ADCOLOR Honors Creative Professionals Breaking Barriers

BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ADCOLOR, the premier organization celebrating and promoting professionals of color and diversity in the creative industries, held its 10th Annual ADCOLOR Conference & Awards.

The event honored professionals in the creative industries who represent the organizations mission of helping individuals and organizations RISE UP, letting their accomplishments and ideas shine, and then teaching these new leaders and would-be-mentors how to REACH BACK and find others who deserve to be noticed and promoted.

Honorees include:

• THE RISING STAR AWARD: Babette Sullivan Puebla, Senior Copywriter at The Integer Group
• THE CHANGE AGENT AWARD: John Seifert, Worldwide Chief Executive Officer of Ogilvy & Mather
• THE INNOVATOR AWARD: Stacey Hightower, Chief Operating Officer of Group E DAS, a Division of Omnicom Group
• THE ROCKSTAR AWARD: Luvvie Ajayi, Writer/Speaker
• THE AD OF THE YEAR AWARD: "How Do You See Me?" CoorDown, Saatchi & Saatchi New York
• THE LEGEND AWARD:
  • Christy Haubegger, Executive, CAA
  • Lucinda Martinez, SVP, Multicultural & International Marketing, HBO, Inc.
• THE MVP AWARD: TBWA\ Chiat Day & MAL & Park Pictures
• THE ONE CLUB|ADCOLOR CREATIVE AWARDS:
  • Caprice Yu, EVP, Executive Creative Director, McCann New York
  • Terence Reynolds, Principal/Creative Director, The Richards Group
• THE LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS:
  • Daisy Expósito-Ulla, Chairman/CEO, d expósito & Partners, LLC  
  • Bill Imada, Chairman & Chief Collaboration Officer, IW Group, Inc. &
  • J. Melvin Muse, Chairman & Chief Creative Officer, MUSE, INC.
• THE CATALYST AWARD: Anjula Acharia, Partner, Trinity Ventures
• THE ADVOCATE AWARD: Pamela Stewart, Vice President, National Retail Sales, The Coca-Cola Company
• THE ADCOLOR in TECH AWARD: Tristan Walker, Founder & CEO, Walker & Company, Co-Founder & Chairman, CODE2040

"2016 is a banner year for challenges so we surrendered our stage to provide a safe space for tough conversation," said Christena Pyle, Director, ADCOLOR. "At the end of the day we are not a conference, we're a community of people challenging legacy thinking and old models that leave no room for inclusivity. People left feeling different and I believe challenged." 

"Receiving The Legend Award was a tremendous honor and privilege and I don't take it lightly," said Lucinda Martinez, SVP of Multicultural & International Marketing at HBO, Inc. "I hope I inspired the young professionals of color to continue in this beautiful struggle for representation in our industry. It's time!

The award show followed the ADCOLOR Conference portion, which featured a series of speakers and breakout sessions from diverse influencers throughout creative industries. The day's activities operated under the theme of "Challenge Now" and outlined the importance of facing the challenges of our times with action, citing the Black Lives Matter movement and #OscarsSoWhite hashtag as examples.

"We are excited and hopeful about what lies ahead for ADCOLOR and the creative industries," said Tiffany R. Warren, Founder and President of ADCOLOR. "Campaign's call-to-action to get more CMOs and CEOs is just the beginning of our advocacy platform. We look forward to seeing our #challengenow platform in action."

The event, which was cohosted by actor Wilson Cruz and lifestyle influencer Tai Beauchamp, took place in Boca Raton, Florida at The Boca Raton Resort & Club and highlighted leaders from organizations Apple, Facebook, Diageo, Bing, ADWEEK, Omnicom Group and GSD&M.

Additionally, ADCOLOR has partnered with Twitter to create a custom emoji celebrating the organizations values. The emoji, which is available until October 13th, appears in conjunction with the hashtag #ADCOLOR and will feature a celebratory fist bump. The emoji's design was led by ADCOLOR's creative agency, GSD&M. The event generated enough social engagement to be trending nationally on Twitter under the #ADCOLOR hashtag.

About ADCOLOR® 
ADCOLOR® is a not-for-profit 501(c) (6) organization whose mission is to celebrate and champion diversity in the creative industries. Our process is twofold. First, we help individuals and organizations RISE UP, letting their accomplishments and ideas shine. Then we teach these new leaders and would-be-mentors how to REACH BACK and find others who deserve to be noticed and promoted. Our goal is to create a community of diverse professionals who are here to support and uplift one another.www.adcolor.org

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