The See It Be It Podcast: Recent Episodes
Cannes Lions
In the creative branded-communications industry today, there is a gender equality issue. When it comes to creative leadership, women are heavily outnumbered by men. This isn't just an issue for women working in the industry, it's everyone's issue, because the creative decisions that are made by a male majority, influence millions of people around the world.
In 2014, we at Cannes Lions launched "See it Be it", a campaign to not only raise awareness of the imbalance in our industry, but to actively create support networks and build pathways for a diverse group of women to progress their careers. This scheme is produced in partnership with Spotify, who are committed to championing under-represented voices through the power of audio.
When Chief Content and Advertising Business Officer at Spotify, Dawn Ostroff was asked to invite a mentee onto the show she immediately thought of Tracey Pakosta, Co-President, Scripted Programming at NBC Entertainment. The pair have a deep and long-running friendship, starting from when Tracey was an assistant in Dawn's team, where she immediately caught Dawn's eye.
The conversation provides insights into how women at leadership level can support others coming through, and offers much to learn about how to stand out and catch the eye of senior leaders who can help you develop in your career.
Featuring on the show this week is a conversation between Lizi Hamer and brand and business innovator, consultant, coach and keynote speaker Cindy Gallop.
Over the course of this episode the pair discuss the development of Cindy’s sex video platform and the reasons behind it, take an cold, hard look at the real state of diversity in the industry and we also hear Cindy’s consulting in action as we eavesdrop the pair, in real-time developing the idea for Lizi’s new business plan.
Joining us this week is L.A. Ronayne, Group Creative Director at Anomaly London. She was part of the See it Be it program in 2016, elected onto the D&AD Board of Trustees later that year. Camilla has worked in the UK advertising industry for over 20 years and joined Anomaly in November 2014 from M&C Saatchi.
Over the course of their conversation the pair discussed the huge importance humor plays in their workplace and in their careers more widely. They also talk more specifically about how the events of 2020 have impacted not only the way they work but they way in which they network and interact with their colleagues and peers.
This week we are hearing from Atiya Zaidi who is Executive Creative Director at BBDO Pakistan and her mentor Maria Shamsi Group Creative Director at Synergy Dentsu.
The pair discuss the different experiences they had building their career as part of different generations. They talk about Expectations Vs. Reality and the harsh truths they have had to face in their personal and professional lives as a woman in the industry and also the pressure from the society they live in to achieve excellence not only in the workplace but also at home.
This week you'll meet Ruxandra Drilea, See it Be it alumni from 2019. Rux comes from Romania and is currently Senior Copywriter at Publicis Milano, Italy. She is joined by her fellow Romanian, also residing in Italy and working at Publicis, Global Creative Director Sandra Bold.
The pair discuss how they met, and how they bonded over their wanderlust and desire to experience other global markets. They talk about their experience of new beginnings in foreign places and how long a mentorship can last.
This week you’ll be listening in as Adebola Adegbulugbe invites her mentor and close-friend Sinmisola Hughes-Obisesan to join her in conversation. Adebola is currently a Creative Team Lead at Leo Burnett Lagos. She was delighted to become an alumni of See it Be it in 2017.
They cover topics as varied as the power of trust, ageism, all-male jury panels and how Sinmisola’s attempt to try out for the all-boys sports teams in school informed her entire career going forward.
This week we are joined by Maribel Maneiro, who is currently a creative director at Raya and took part in See it Be it in 2018. She described her time with See it Be it as an awakening, realizing that instead of competing with women across the industry, it was everyone’s responsibility to help, and empower one another. With this new perspective Maribel began seeking out fellow female creatives when she went back to Chile, which is where she met Ingrid Lira who joins her on the podcast today.
They tell their story of how they fought institutionalized gender discrimination within their own businesses and across the country. Along the way they dubbed this discrimination the “Monstream”, an unseen force blocking women from career development.
In our first episode we hear from Maria Milusheva who is currently Creative Director at Noble Graphics TBWA in Bulgaria. She took part in our See it Be it program back in 2017 and when we invited her to record, she decided to bring her very first boss Stanislava Ivkova, Creative Director at Direct Media Kres, to the conversation. The pair discuss Maria’s memories of being hired by Stanislava and the difference her approach to the interview process made. They also discuss navigating the waters of motherhood while driving your career forward and how leadership styles which foster independence, trust and acceptance are key to driving creativity in the future.