So I was reading a post on some website where this young creative was complaining about a significant lack of female creatives in the industry in her country. Especially in the top positions. I immediately started thinking about our local ad industry and hey......there are no female Creative Directors that come to mind today.
Lets take a trip down memory lane.
One of the most celebrated creatives and indeed a mentor to many was Judy Kibinge who is now following her passion in the film industry...she's doing quite well might I ad. Judy climbed the ranks at a time when no indigenous Kenyans were holding top positions back in the day. Judy was Deputy Creative Director at McCann. I thought she would be intimidating as I was completely new at the time and most creative directors I met were intimidating. She is the sweetest person in the world.
Another name that comes to mind was Samira Matthews. Last time I heard of Samira, she was Creative Director at MCL Saatchi & Saatchi. Is she still there? Mimi pana jua. What I remember about Samira was the fact that she was a creative as seen on TV. Extremely passionate, sexy, extrovert, chain smoking and highly vocal. I actually had the pleasure of working with her when I was a cast member for a Pepsi ad which was shot for Uganda some time back. Pretty cool individual.
Then there was Mona Mugambi. Mona grew through the ranks at the Original O i.e the great old school Ogilvy & Mather. Mona was revered for her art direction talent which saw her rise to become one of Kenya's first indigenous female art directors. She went on to McCann then hopped over to Scanad both in Kenya and Uganda. Mona has now moved on to establish her own successful creative business called Ruff Designs which has a sister office in Atlanta...but does she say? Ruff Designs deals with a lot of projects that give back to the community and design work for some of Kenya's biggest corporates.
If we look at the extended industry which stretches into production houses, there are great success stories in the name of Isabel Munyua and Josephine Gathithi who started in rather humble grounds as ad agency producers and leaped to initiate their own production companies, mojo and dreamcatchers respectfully. Josie actually stands out. She started out as P.A to the Ogilvy creative director - talk about strength of a woman. Wow! There's also Alison Ngibuini and Sheila Peevers who are respected go getter's.
Carol Kipsanai and Shiro Kanyua are two divas whose names pop into my mind as the only cohesive creative unit that I knew. They started out in McCann, moved to Scanad together and jumped ship together to AY&R. Blood sisters so to speak. Shiro moved on to ZK, while Carol is now head of client service at Y&R.
More recently, Nuturn had a female creative director, but from what I hear it was a short stint due to ideological differences with the boss man. Now a cool dude who was in Redsky called Jesse is heading the creative team.
Last Friday, I met two very vibrant, intelligent creatives from TAC who introduced themselves as a
creative team, so I gather the process of regeneration has began.
Creative departments from my standpoint are not about gender, but all about ideas.At the same time I have no idea why there are not that many women heading ad agency creative departments.
What I would like to know though, is who are the creative women who are making strides out there. Please share.
Hey that's just my opinion.
