Six leading media industry figures have been shortlisted for Media Leader of the Year at the Media Week Awards 2020.
The category is unique among the awards for being informed by a public vote that will run on the Media Week Awards website until 2 October. A panel of industry judges will take the vote into account when determining the winner next month.
Vote for Media Leader of the Year here.
Two of the people shortlisted for the prestigious award this year form a joint nomination – Ben Hayes and Andrew Stephens, founding partners of independent agency Goodstuff Communications.
Media agency bosses dominate this year’s shortlist, which includes two Omnicom leaders: Tim Pearson, chief executive of OMD Group UK, and Paul Knight, chief executive of OmniGov, Manning Gottlieb OMD’s specialist media planning and buying division for the UK government.
Natalie Cummins, chief executive of Publicis Groupe’s Zenith, is also in the running, as is Rak Patel, regional head of sales UK and EMEA for Spotify – the sole media owner represented in this year’s category.
The Media Leader of the Year award launched in 2018 and was won by Mike Cooper, the then global chief executive of PHD. Last year’s award went to David Pemsel, the then chief executive of Guardian Media Group.
ITV, Channel 4 and OMD were among the most-shortlisted companies in this year's awards, which includes four special categories to recognise work during the Covid-19 crisis.
This year’s awards will be announced online in a virtual ceremony on 14 and 15 October, to comply with social-distancing rules during the pandemic.
Kate Waters, director of client strategy and planning at ITV, and Matt Adams, global managing director at Brainlabs, are the co-chairs of judges for the awards, which cover the period between July 2019 and June 2020.
To see the full shortlist, go to mediaweekawards.co.uk.
