The One Club: Antoinette Ribas is 'next creative leader'

We zeggen niet snel van iets dat het prestigieus is, PUB blijft graag met de voeten op de grond. Maar van de Amerikaanse The One Club mogen we zonder voorbehoud zeggen dat die prestigieus is. De lijst van Next Creative Leaders van The One Club en The 3% Movement is een portfoliogebaseerde competitie die getalenteerde creatieve vrouwen identificeert die in leiderschapsrollen stappen: copywriters, art directors, assistant creative directors en gloednieuwe creative directors die gamechanging werk verrichten en onze industrie ten goede helpen veranderen. En kijk: volgens The One Club is Antoinette Ribas, creative bij Ogilvy Social.Lab Brussels, in 2020 een van die next creative leaders.

Geweldig nieuws voor Antoinette Ribas zelf, natuurlijk, maar ook voor Ogilvy Social.Lab Brussels en natuurlijk ook voor Creative Belgium: Antoinette Ribas is lid van de raad van bestuur van Creative Belgium. Antoinette Ribas houdt zich met name bezig met gendergelijkheid, een belangrijk thema voor Creative Belgium.

De juryleden van The One Club en The 3% Movement waren onder de indruk van de track record en het CV van Antoinette Ribas, dat we hierbij graag mee afdrukken.

Working as an Art Director in several agencies such as Mc Cann, FamousGrey, Mortier Brigade, Air, DDB and now OgilvySocialLab, I had the opportunity to work on brands like IKEA, Toyota, Volkswagen, Amnesty, Médecins Sans Frontières, ING, Deutsche Bank, Le Soir, Orange, Proximus, Helleman’s, Bacadi, Carrefour, Delhaize, Nespresso,… By combining creative-driven agencies and ambitious brands, I've been lucky enough to win over a hundred awards. On a national level, I was honored with the Creative Belgium “Best Art Direction” award three times. Last year I received the famous ‘Creative Of The year’ award. At Cannes Festival, I received 1 Gold Lion, 4 Silver and 7 Bronze and was also rewarded in Eurobest, New York festivals, European Mixx Awards etc (more than 100 awards in total). Keen to have look at some of my projects? Please refer to my website: https://gregantoinette.carbonmade.com.

Along my career path, I realized the lack of diversity in the creative teams in terms of gender, culture and skills. Even before entering the professional world, I noticed that our society - already from an early age- has a tendency to limit our female ambitions. I've seen too many students, young women, wives or mothers, give up their creative careers even though they loved it. As we are often perceived as we see ourselves, I strongly believe in the primordial role of good education.

Hence, I decided to dedicate part of my time to encourage and to support the women around me. In order to start from concrete figures rather than a perception, I proposed to do a national survey to get concrete figures on gender diversity in the creative world. The findings went beyond my own perceptions. As a respond to gender inequality, I took the following actions:

• Became a member of the Board of Creative Belgium where I can share my experience and help improve diversity and skills in the years to come by for example claiming more female judges.
• Recently joined the Invisible Creatives, an initiative that aims to fix the gender ratio in the advertising industry.
• Worked as a creative on several Amnesty International campaigns with the aim to claim and to enforce women's rights.
• Initiated a Welcome (Back) training to encourage women to come back/not to leave. 
• Share my insights in the female focus group of my workplace Ogilvy Social.Lab in order to identify and to improve the quality of life, balance and recognition of women at the agency.