two years.

Dominican-born, New York raised; throughout his career, Anibal's influence and leadership have shaped the strategic and business vision behind some of the most influential global brands across Latin America, the United States, and the US Multicultural market. 

Over the past 20-plus-years, Anibal has served in a  range of strategic leadership positions at agencies including Ogilvy, Wieden + Kennedy, Droga5, 72andSunny, JOAN, FIG, and Arts & Letters Creative Co where he has been fortunate enough to lead award-winning work for top-tier brands like Old Spice, P&G, Coca-Cola, Google, Diageo, Spotify, ESPN, Heineken, Audi, Ketel One and many more. His journey has allowed him to cultivate a diverse perspective having worked in roles across multiple disciplines from media and Comms planning to business and creative strategy in a wide range of categories.

This background has given Anibal the opportunity to lead multi-disciplined teams and steer innovative go-to-market approaches by integrating cultural strategy with UX and design thinking at the service of crafting creatively effective work that solves problems for brands. 

Today, as Ogilvy’s NA Chief Strategy Officer, he is in charge of leading the vision of the agency’s North American multidisciplinary team of strategists navigating the intersection between Advertising, Experience, PR, Social, and Creative strategy. 

Previously Pully Chau served as President, Greater China at Edelman.  Pully Chau received an ”Outstanding contribution award” honored by China Ad Association during its recent 40 years celebration. 

Spanning over last decades, Pully has been a great client partner to build brands; to transform and cultivate INTEGRATED creative organisations; and to help solve issues and crisis in this ever-changing world. She maintains a clear vision of the big picture. 

As a relentless game changer, Pully led the peak performance of Saatchi & Saatchi Great Wall China for 10 years (2000-2010); built Olay as a lovemark portfolio brand for Chinese women; and groomed many top talents. She turned around the visibility and unprofitable situations for DraftFcb Greater China (2011- 2014). As Cheil WW’s Greater China Group CEO (2015-2021) she led to lift the standard of its multi-disciplines, media & digital marketing teams to become China’s hottest agency top 5 by Campaign Brief (2013/214) and got its first 6 Cannes Lions. She also led the win of Volkswagen global brand assignments, Nissan Infiniti, and Coke’s Winter Olympics torch relay, enriching Cheil’s client portfolio beyond Korean brands. 

Her motto is: Manifest the future with our admirable motivations and unwavering determination. 

Pully’s judging experiences: 

Jury President, PR Spikes Awards 2022

Final Jury, Glass Lions, Cannes 2021

Final Jury, Industry Craft Lions, Cannes 2019

Final Jury, Marketing Effectiveness Lions, Cannes 2013 

President, Effie Awards Greater China (2014/2015/2016)

Ali is an award-winning creative strategy leader who believes in pushing boundaries. He's been named among the Top 20 Planner Worldwide by the Drum and MENA Planner of the Year by the B&W Report. He's also been featured in top publications such as Forbes, taught at Miami Ad School, and judged at top award shows like Cannes Lions, NYF, One Show, Effies and Clios. But for Ali, creativity is more than accolades—it's the last frontier where bold ideas become something that matters. Today, he's using Google AI to push those boundaries further with MENA's top brands and agencies, giving the region the unfair advantage it deserves and making sure the rest of the world has no choice but to take notice.

As an award-winning creative leader, she has spent over 20 years moving brands forward with creative solutions that deepen consumer engagement and emotional connectivity.

Currently she is the SVP, Creative & Strategy, New York Times Advertising. As the creative lead of the department, she oversees the T Brand creative team and operations responsible for building bespoke creative content, bringing brands closer to the prolific storytelling of the New York Times.

Previously, she held the posts of Chief Creative Officer at Fake Love and HelloSociety– the Brand Experience and Influencer agencies of New York Times Advertising. Both agencies enabled T Brand to expand its “off platform” capabilities and further enable brands to have impact in the world.

In addition to her time with The New York Times, her creative leadership roles at global brand, The Walt Disney Company and advertising giant, DDB Chicago, have fueled her career with a trifecta of publisher, brand and agency side creative experiences.

Throughout her career she has serviced blue-chip brands spanning a wide range of consumer categories. She has created award-winning work garnering accolades and recognition from Cannes Lions, The Effies, Communication Arts, The Art Directors Club, Chicago Creative Club, London International Awards and others. She has contributed op-eds to industry publications and provided thought leadership as an award show juror, featured panelist, sought-after mentor, and speaker at national industry events.

