(11 June 2024) Eight mentees from India will be part of a cohort of 200 mentees participating in London International Awards - Creative LIAisons Virtual Coaching program. Their journey began in May and will continue through November.
This program offers young industry professionals an extremely rare opportunity to have real time, one-to-one e-coaching with three different well-known, well-awarded and well-established industry leaders from around the world.
Coaches will share their expertise and experiences of their many years in the industry. These private and bespoke e-mentoring sessions are customized to the mentee, covering all disciplines with emphasis on skill development, elevating ideas and boosting creative confidence to fast-track careers.
It is no secret that behind every successful person, there is a mentor who has helped them along the way. Some of the most famous people had mentors. Mother Teresa had Father Michael van der Peet; Jackson Pollock had painter and muralist, Thomas Hart Benton; J.J. Abrams credits Steven Spielberg as his mentor; and this list goes on and on.
Creativity is fluid, so there are no set rules or a prescribed formula for the sessions. Each session is customized between mentor and mentee. They are at full liberty to design how they want to conduct each session. The end game? To hone the skills of young creatives, so they can reach their full potential and rise to greater heights.
Laurissa Levy, Creative LIAisons Director/Events Director, said, “If you go on the internet and search how to find a mentor, you’ll find that the most frequent advice tells you to set your goals, explore who is in your network, reach out, meet up and nurture that relationship. But, we all know how hard it can be to achieve all of that if you are a young creative. It’s a big ask to get a busy, respected senior creative to be a mentor. That’s why, Creative LIAisons has established its virtual coaching program. We match mentees with mentors from all around the globe. Our aim is to extend this opportunity to as many as possible, even in less represented markets. This virtual coaching program began in 2021 and has become an integral part of the Creative LIAisons program, an educational initiative to give back to the industry that supports us.”
Creative LIAisons Virtual Mentees from India:
Rhea Ahuja, Associate Creative Director, Dentsu India, Bangalore
Arundhati Deb, Copywriter, FCB India, Gurugram
Mowin Dias, Brand Strategist, DDB Mudra Group, Mumbai
Miriam Paul, Creative Supervisor, Ogilvy, Bengaluru
Devika Saxena, Senior Creative Solutionist, McCann Worldgroup, Bangalore
Tanvi Shah, Senior Copywriter, Toaster India, Gurgaon
Yashaswini Singh, Creative Team Leader - Copy, McCann Worldgroup, Gurugram
Kushagra Srivastava, Account Planning Strategist, Schbang, Mumbai
How are mentees matched with their respective mentors?
The focus is on the mentees – to give them greater length, breadth, height and depth with these sessions. So careful consideration is given to the mentees’ requests.
While mentees were able to submit their wish list from the list of 200 mentors, there were a few additional criteria we abide by to find mentees the right fit. The rule of thumb is: no mentee will be mentored/coached by someone in their own company, either locally or globally.
Selection process:
To be eligible for the program, mentees have to be currently working in the industry or a related business and be between the ages of 21 and 30 years old.
LIA does not directly select mentees. We leave it up to Companies and Agency Networks that support LIA to put forward candidates. Additionally, LIA collaborates with different Ad Clubs, Associations, and Trade Press by allocating spaces to winners of creative competitions organized by them.
To cast the net even wider, the Creative LIAisons Virtual Coaching Program does accept a certain quota of self-nominations.
Laurissa Levy added some advice for the mentees, “As the e-coaching sessions are underway, I urge all mentees to make full use of this rare privilege to be part of this program. Your mentors will most definitely challenge you, push you out of your comfort zone, be your confidant, cheer you on to do greater work, help you develop skills or even teach you new ones. But more importantly, they will coach you to aim higher and achieve those aims. It’s the start of your journey with not one, but three top creative minds. Enjoy the ride.”
Full list of Virtual and Onsite Mentees
Mentee Photographs:
Rhea Ahuja Arundhati Deb Mowin Dias Miriam Paul
Devika Saxena Tanvi Shah Yashaswini Singh Kushagra Srivastava
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Notes to the Editor:
London International Awards (LIA) is a Creative Awards Festival, established in 1986, by Barbara Levy, President. Barbara was the first woman to found and operate an International Awards Show honoring multiple media types. 39 years later, LIA continues to hold the unique distinction of being the only international award owned by a woman and having a full-time staff of only women.
LIA stands as a champion of the creative process, creatives themselves, and of course, great creative ideas and executions. We are proud to award the best creative work each year in all forms of media: Advertising, Design, Package Design, Data, Technology, Craft, Health, Pharma, Music, PR, Innovation, Strategy, B2B and much more.
That’s why every year, LIA invites industry leaders and trendsetters on both the creative and client side, assembling the most celebrated people for 10 days of judging in Las Vegas. To cut through the thousands of entries to get to the metal, you need the best jurors from diverse communities – not just meeting DEI standards but having true representation from across the regions, companies, networks, holding companies, independent companies to clients.
All members on our diverse global jury panels, including the Jury Presidents, judge all entries in their respective competitions with the exception to work that they personally collaborated on or was entered from their company. The LIA judging process requires that jurors are onsite for all judging from the first round through statue discussions. There is no pre-judging to narrow the entries.
Creative LIAisons Funded by LIA
LIA created the exclusive and sought after Creative LIAisons educational initiative in 2012, as a way of giving back to the industry that supports us. Our mission is to develop, educate, inspire and nurture emerging talent. That in a nutshell is the driving purpose behind the Creative LIAisons initiative. What began as a vision in 2012, became a zeal which crystallized into the Creative LIAisons Global Coaching Academy. This game-changing training academy is a powerful springboard for the current and next generation of talent. Consisting of both onsite and virtual programs, approximately 300 Creative LIAisons Mentees participate annually.