Stefanie DiGiavincenzo, strategic director & global curator on rare, google

Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, Stefanie graduated from RMIT’s Bachelor Advertising-Creative in 2006, and spent the five years that followed working as a copywriter in some of the city’s top advertising agencies, including Clemenger BBDO and DDB.

In 2011, after spotting a gap in the local creative market, she co-founded Melbourne’s first copywriting collective, Apostrophe – a group of award-winning copywriters who worked directly with design agencies, digital agencies, and clients like Garnier, Adidas and P&G. During that time, she was also named one of the world’s most consistently excellent young creative thinkers, taking out the global Young Glory competition.

Ready for a shot at the international market, in 2013 she took off to London and landed an ACD role at Wunderman within weeks of touching down. Later that same year, she was chosen as one of 12 female creative leaders from around the world to take part in Cannes’ Lions first See It Be It program.

In 2015, she joined AKQA as Global Creative Lead on Nike Women – managing teams across the network’s London and Portland offices to head up and roll out projects around the world. And in 2016, she returned home to Melbourne and joined Clemenger BBDO as Creative Director.

Frustrated with the homogeneity she faced returning to her home market, in 2017 she co-founded Rare, a platform designed to realise leadership potential in underrepresented talent, and drive more inclusive, more innovative cultures across the creative, media and tech industries. Once a side-hustle, now Google’s global D&I platform, Rare has grown into her full-time role – responsible for Strategic Direction and Global Programming for all events, initiatives (and shenanigans), in partnership with an international team of incredible minds.

Her work has been recognized at every major international award show, including D&AD, One Show, Clio, Webby, Spikes, Cannes Lions, Effies, Echo and AWARD.

She speaks regularly at global creative conferences, from D&AD and Cannes, to Semi Permanent and Remix. And as Chair of RMIT's Industry Advisory Committee, she's helping to shape the prestigious Advertising degree for the next generation of creative thinkers in Australia.

Brief: MAKE DIVERSITY PART OF EVERYDAY

No one disputes the business case for diversity.

Diverse, inclusive creative teams bring fresh perspectives to the table, get to more original thinking, and innovate faster.

So you’d think our industry – which exists to produce fresh, effective and relatable work – would put diversity and inclusion at the heart of their business, their focus, and their practice.

But most don’t.

Too often, diversity and inclusion efforts are treated as 'necessary-but-niche'.

Creative companies assemble internal diversity committees, who do their best to drive change with little support from the wider business.

Creative conferences feature diversity programs on side stages, rather than approaching the program broadly through a lens of representation and inclusion.

Creative work is reviewed with consideration to inclusion only when a product is considered a ‘female thing’ – overlooking the rich variety of groups, intersections and points of view at play in the world.

We can’t treat diversity in isolation, and expect to reap its business benefits.

Diversity needs to exist as an integral part of our everyday.

Your brief is to help make that shift within creative companies around the world.

What could an agency, holding company, industry publication, award show, tech giant or brand do to spark this?

I'll reward ideas I feel can be widely adopted / have a far reaching and effective impact.

Submission Deadline: October 31st, 2019 - 11:59pm Los Angeles time

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