The IPA has recognised the outstanding services to advertising of six industry greats in its fifth annual New Year Honours.
Each of the honourees has raised the reputation of the industry at large throughout their stellar careers and will be awarded Fellow or Honorary Fellow (FIPA) status at the IPA President’s Reception in Belgrave Square on Thursday 12 January.
The 2023 IPA New Year Honours List has been named as Damian Collins, Pip Hulbert, Vicki Maguire, Patrick Mills, Nishma Robb, and Philip Thomas.
Damian Collins MP
After working in the communications industry at M&C Saatchi and then Lexington Communications, in 2010 Damian was first elected as Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe. During the Coalition Government, he served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary twice, and from 2016 to 2019 he was Chair of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, in which role he led the inquiries into, among other things, addictive and immersive technologies. In 2021 he chaired the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, working to scrutinise the government’s plans to regulate social media.
He served as Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between July and October 2022.
Pip Hulbert, UK CEO, Wunderman Thompson
Pip is the CEO of Wunderman Thompson UK, an integrated marketing communications agency built around inspiring growth for some of the world’s most ambitious brands. In 2021 the agency was named Campaign’s Integrated Agency of the Year for the fifth consecutive year, and was named by Contagious as a top 10 Best and Bravest Agency in the World. She is also a member of the IPA Council and Chair of the IPA Effectiveness Leadership Group, a member of the WACL Board and of Stella, WPP’s Advisory Board for Women.
Pip has been named in the Campaign A List, Pitch Fanzine’s Superwomen List, Creativepool’s Top 100 Influencers and Campaign’s Female Frontiers list, and was one of only 50 women globally to be named as AdAge’s Leading Women for 2022.
Vicki Maguire, Chief Creative Officer, Havas London
In 2013 the IPA named Vicki, then at Grey London, one of advertising’s Women of Tomorrow, and in the same year she was voted one of the ten most influential women in advertising for Business Insider. In the ten years since then, Vicki has won many creative awards and been the first female chair of the Creative Circle Awards. She has also consistently championed the importance of equality in the industry and in 2020 was named an IPA iList diversity and inclusion champion. The following year she was named Creative Leader of the Year (Campaign US).
She runs a mentoring network One Girl at a Time, which encourages successful women to do just one small thing to improve a young girl’s life chances. She is also a mentor as part of the Create Not Hate initiative and she is co-founder and chair of the Creative Foundation.
Patrick Mills, Former IPA Director of Membership and Professional Development
Patrick joined the IPA in 2008 as Director of Professional Development, having previously spent 20 years in a number of agencies including Generator, Bates, McBain Noel Johnson and finally SOUK where he was the joint Managing Director. The IPA Professional Development offering has been transformed during Patrick’s 14-year tenure. Numerous qualifications have been launched – there are 13 on offer currently – and the programme of online and offline courses has changed markedly too. One of Patrick’s greatest achievement has been to broaden the reach and appeal of CPD in our industry to practitioners of all disciplines and all levels of seniority.
In July 2017 Patrick added the role of Membership Director to his remit, leading to the closer integration of the two departments. He retired from the IPA at the end of 2022.
Nishma Robb, Senior Director, Brand and Reputation Marketing, Google
Nishma is known to be one of the UK’s top marketing leaders and a great champion for representation and inclusion in our industry.
Through her work at Google she has pioneered how marketing and technology can play a critical role in addressing societal inequalities, leading many of Google’s acclaimed projects and campaigns including 2022’s Skills To Go, 2021’s The More We Learn, the partnership with Black Pound Day, Digital Garage, This is My YouTube, the infamous Google Executive Summit, YouTube Brandcast, ThinkwithGoogle and Be Internet Legends.
Nishma is also a passionate and tireless champion for equality. As well as giving her time to mentoring next-gen talent she also takes part in many industry initiatives and conference platforms. She has used these platforms to champion the importance of representation and inclusion and embraced her own vulnerabilities to share her experiences as a senior, brown, working-class woman in both the tech and advertising industry. She believes it’s a key priority for businesses to address the mental health challenge that can come from being a minority in the workplace and to create an environment where everyone can thrive and, if needed, be comfortable to seek support.
Nishma has previously chaired Women@Google, and is bringing her knowledge and experience to other industry groups. Nishma is a Fellow of The Marketing Society, a founding member of MEFA (Media For All), a member of BRiM and currently Vice President of WACL – she will become its President in July 2023.
She is an Honorary Fellow of the Marketing Society and her accolades include being listed in the Top 100 marketers (2022, 2021, 2020) in Campaign, Marketing Week and Creative Review, was Ad Age’s Woman to Watch, Europe (2018), Campaign A-List (2017 onwards), Drum Digerati, and was recognised in the Hospital Group’s h100 list as one of the most influential and innovative people in the UK’s creative industry.
Philip Thomas, Chief Executive, Ascential Futures (Intelligence & Events) and Chairman, Cannes Lions
Philip has for many years championed the very best of creativity. During his long tenure as Chairman of Cannes Lions, he has been the first to promote and champion the ever-changing landscape of creative output, which also includes a creative effectiveness category for previous winners. It is through these auspices that the UK can claim its worldwide ranking for both creativity and effectiveness.
He is also Chair of the charity Media Trust, which works to improve diversity in the creative industries, and was cited as one of the Agents of Change for Gender Equality by the UK’s Management Today magazine.
Paul Bainsfair, Director General, IPA, said: “Damian, Pip, Vicki, Patrick, Nishma and Phillip have worked tirelessly throughout their careers to help improve the state of the advertising industry as a whole and I’d like to personally thank them for their commitment, drive and passion for our business and the people that work within it. They have all had wonderful, storied careers and it is a pleasure to announce them as the recipients of our 2023 New Year Honours.”
The six join 22 other industry stalwarts to be named in the IPA New Year Honours since 2019.
In addition to the New Year Honours List for services to the advertising industry, the IPA will honour exceptional individuals for their services to the IPA in its annual Summer Honours List later this year.
