Leading independent global advertising creative award Cresta has announced that Helen Pak, SVP of Creative – Marketing, Design and Content at Disney, is to be Jury Chair for this year’s competition.
“Helen’s a truly remarkable creative, combining a great depth of experience in advertising agency leadership, while also having acquired outstanding client-side experience, first at Meta and now at Disney,” commented Lewis Blackwell, CEO of Creative Standards International, the organisation behind the Cresta Awards.
“She has been associated with great work whereever she has gone. Indeed, in the 2024 Cresta winners we saw Dentsu Creative take gold honours with the outstanding ‘This is Magic’ campaign for Disney, which Helen was involved with.”
Pak leads Yellow Shoes, Disney’s multidisciplinary bi-coastal in-house creative agency. It works across advertising campaigns, strategic partnerships, programming, innovative content and more, with its reach spanning everything from theme parks and resorts to cruise lines.
Before joining Disney, she spent 25 years in the agency world, rising to CCO at Grey and holding roles at Ogilvy, JWT, Taxi, Havas and StrawberryFrog in Amsterdam. She also worked at Meta as a global creative strategist and launched brand advertising on Instagram.
Cresta’s Jury Chair does not vote or otherwise influence jurors during judging, but instead gives initial guidance and later reviews all winners to add special honours.
Blackwell added that he greatly valued Pak’s experience, as it combines a proven ability to view work from both the agency creative perspective and the client-side drive for lasting innovation benefits. “At Cresta we care deeply about rewarding work that has real-world benefits, that displays the highest creative standards when fully applied and effective.”
The Cresta Awards is one of the most prestigious advertising award competitions. Now in its fourth decade, it aims to be rigorously fair in its judging. It is known for a distinctive method of assessment involving c. 120 jurors working individually, with marks averaged and reviewed, an overall aim being to strongly avoid ‘groupthink’ or juror influencing. The organisation believes this gives all entrants a more equal chance of unbiased assessment.
The Cresta Awards is currently finalising its complete jury, whose remit in 2025 will include a special category for AI. It is currently closing its mid-season rates, deadline 6 June, and will then move into its final phase of entries, due to close 20 July.
