Female Futures Fund 2022 Recipients Announced

Running for its third year, IAPI has announced this year’s Female Futures Fund recipients. With an outstanding list of applicants for the 2022 programme there was an exceptional calibre of talented, high potential candidates to select from. This superb group of women made it difficult for the panel of judges to narrow down to the final few. As a result of the high standard, the decision was made to widen the final number of recipients this year from 25 to 28. 

The Class of 2022 for the Female Futures Fund are:

• Áine McGivney, direct partnership manager, Rothco | Part of Accenture Song
• Aoife Fitzgerald, producer, The Public House 
• Briony Morgan, account director, Verve
• Carina Caye , senior art director, Rothco | Part of Accenture Song
• Casey Malone, strategy director, PHD
• Catherine Egan, partnerships manager, Catapult
• Ciara O'Connor, junior strategy director, Mindshare World
• Claire Slevin, account director, In the Company of Huskies
• Denisse Achata, strategic planning director, Publicis Dublin 
• Eimear McCabe, business director, Core
• Emily Lyons, account director, Rothco | Part of Accenture Song 
• Emma Daly, business director, Core
• Emma Morris, creative director, Group M 
• Fiona Cunniffe, account director, In the Company of Huskies
• Kamala Ram, digital account director, PHD
• Karen Yoacham, snr trading and accountability manager, OMG
• Kate O’Callaghan, client director, Core
• Laragh Havelin, group client director, OMD
• Laura Rickard, chief strategy officer, Initiative
• Lauren Dunne, account director, mediaCom 
• Leila Shaddadi, associate VP, Edelman
• Lucy Carroll, account manager, THINKHOUSE
• Maeve Acheson, strategic content director, Pluto
• Niamh Ryan, senior copywriter, Boys+Girls
• Nikki Kennedy, lead digital designer, Verve 
• Rachel Murray, agency producer, Publicis Dublin 
• Sinead Boyle, managing director, Bloom 
• Siofra Murdock, art director, Folk Wunderman Thompson

These 28 gifted women will move on to avail of this year’s Leadership programme. Developed by IAPI, in collaboration with Diageo, the 2022 programme is a comprehensive group leadership coaching bursary. It is designed to accelerate women into senior roles ensuring that the industry retains and promotes our best female talent by enabling them to realise their full potential. IAPI and Diageo believe that this will continue to help close the gender gap at the leadership level in our industry as it will empower women to become the leaders of the near future

This year’s Female Futures Fund workshops will be masterminded by Danica Murphy, founder and director of PRISM. Danica said "In this year's programme we will change the leadership language of 'networking' to 'building a community'. The 2022 programme will include in-person workshops where applicants will challenge, support, stretch and learn from each other under the mentorship of role models in the industry."

Charley Stoney, CEO, IAPI who was a part of the judging process this year said; “I am so inspired by the applicants to this years’ Female Futures Fund coaching bursary. Their individual stories and ambition for their own career journey as well as for the industry gives me huge confidence in the female leaders of tomorrow, and this year, I’m delighted to say that we have eight creative specialists among the successful applicants. This is a particular area of focus for IAPI in terms of gender balance and I believe this programme will play no small part in their development as leaders.

To provide this vital leadership programme to twenty-eight women across IAPI’s membership each year is a massive privilege and I’d like to expressly thank Diageo for their support, Danica Murphy for running the programme and of course, all the participants.” 

Carol Montgomery, head of experiences and Guinness in Society said, "The quality of the applications and the high potential demonstrated by the entrants was truly impressive. We’d like to thank all of those who invested time in applying and a special congratulations to the winners. We very much look forward to meeting you in person at the leadership training events in the Autumn."