Winner of our Talent Award with Marketing Week Announced

We are delighted to announce that VCCP’s Stoke Academy has won our Talent Trailblazer Award in partnership with Marketing Week!

The Stoke Academy is designed to inspire, identify and unlock creative talent in Stoke, enabling young people to pursue successful careers in marketing and advertising without the need to relocate to London. The academy’s mission is to make the industry accessible and socially diverse through work-experience opportunities, skills training and career guidance.

In light of the launch of our Talent Task Force, we are dedicated to highlighting the exceptional efforts of organisations working towards a more inclusive and diverse industry by fostering new talent.

“Seeing the detail of so many successful programmes and partnerships with third parties specialists with those objectives in action was reassuring – and at times really inspiring,” says Sharon Lloyd Barnes, our Commercial Director and Talent Lead, who was on the judging panel.

Highly commended for the Talent Trailblazer Award was the Brixton Finishing School’s family of change making programmes, intended to break down the barriers for underrepresented groups looking to kickstart a career in the creative industries.

In addition, three other remarkable initiatives were shortlisted for the award: Havas Platform, London Metropolitan University’s Marketing and Communications Team and Shape Your Future from RockCorps/Apprentice Nation.

We would also like to thank our fellow judges for their invaluable expertise in the selection process. Our very own Commercial Director, Sharon Lloyd Barnes, Richie Brooker from Hearst UK, Nicky Ivory-Chapman from Channel 4, Ewen MacPherson at Havas, and Sarah Skinner of the Grace Blue Partnership, as well as Marketing Week editor-in-chief Russell Parsons have played a crucial role in recognising and celebrating the trailblazers of the industry.