Lions School aims to nurture future stars of global creativity

The Cannes Lions Festival isn’t just a destination for world-class creative work and visionary debates — it’s also a platform to shape the future of the industry.

As part of their commitment to tomorrow’s talent, event organisers have created a purpose-built campus at the heart of the Festival — the Cannes Lions School — in partnership with Deloitte Digital. Home to the Lions Academies and Young Lions Competitions, it’s been designed to help the next generation of creative professionals grow their potential and learn from industry leaders.

As an overarching goal, the various academies help rising talent fast-track their careers and become the next generation of industry leaders. They combine inspiring classroom sessions with leading speakers, hands-on learning and coaching.

This year’s Brand Mar-

keters Academy is sponsored by Netflix and has Piedmont chief marketing officer, Douwe Bergsma, as dean. Also on board as tutor is Christie Clark, marketing manager at Found.

The Academy is a certificate programme for brand disruptors who want to unlock the power of creativity for themselves and brands. It’s an opportunity for participants to learn from CMOs, chief strategy officers, and creative directors.

The Creative Academy — sponsored by Canva — has Vann Graves, executive director of the Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University, as dean. Nikolaos Pirounakis, creative lead at Bolster Group in Australia is the academy’s tutor. Also a certificate programme, it is designed to catapult young talent to the next level of their careers. Participants can expect intimate sessions with world-renowned CEOs, CCOs, artists, actors, directors, journalists and creative superstars. As part of a broad-based commitment to inclusion, the Academies each grant five Lions Scholarships to individuals under 30 from 10 countries.

Recipients are given a fully funded trip to the Festival and this year hail from Brazil, Philippines, Costa Rica, Mexico, Pakistan, Kenya, Turkey, Switzerland, UK and US.

Another respected creativity-led academy is the Roger Hatchuel Student

Academy, which has Serfi Altun, founder and CEO of Idea Bakery, as dean. Sharing the heavy lifting is Leyla Baliyeva, junior art director at Thjnk Hamburg, as tutor. The Academy is a unique learning experience designed to help students interested in pursuing a creative path in advertising launch their careers. The programme helps students explore the various avenues and creative spaces they could work in after graduating. No one ever stops learning during their career and this is reflected in the CMO Accelerator, in partnership with Microsoft and Spotify. The programme is led by Jim Stengel, CMO whisperer and former global marketing officer of Procter & Gamble and Suzanne Tosolini, brand strategy consultant at The Jim Stengel Company. A premier learning programme for senior marketers, the CMO Acceler- ator offers full week access to the Festival, as well as a customised two-day programme that equips marketing leaders with a strategy to deliver sustainable and enduring brand value for their organisations. Since 2013, over 325 alumni from 50 countries have attended.

Not to be overlooked are the Young Lions competitions, which are at the heart of the Cannes Lions School. Seven competitions will run over four days and the work will be judged by the Cannes Lions shortlisting jury. This year, 450 competitors from 70 countries will have the opportunity to showcase their talent and achievements.

Other landmark initiatives across the week include Future Lions with AKQA, #CannesForAll, The Jodi Harris Scholarship, Cephas Williams and the Black British Network, Perifa Lions and The Black Executive CMO Alliance (BECA). Launched in 2021, BECA aims to increase retention and representation of black marketing professionals in the C-suite.