Originally from Ireland, Rory has worked at agencies around the globe in Dublin, Sydney, London and he currently leads the strategy department at Special Group Auckland.

He’s created highly successful campaigns for brands such as Air New Zealand, Guinness and Tourism New Zealand that has seen him win Cannes Lions, D&AD and One Show Pencils.

At AMV BBDO, where he was a Board member, he won over 100 creative awards including 10 Cannes Lions and two Gold IPA effectiveness awards for his work on the Guinness ‘Made of More’ campaign.

His recent work for Tourism New Zealand, saw Special Group win New Zealand’s first ever Global Effie award for the campaign Good Morning World along with a number of ‘Campaign of the Year’ titles.

Under his charge, Special Group has catapulted to New Zealand’s leading agency, recently being awarded Agency of the Year by Campaign Magazine, B&T Magazine and Campaign Brief.

Rory was also crowned Campaign Magazine’s Australia/New Zealand’s Strategic Planner of the Year in 2020.

Dominque Hickey is Chief Strategy Officer for Howatson+Company.  Previoulsly Dom was Head of Planning at DDB and has been leading the strategic thinking across the Westpac business for the past three years. In 2017 she was DDB Group’s employee of the year.

Starting out client-side Dom has worked in a diverse range of roles from designer and senior marketer to suit and strategic planner Dom has worked strategically on a broad range of industries including Financial services, Publishing, Retail, Loyalty, and FMCG.

Prior to DDB Dom has worked in CX and digital agencies as Head of Planning for Wunderman and Planning Director at Lavender.

A planner that doesn’t believe in silos, she is passionate about creating great work in any channel and working with collaborative integrated teams.

She is a part of the Smith Family iTrack mentoring program, the She Says mentoring program in Sydney and regularly supports young people within the industry teaching at Miami Ad School, ADMA and Comms Council.

Janis Middleton, Chief Inclusion Officer at Guided by Good, USA, Atlanta, GA

Janis has years of experience in the content and media space and has led various clients, such as The Home Depot, Buffalo Wild Wings, SunTrust (now Truist), Hanes, and many others to success. Her background has made her extremely knowledgeable in developing and implementing people-focused strategies, which ultimately led to her current role.

As an Atlanta native and a graduate of Clark Atlanta University, Janis has always had a passion for building and cultivating environments that provide equal opportunities for all people to thrive. She understood marginalized audiences were consistently underrepresented with less access to tools for success. It was with this experience that she built the portfolio’s Inclusion practice.

Hugh Munro is Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Rick Barry. In his time at The Monkeys and previously BMF, Hugh has led some of Australia's most effective strategy teams in building the country's most iconic brands. Along the way they've netted seven Effective Agency of the Year titles, across Australia and APAC-wide at the Effies and Spikes. Today, The Monkeys stand alone as the only agency worldwide that's won 3 Global Grand Effies at the Best of the Best Awards. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull hailed Stop It At The Start as “one of the most effective government advertising campaigns I’ve ever seen”.

With 20 years of experience in law and advertising, Carolina Pinheiro has spent 14 years managing Inbrax, the advertising agency where she is a partner and co-founder. Under her leadership, Inbrax has positioned itself as one of the most creative independent agencies in the Chilean market, recognized in various international rankings (WINA Festival, CreativePool Top 25, bestadsontv.com, Crema Ranking by Adlatina, Lüerzer's Archive, Top FICE) and with multiple awards both in Chile and abroad (Effie, Cristal Festival, Fiap, New York Festivals, Cresta Awards, Epica Awards, Creativity, Ad Stars, Caples Awards, among others). In 2020, Inbrax was named the most awarded agency of the year at WINA Festival, Digital Agency of the Year in TopFICE 2020, and Agency of the Year in 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Carolina was recognized by AdWeek “Future is Female”, as Creative Leader 2023 by Empresas Creativas de Chile, chosen as one of the 100 Leading Women 2022, and became the first woman to win the MKTG BEST 2020 as the Best Advertising Agency CEO. She was also the first Latin American to receive the “Best Leader in Marketing – Agency Side” at Women In Marketing 2018 in London. She serves as Director at Conar and AMDD and is also a mentor at WoomUp!, an organization dedicated to promoting the professional growth of women in Chile, as well as an Ambassador for Mujeres Internacionales, Chilean Chapter. She is currently listed among the 40 Over Forty.

