IPG's Jacki Kelley appointed AAF vice chair
Jack Bamberger, general manager of agency business for TikTok U.S., and Jacki Kelley, EVP chief client officer and chief business officer at Interpublic Group (IPG), have been appointed Board chair and vice chair, respectively, of the American Advertising Federation (AAF) for the coming year. They assume their new roles at AAF on July 1.
“We couldn’t ask for two more accomplished and unifying individuals than Jack and Jacki to lead us in the coming year. Both are intimately knowledgeable about AAF’s importance and contributions to the advertising, media, marketing and tech communities having witnessed, first-hand, AAF at work, albeit as a former Board Member (Jack) or Advertising Hall of Achievement inductee (Jacki),” said Steve Pacheco, President and CEO, AAF. He added, “I want to thank our outgoing Chair, Helen Lin, for her leadership this past year, presiding over the association during one of its most expansive years ever, including the launch of our AAF Foundation.”
Bamberger most recently served as vice chair of the AAF Board and is being elevated to the role of Board chair, succeeding Helen Lin. At TikTok he serves as the main point of contact for the platform and its advertising partners. Bamberger has previously served on AAF’s Board of Directors as well as been a prior winning participant in the AAF National Student Advertising Competition. This is in addition to his 20+ years of digital and traditional media experience. Said Bamberger, “The AAF has had a profound impact on my entire career–starting as a college student when I competed in the AAF National Student Advertising Competition decades ago. The opportunity for me to play a role in shaping the next chapter of the advertising industry, along with the incredible AAF staff and Board, gives me immense joy, satisfaction and purpose to meaningfully give back to an industry that has been so generous to me.”
Joining Bamberger will be IPG’s Kelley as AAF vice chair. Her list of awards and accomplishments includes being named a Matrix Award honoree by New York Advertising Women of New York, to being a prior inductee into the AAF Advertising Hall of Achievement. She’s been cited as one of advertising’s 100 most influential women and a recipient of the Jack Avrett Volunteer Spirit Award. Over the course of her distinguished 25 years of service, she’s been a CEO with dentsu and Universal McCann, as well as COO at Bloomberg Media. Said Kelley, “I am a life-long student of this industry and have deep admiration for the unique role that the AAF plays. The organization addresses the pressing opportunities and challenges of today and helps us attract and develop the talent of the future through the Ad Clubs around the country. I’m excited to lend my voice as we continue to shape the future of the advertising industry.”
Outgoing Board chair Lin commented, “Where does the time go? It seems like only yesterday that I first assumed my role as Board chair. The AAF is an organization dedicated to bringing talent into the industry, keeping them, and helping them to chart their path to growth through training, upskilling and mapping the right opportunities. I am honored to have been able to play a small part in this ongoing quest.”
Maggie Smith, Star of Stage, Film and “Downton Abbey,” Dies At 89
Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in "Downton Abbey" and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. "She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother," they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that "when you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything." Smith drily summarized her later roles as "a gallery of grotesques," including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: "Harry Potter is my pension." Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of "Suddenly Last Summer," said she was "intellectually the smartest actress I've ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith." "Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for "California Suite" in 1978, Golden Globes for "California Suite" and "Room with a View," and BAFTAs for lead actress in "A Private Function" in 1984, "A Room with a View" in... Read More