How it all started

INDIA

Rakhshin and Christina met at the Cannes Lions Jury in 2006, and have stayed friends and partners in crime ever since!

Currently Rakhshin manages her own direct and digital agency, Pi Communications (formerly M&C Saatchi-i) in India. Her agency has been awarded the Small Agency of the Year at the DMA Echo Asia awards as well as the Direct Marketing agency of the year at the Ad Club awards. In her 30 plus years of experience, she also headed RMG Connect, then India’s largest direct agency.

Rakhshin has a graduation degree in Commerce and a Masters Degree in Management Studies from the University of Mumbai. She is the first Indian woman to be inducted in the DMAi Hall of Fame.

Rakhshin is interviewed in ‘Mad Women – A Herstory of Advertising’.

USA

Shanteka is a Creative Strategist and Fiction Writer who describes herself as a little Clair Huxtable, a little Don Draper and a whole lotta Hannibal from the A-Team. She is Head of Scaled North America for Facebook’s Creative Shop. Scaled incubates and accelerates the fastest growing advertisers on the platforms with creative solutions to transform their businesses. Shanteka is also Co-founder and Chief Brand Consultant of ‘These Trillions’ as well as a former SVP Executive Creative Director with experience building multicultural and general market advertising campaigns for the Fortune 500. Listed by Business Insider as one of the Top Creative Women in Advertising and twice named among Black Enterprise’s Top Women in Marketing and Advertising.

Shanteka is a lecturer at University of Texas, Austin (Cultural Fluency and Branding) and holds a BS in Radio TV Film from Northwestern University as well as a MFA from New York University. Shanteka is interviewed in the second edition of ‘Mad Women - A Herstory of Advertising’.

CHINA

Joanna Wong is a co-founder at FLOW, a global Chinese marketing agency. Joanna has 15 years’ experience in marketing and communications and has managed campaigns with Alibaba Group, Destination Canada, Starbucks and Audi. Joanna prioritizes delivering culturally relevant and authentic solutions for brands to grow market share.

Her Chinese-Canadian background has given her a true understanding of cultural differences and how crucial it is to undersand and respect these differences in order to be able to create relevant communication.

Joanna is interviewed in the second edition of ‘Mad Women - A Herstory of Advertising’.

MEXICO

Oscar has been obsessed with people's behaviour and the way they relate to brands for four decades. In his early years he held the position of VP and Director of Creative Services and Planning at DMB & B, multinational advertising agency. In 1990 he decided to become independent by forming CÓM Consultores de Marcas. He has collaborated with companies such as Monsanto, Merisant (Canderel), Schering-Plow, and institutions such as the Presidency of the Republic, the Ministry of the Interior and some municipal governments.

Oscar has experience in multiple markets ranging from financial services to tourism and hospitality, insurance and environmental services.

He has spoken at many events including "How to advertise with gender equity ” for the Ministry of the Interior; as a guest speaker at the Media UpFront with the theme "The brand value ”; for the National Institute of Women at the International Symposium on Non-Sexist Advertising; and the Creativity and Advertising Forum "Strategies to Make Your Business ”organized by AMAP and Reforma newspaper.

He is a member of the Council of Agencies of the AVE, (Alliance for the Strategic Value of Brands), formerly AMAP (Mexican Association of Advertising Agencies), is a member of the Committee of Development of Purpose in AVE, and is a member of the Board of Directors of CONAR, Council of Self-regulation and Advertising Ethics. He collaborates with BAMX (Association of Food Banks of Mexico) as a member of the Communication Committee and in the Zero Hunger Working Group in the communication vertical.

ITALY

Livia is a Media Relations and Communications manager at Svenska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. She is specialised in public diplomacy, nation branding, culture and gender equality. Over 15 years' experience working internationally with media strategies and press services, integrating traditional and social media, both in the private and institutional sector.

She has lectured all around the world on the role of communication in society, the impact of sexist advertisement, proposing a more equalitarian creativity.

Livia is an expert in gender equality and also the co-founder of Equalisters Italia.

Having lived and worked in many different countries she sees cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism as important enrichments.

SWEDEN

Christina is an Executive Creative Director with 36 years’ experience of the ad industry, working at independent agencies as well as international network agencies like Draft FCB, Lowe Brindfors and Ogilvy/INGO. She also ran her own agency ‘Knight & Day’ for 9 years in the 90’s.

Christina holds a B.A from the University of Sussex, England and the University of California, San Diego as well as a degree in copywriting Berghs School of Communication, Stockholm.

She is Vice Chairwoman of UN Women Sweden and Fredrika Bremer-förbundet and a board member of The Amazing Society.

Christina has lectured all over the world and has written two books - “Mad Women - A Herstory of Advertising” and “Not Buying It - A Guide to a New Era of Advertising”. She has won one several creative awards in Sweden and internationally as well as awards for her creative leadership. She founded Mad Women Academy in 2021.

SWEDEN

Tobias is founder and CEO of the social first agency The Amazing Society in Stockholm; awarded by ‘Guldvågen’ as the most gender equal agency in Sweden in 2018.

He holds a B.A in business administration from Stockholm university and holds a number of board positions ranging from Komm the advertising industry organisation in Sweden to investment network PÄAB.

CHILE/SPAIN

Marta Mensa works at Social Communication Institute at Austral University in Chile. She has a Ph.D. in advertising at the Universitat Autònoma in Barcelona (Spain) and a post-doctorate in Gender Studies in the UNAM (Mexico). She was born in Catalonia (Spain), but she has lived and worked in Peru, Mexico, and Chile. As a faculty member in these countries, she has gained much wisdom about Latin American advertising, focusing on gender studies. She researches gender stereotypes in advertising, PSA against women in Latin America, and gender discrimination in the creative department. Also, she worked as a copywriter in the creative departments at advertising agencies: Leo Burnett and AdRetail. She is a visiting professor at Marquette University. In 2021, Dr. Mensa won a Women Emerging Leaders Programme fellowship at the London School of Economics and Political Science where she gain knowledge about techniques in negotiation and leadership.

USA

Jean spent nearly a decade in advertising building a successful commercial artist collective. She worked with agencies including FCB, DDB, and Leo Burnett; and she worked on brands such as Coke, Kellogg’s, and Zenith.

She later earned her PhD from the University of Wisconsin and went on to spend 20 years as a Professor of Advertising at Marquette University. Her research has explored the experiences of women in advertising across 12 countries, and she has spoken in nearly as many. Along the way, she has published nearly 50 articles, chapters, and white papers – nearly all focused on the experiences of women in advertising. Jean is the co-author of “Advertising Creative: Strategy, Copy & Design,” a top selling advertising creative textbook. She was also featured in the first edition of “Mad Women – A Herstory of Advertising.”

In 2021, Jean launched a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) consultancy dedicated to helping advertising agencies build DEI strategies that unlock empathetic truths and create cultures of belonging.