This year, ADFEST Lotus Awards will return to Pattaya, Thailand to conduct its first live judging in four years, which takes place just before ADFEST 2023 held during Thursday 23 - Saturday 25 March. The ADFEST 2023 juries will be responsible for reviewing and rewarding exceptional work produced across Asia Pacific and the Middle East in the last year. This year’s juries feature a cross-section of most innovative and brightest minds from the region. Each jury panel will judge some of the most ground-breaking work and the juries were chosen with the aim to ensure diversity across markets, backgrounds, and gender.

Commerce Lotus, Media Lotus & PR Lotus judging will be led by Jury President, Valerie Madon, Director of Creative Shop for Southeast Asia & emerging markets, Meta, Singapore. Prior to joining Meta in November 2022, Valerie was Chief Creative Officer at VMLY&R Asia, where she helped her team in India win the rare White Pencil and 2 Wood Pencils at D&AD 2022. She followed those accolades with a Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2022, a Silver Innovation Lion and a Bronze Glass Lions. Her new job at Meta is a return to Facebook. She was Head of Creative Shop, Facebook Southeast Asia, earlier in her career and has judged at Cannes Lions, One Show, New York Festival and Spikes Asia, and been Jury President for D&AD. She has made her mark with awards at Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, London International, Effies, Golden Drum, Spikes Asia, ADFEST and the Webby’s.

            The Commerce Lotus, Media Lotus & PR Lotus jury is:

·       Jury President: Valerie Madon, Director of Creative Shop for Southeast Asia & emerging markets, Meta, Singapore

·       Bill Yom, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Jung von Matt HANGANG, Seoul

·       Heidi Zhang, Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis Communications China, Shanghai

·       Katrina Alvarez-Jarratt, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\Sydney  

·       Kenji Oda, Creative Director, Dentsu Inc., Tokyo

·       Krishna Mani, Chief Creative Officer, BBDO India, Delhi

·       Rvisra Chirathivat, Chief Marketing Officer, Central and Robinson, Bangkok

·       Taryn Mook, Creative Strategy Lead - Asia, Hill + Knowlton Strategies, Singapore

·       Ujaya Shakya, Founder & Managing Director, Outreach Nepal, Kathmandu

Juror, Katrina Alvarez-Jarratt, commented, “It's always a real pleasure to have a front row seat to the best work in the region, so I'm very excited to be judging ADFEST this year. I'm interested to see how people have earned attention in a year when it feels like it's never been more divided. I'll be looking for big simple creative thinking that ignites discussion and lives in new media formats to drive an unfair share of eyeballs.”

“I’m really looking forward to judging works that really connected with their target audience. In today’s world of disruptive technologies like NFTs, AI, fast moving fads and click baits, what will really stand out to me are works that overflowed with humanity, were unapologetically authentic and mind-blowingly effective,” added juror, Taryn Mook.

           For more information about ADFEST 2023, visit www.ADFEST.com