President & Chief Creative Officer at Grey London, founder SheSays & Oko, speaker, author & artist. An award-winning creative with a long history of innovative commercial work. Entrepreneur, founder, innovator. A firm believer in the power of creativity to make positive change.
In her role at Grey London, she leads one of WPP’s most creative agencies. Under her stewardship as founder and CCO, creative agency Mr. President was been awarded Agency of the Year by The Drum and AdAge, and independent agency of the year in Campaign.
One of the world’s few female Chief Creative Officers, she is former president of D&AD, has recently been named one of Britain’s most influential people within the Debrett’s 500 annual list for the second year running, scooped up Individual of the Year at the Dadi Awards and been awarded an honorary doctorate for her services to graphic design from University of the Arts London (Norwich).
In 2018 she received the Alumni Award for Art and Culture from the University of New South Wales. She was one of BBC’s 100 Women in 2018.
Laura is also a co-founder of SheSays, a global volunteer network which works to get more women into the creative industries. With over 40,000 members operating in 43 cities worldwide SheSays includes mentoring, events and the annual VOWSS showcase of the best film work made my women around the globe. She is also a co-founder of The Great British Diversity Experiment, the largest practical experiment in diversity and its contribution to commercial creative practice.
She lectures around the world extensively and has been invited to be part of the Facebook Global Creative Council, a think tank to help steer the future of social media.
She has been a jury member or chairman on many prestigious industry awards including D&AD, Cannes Lions, ANDYS, The British Arrows, Campaign Big Awards and Creative Circle.
Laura continues her arts practice exploring areas of identity and gender; and is also a trained taxidermist."
Watch Laura Jordan Baumbach's talk 'Feel the fear, and do it anyway' for Rare with Google Leadership Academy here.
