Maddy Kramer: inVisibleCreatives
By Brett McKenzie on Aug 14, 2019
One of last year's Next Creative Leaders on her database project
This is it! The final deadline for Next Creative Leaders 2019 is this Friday, August 16. Created in partnership with The 3% Movement, Next Creative Leaders is a fantastic opportunity for awesome creative women in advertising to get noticed.
But it's not the only way. Case in point: inVisibleCreatives, a database co-founded by Maddy Kramer, one of last year's Next Creative Leaders winners. inVisibleCreatives seeks to shine a spotlight on young women looking to make an impact in the industry, much like Maddy herself has done. We briefly chatted with Maddy about this worthwhile endeavor.
What was it like to win Next Creative Leaders last year?
Winning Next Creative Leaders was a great honor and one of my greatest accomplishments in my career. I think I wasn't 100% confident that I would win, but I did believe that I had a strong enough portfolio to at least be considered. Still, it was a big surprise to learn that I had won. I remember that I was sitting at the agency when I got the email, and the first thing I did was to forward it to my mom and my fiancé.
A great portfolio is important to winning Next Creative Leaders, but you also need to show your drive for making a difference in this crazy industry. Which leads us to inVisibleCreatives. How would you best describe it? How did this initiative come about? What were your inspirations?
Inspired by similar initiatives such as Free The Bid, Where are the Boss Ladies, and People of Craft, inVisibleCreatives is now the largest database of female creatives worldwide for younger talent. It was launched out of necessity. As a female creative in the industry, I felt that a lot of junior roles get overlooked and that the industry often uses the excuse of not knowing enough female creatives to hire. inVisibleCreatives provides a platform which exposes not only female creatives, but also their work for which we want to be hired. This platform is about making a difference in the agencies today so that we can make a bigger change in society tomorrow.
InVisibleCreatives has been running for about a year now, correct? How have you seen it grow?
It's been growing non-stop! We never knew that we had such a big need in the industry. Today we have over 800 portfolios and more than a thousand unique visitors a month. I’m surprised that we have such big representation from such countries as Spain, Uruguay, and Argentina, but we still have a lot to do around the world. We are still learning how to make the best experience for creatives as well as agencies to find the best talent.
What's next for you and inVisibleCreatives? Where do you see it in the next few years?
We want to focus on countries that need the most help in creating more diverse teams, as well as knowing how to retain the best female talent. We are about to launch a job board that would help agencies and companies get direct access to the best female talent in the industry. We are partnering with El Ojo de Iberomerica — one of the top industry festivals in the world — where we will have four female creatives on stage to talk about a topic that they're passionate about. Applications are going on right now!
The final deadline for Next Creative Leaders entries is this Friday, August 16, 2019.
MADDY'S NEXT CREATIVE LEADERS-WINNING WORK
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