Carolina holds a Master’s in International Law and a Diploma in the Chile-U.S. Free Trade Agreement from the University of Chile, along with a Master’s in Marketing Management and a Master’s in Business Law, both from the Adolfo Ibáñez University. She is a professor in the Master’s in Marketing program at the University of Santiago – Usach, and she is currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in Communication, Diversity, and Inclusion in Organizations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais in Brazil.

She has served as jury president for the Gerety Awards and Echo Latam and has been a jury member for Effie Latam, AME Awards, Webby Awards, Gerety Awards, Creativepool, Women in Marketing, Next Creative Leaders, Iconicas, Caracol de Plata, Dragons of Asia, Eikon, Luum Awards, among others.

Currently, she leads Belong Communication Lab, a conscious market research entity aimed at developing communication campaigns and products focused on diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

Tahaab Rais is the first Chief Strategy Officer for Publicis Groupe in the region.

I enjoy strategy, data, ideas, effectiveness and innovation - and develop winning teams and future leaders. The company that I lead the Strategy Office for, across MENAT, is consistently ranked among the top agencies in the world for its effectiveness and strategic thinking. And my teams are stars. I also drive the company's creative excellence ambitions through initiatives and trainings.

The challenge of finding THE right solution for businesses makes me tick. Inquisitive about people - their differences, attitudes and beliefs - and the joy of helping people and brands be happier, excites me.

I possess strategic, creative consultancy, integrated marketing, data analysis and leadership experience spanning MEAT and Asia, covering Business and Data Strategy; Brand, Content and Digital Strategy; Cross-channel Integrated Solutions; Relationship Marketing and Customer Experience Management.

Enjoying being creative, I'm practical with technology and the constantly evolving world of the web. I'm anti-theory. Making things happen excites me. And the results achieved are a testament to my drive.

I've worked on Finance, Insurance, Telecommunications, FMCG, Luxury, Travel & Tourism, Retail, Automotive, Petroleum, Entertainment, Real Estate brands across MEA and Asia-PAC., such as HSBC, HSBC Amanah, Coca-Cola, Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic, Mastercard, Sony, Nokia, J&J, Kraft, Nestle, Kit Kat, Reckitt, Dettol, Unilever, OMO, Knorr, AXE, Jif, Lipton, Ford, Arla Foods, Babyshop, Home Centre, L'Oreal, Nike, Harvey Nichols, UAE Government, Majid Al Futtaim, ALDAR, Microsoft, AstraZeneca, al hilal bank, Babyshop, Home Centre, Ferrari World, Qatar Petroleum, Shell, Egypt Tourism Authority, Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Jawwy, SABB, SABB Amanah, Ooredoo, Aspire, Orange, Boubyan Bank, Bank Muscat, Meethaq, Castrol, Hindustan Petroleum, Exide, Marico, Atlantis and Taj Hotels, among others.

The work has enhanced the agencies' reputation across Cannes, Effies, D&AD, Andy's, Clios, Jay Chiats, WARC, Dubai Lynx, One Show, Loeries, London International Awards, Webby's, New York Festivals, Gerety, Caples, AdFest, AdStars, AME, among others. My strategy team members are some of the most awarded ones in the world for strategy, and I'm the most awarded CSO from MENAT.

Besides being a CSO, I'm also a globally awarded film director and songwriter, and you can view my work on: https://vimeo.com/tahaab

Aside from work, I create ideas to help solve societal problems as an individual through my own personal non-profit venture. And I speak worldwide on creativity.

Alex Schill was born with a Canadian passport and studied at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin. In 1994 he started his career at Germanys former hot shop agency No.1 Springer & Jacoby as junior copywriter and was asked in 2003 to lead the agency as Chief Creative Officer. In 2006, Alex left Springer & Jacoby to become Associate Partner and Member of the Board at Serviceplan Group. 
Since 2008 he is Chief Creative Officer of the entire agency group worldwide. He is presently in charge of more than 24 agency locations and 4.200 employees globally.
In just five years Alex Schill brought Serviceplan to the front row in national and international creative rankings. In 2016 the agency ended up No.1 in the German Creative Ranking (Horizont), No.1 in the Digital Ranking (BVDW), No.1 in the Media Ranking (Recma), No. 1 in the Design Ranking (Red Dot) and No. 1 in the Efficiency Ranking (w&v). 
In recent years Alex has won more than 75 Cannes Lions, including two Grands Prix in 2012 and 2013 and is a regular speaker on the international creative awards circuit. He has given keynote speeches at Cannes, Eurobest, Dubai Lynx and the Loerie Awards and also been Jury president at Cannes Lions, CLIO, Eurobest, LIA and at the D&AD.

