Thank you all so much for the opportunity to represent the APG as Chair and to have the chance to do my bit to keep the strategy plate spinning! I’m looking forward to the next couple of years enormously. The APG is a unique and very special organisation. It provides a ‘home’ to strategists wherever they work. But it is more than just a comfy place to hang out. It’s an organisation that is there to help strategists everywhere be the best they can be. To my mind, being the best you can be has three fundamental elements – being brilliant, being happy and being respected.
I would like to find more ways to help all strategists, but particularly those relatively new to the industry, to find what they are brilliant at and excel at it. The APG will be furthering all of our knowledge and skills through many provocative Noisy Thinkings and refreshed training courses. We each have a responsibility to ourselves too to relentlessly pursue our own brilliance.
Last year we launched ‘The Right to Disconnect’ to help everyone in our industry thrive amid the inevitable pressures. It is a critically important subject for all of us and the APG will continue to champion this. But being happy is more than that. We will also be looking for opportunities to help every strategist simply love what they do!
Advertising (in all its manifestations) is a team game. No one discipline is more or less important. But, seeing as my passion and responsibility is to the strategists of the world, I would like to see all the amazing work that strategists do being fully appreciated, recognised and respected. You do some incredible things. The stories we see immortalised in the APG awards papers are testament to that. But there are many more examples being played out day in, day out. I’d like to explore ways to make sure the value you all add is deservedly respected both within and outside the industry.
Looking forward to a fun couple of years!
Be brilliant. Be happy. Be respected.
Vicki