Kate Stanners has been announced as the Jury Chair of the 2026 Cresta Awards.
“We are so delighted that Kate has taken on this position,” commented Lewis Blackwell, CEO of Creative Standards International, the organisation behind Cresta. “With her own extensive great creative output, that of the teams she has led, and her broad and deep commitment to advancing creative excellence and opportunities in the industry, she is the ideal standard bearer for Cresta this year.”
As Chief Creative Officer, International, of Edelman, Stanners recently stepped into a major role that gives a new inflection to her storied career. The evolution of Edelman as a top creative consultancy includes multiple victories at Cresta, Cannes Lions and other leading global awards in recent years.
For Stanners, the move to Edelman follows two decades at Saatchi & Saatchi, where she rose to be Global Chief Creative Officer and Global Chair, following a sequence of roles and participation in a wide-range of award-winning work, leading creativity for many global clients.
In taking on the role of Jury Chair, Stanners gave an indication of what she might be particularly looking to encourage:
“I believe that earned media has earned its right to play a much more significant role in brands marketing plans. About 99 percent of people would skip ads if they could and earned media is six times more trusted. And for creatives there is a freedom that comes when you are solving real business problems without the constraint of formats and programmatic templates, making work that has genuine impact.”
At Cresta, the jury of leading creatives vote the winners without any groupthink or opportunity for political manoeuvring. The jurors can express their views without any pressure or distraction. And that includes from the Jury Chair. Stanners role will be to give encouragement, a sense of direction, but when it comes to their voting, she will leave the jurors to make their votes truly independently and in isolation. (Rather like a visit to the ballot box.) Cresta then takes these truly individual votes to compile the data that, when crunched, directly generates most of the award winners.
However, the Jury Chair has a specific responsibility, and honor, which is to review all the winners and then pull out special award mentions for works that can be seen to have key forward-looking messages for the industry. In recent years, Edelman has itself been the recipient of such honors, notably with ‘The Move to Minus 15’ project for DP World, which also went on to win Titanium at Cannes. Last year Dentsu Creative Iberia received Jury Chair Awards for ‘History Outnumbered’ for History Channel and Dentsu Creative New York also picked up the special honor for ‘Returning Creativity’ for Crayola.
Stanners has been an award-winning industry leader for decades, recognized with multiple awards around the world. She served as President of D&AD from 2019 to 2020 and has sat on councils for AB InBev Europe and The Kraft Heinz Company. She has also served as a committee member for the Victoria & Albert Museum and was a co-founder of St. Luke’s in London.
This year’s Cresta Awards has expanded with new sections. This includes a new Finance dedicated category and a developmental category that reviews AI-created work.
The competition is currently open with a final closing date of 20 July. More information is available at https://www.cresta-awards.com/.
ABOUT THE CRESTA AWARDS
Cresta is the Creative Standards organisation. Since 1993 it has benchmarked global creative excellence, recognising ideas that inspire progress and shape the future of communications. Its annual online festival attracts entries from more than 70 countries, covering the full spectrum of skills, from the latest in digital and technology-based communications to traditional advertising and design.
Cresta’s independent jury of leading international industry figures votes individually online, ensuring a fair process free from groupthink. Winners are awarded the distinctive sustainable Cresta trophy, introduced in 2019, and gain international publicity, respected ranking points, and visibility through leading industry platforms including Lürzer’s Archive.