Alex is a proud Father of 3 beautiful children and collector of historic motorcycles that he races on events all around the world.

As CEO of TBWA\WorldHealth Robin prides herself on bringing disruptive thinking to some of the world’s most ambitious healthcare brands. In her 25+ years she has launched over 50 global brands for companies ranging from start-ups such as Moderna and Bluebird to pharma giants like Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, and Merck.

A creative leader at heart, Robin has a passion for helping clients crystalize their vision and bring their company’s story to the world. She considers herself chief culture officer and has created a strong values-based culture where sustainable inclusion thrives from the inside out. In the past five years, TBWA\WorldHealth has been recognized twice as Med Ad News DEI Champion and twice as Agency of the Year.  

Robin served as Cannes Lions Pharma Jury President in 2021 after serving on the Pharma Jury in 2019. Prior to Cannes Lions, Robin Chaired the Global Awards where she created innovative programs like Young Globals with the goal of attracting the next generation of creative leaders to consider a career in healthcare advertising.  

Robin’s side hustle is giving back to her community by volunteering as a mentor with Waukegan to College, an organization dedicated to helping school students realize their dream of attending a 4-year college or university. One of her mentees was awarded the Gates Millennium Scholarship.

Robin’s 3 children— Aaron (31), Bennett (27), and Maddie (22)— and her husband, Harlan (bigger number), make her laugh every day and remind her of what’s really important.

Dörte studied Visual Communications and started her career as an Art Director before switching to Copywriting.

After working in several agencies, she joined Jung von Matt, becoming a Creative Director after only three years.

2000, she founded her own company MARIA.

Dörte returned 2002 to Jung von Matt to set the agency JvM/Spree in Berlin with two partners, becoming a shareholder. After that, she launched the first international branch, JvM/9 and several other companies (JvM/Pulse, JvM/Fleet, JvM/Elbe, JvM/SAGA and JvM Hamburg). She has worked for all big clients including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Sixt, Zalando, Netto, Edeka, BVG, OTTO, Douglas, WWF, Beiersdorf, DocMorris, and many more. In 2024, she was appointed Non-executive Chairwoman of Jung von Matt, also a first in the history of the agency.

With over 600 awards, including several Grand Prixs, Dörte is one of the most awarded German creatives, first female President of Germany’s Art Directors Club and an Advisory Board Member of the D&AD and New York Festival.

She was awarded Germany’s Agency Head of the Year 2018, served 2019 besides other juries as Chairwoman and Jury President of the ADC*E Festival.

Dörte is extremely passionate about her work. She loves to travel and to meet people, more than that, though, her husband Tobias Ahrens, their son Bela, and Tyson - the family dog.

Aki (he/him/his) lives and works at the nexus of consumer culture and connected technologies. He applies data-centric, and radically-collaborative sensibilities to build creative solutions that provide value for people.

As EVP, STRATEGY  MONKS NORTH AMERICA - MANAGING DIRECTOR CASHMERE /// CULTURE.MONKS Aki marks a return back to culture-driven strategies and ideas for brands (having started his career in music marketing).  Aki is charged with honing the agency’s strategic processes for scale & growth – and ultimately linking into the broader Media.Monks and S4 Capital “API” of services.

Previously, Aki was Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett/Chicago, where he helped update the strategic approach for brand, digital, and data integration at one of the most storied agencies in the world. There he introduced innovative forays in AI, Web3, and Multicultural Intelligence for brands like Kelloggs, Jim Beam, Bank of America, Samsung, Messenger, US Cellular, and more.  Aki co-led a strategic resource and accelerator for all the creative agencies across Publicis – to operationalize 'general market' teams who are increasingly-challenged with how to become more culturally-fluent in an era of an increasingly-diverse mass market. 

Aki leaves Leo Burnett having helped the agency achieve 2022 Agency of the Year at One Show, ADC and Clios, Best in Show at One Show, Addy, Communication Arts and AICP, Titanium and Grand Prix at Cannes – and more proudly – a wealth of gold, silver and bronze strategy and effectiveness awards across 2022 Effies (incl 2nd Most Effective Agency Network – Leo Burnett Worldwide), WARC Awards for Effectiveness, ARF Ogilvy Awards for Research, and Jay Chiat Strategy Awards.

Damon is the Chief Creative Officer of Droga5 Aotearoa. Before that he opened The Monkeys Aotearoa, as part of Accenture Song New Zealand, in 2021. He was the founder and the Chief Creative Officer. 

Before that he was Regional Chief Creative Officer for DDB (New Zealand and Australia). He was also Chief Creative Officer of DDB New Zealand where he won 20 Agency of the Year titles, including DDB New Zealand being named creative agency of the year in Australia. Before this he was Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Australia and TBWA Hunt-Lascaris, which was voted South African agency of the decade in 2010. He has worked on global brands such as BMW, Toyota, Nissan, Heineken, Visa, Cadbury, McDonalds and the FIFA World Cup campaign for Adidas in South Africa.

Damon has collected awards at some of the most prestigious international advertising festival shows, receiving 55 D&AD Pencils – including two very rare Black D&AD Pencils (The Zimbabwean and Samsung I-Test) and 7 yellow D&AD Pencils. He has also judged D&AD three times. In 2022, he was ranked in the top twenty Chief Creative Officers globally by D&AD. He’s won over 70 Cannes Lions, including the Grand Prix and multiple Gold Lions including an Integrated and an Innovation Lion, 3 Grand Clio, 11 One Show Gold Pencils, and the first ever ADC Black Cube ever awarded.

He is most known for his “Trillion Dollar” bill campaign for The Zimbabwean and Penny the Pirate for OPSM which have won over 200 international awards between them. Penny the Pirate was judged to be the most effective campaign in the world by the WARC 100 last year. The Zimbabwean is in the permanent collection of the British Museum.

He has been recognised as one of the top 10 Executive Creative Directors in the world by both Creativity Magazine and the Big Won Report on multiple occasions. In 2011, Finance Week awarded him Achiever of Year in South Africa. He writes a blog called damonsbrain.com. It is stuff he thinks about instead of world domination. Last year this became a book called ‘Keep shooting until you see the f###ers smoke.’

Damon also went to sixteen schools as a child and was only expelled twice. He received no reward for this achievement. This still bugs him.

Pratik Thakar is Global Vice President, Head of Generative AI / Marketing Transformation Office at The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta Georgia. 

He held leadership roles in many global ad agencies before joining Coke. His 18 years of industry experience covers stints in India, Southeast Asia and Greater China for Grey Group, McCann Worldgroup, Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB and Lowe.

A strong advocate of creative technology and collaborative innovation, he founded Grey Innovation lab as chief strategy and innovation officer for Grey Group Greater China. Before joining Grey, he was the chief strategy and innovation catalyst at McCann Worldgroup, where he was highly regarded for his integrated creative strategies and disruptive ideas in design, branded content and digital technology-led innovation on brands such as Puma, L’Oréal Group, MasterCard, Nestlé, Intel and Coca-Cola.

He has also served in advisory roles for start-up accelerators throughout Asia Pacific, getting the front row seat to the most cutting-edge technology and innovations of tomorrow. This combination of veteran brand strategy, multi-regional experience, and ahead-of-the-curve innovation places him as a leading voice for creative technology and 10X approach of building high-tech start-ups.

Huiwen heads up the strategy team for APAC. A creative strategy leader with experience across client and agency sides, driven by purpose, meaning and fun. She has always been drawn to projects and roles with the potential to impact culture and human behaviour. Her ultimate achievement to date is fending off the neighbourhood police at an opening party involving pole dancers & fake dollar bills.

Marialejandra is Chief Strategy Officer for Dieste, US. She oversees Dieste planning group in Dallas, New York and Los Angeles.

Marialejandra leads all data, insights, cultural intelligence, and research efforts at Dieste. Her experience working around Latin America and with the U.S. Hispanic consumer gives her a broad vision of the diversity of Latin cultures and their specific nuances. Her passion for understanding humans and their relationships has led her to pursue a Master’s in Social Anthropology.

With more than 25 years of experience in strategic planning, Marialejandra has been involved in the development of marketing communication for companies in various industries including 3M, Chiclets Adams, Ford Motor Company, Mattel, Nestle, SAB Miller/AB InBev, The Coca-Cola Company and Warner Lambert.

Marialejandra was included in the Advertising Age Women to Watch list for Colombia, and her insights and contribution to the Demobilization Humanitarian Program of the Colombia Ministry of Defense campaign led to recognition not only for its creativity, but also as the first and only Grand Prix in the region from IPA (2011). This campaign has also been awarded for its strategy and effectiveness, winning a Grand Prix APG, the Jay Chiat Grand Prix 2011 and Grand Prix El Dorado Effectiveness 2014 as well as more than 10 Gold Effie Awards.