ICAD’s New President on the Organisation’s “New Lease on Life”
Last month, the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD) appointed its new president - Kasia Oźmin, along with Sarah Chadwick as vice president and executive director Neil Rooney.
As Ireland’s longest standing creative organisation, ICAD represents the very best of Irish advertising, design and production. It is a non-profit, membership-led body and is widely known for its commitment to fostering, promoting, and rewarding creativity. With its new leadership team, ICAD is welcoming its new era of fostering talent and championing creativity like never before.
Kasia herself grew up in a family “deeply immersed in design,” and was surrounded by paints before she could speak. With an architect mother, she spent her childhood in the corridors of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD). Creativity was always part of her life. In university, she took up visual communication and things started to fall into place and the rest is history, up until today.
In her words, see what Kasia believes defines this new era of ICAD, what effectiveness means for the organisation and how her commitment to exceptional work led her to ICAD.
LBB> Kasia, congratulations on your appointment as president of ICAD! Did you anticipate this and why?
Kasia> Thank you very much.
Upon returning to Ireland from New York in 2016, I made a conscious decision to become more involved in the design and creative community. As soon as I returned, I took on roles such as a visiting lecturer at IADT, served as a panel member of 100Archive for three years, participated in judging various awards, and collaborated with ICAD in several capacities before joining the executive board in 2022.
While I hadn't specifically envisioned taking on the role of president within this short timeframe, the support and encouragement from my fellow board members made it a reality.
LBB> How has your career so far led to this moment?
Kasia> After college, I gained experience in Dublin before making the move to New York, where I worked as a designer and art director in several esteemed agencies. I really thrived in the fast-paced creative atmosphere there. The economic downturn in 2008 led to a period of unemployment, during which I founded Together We Create, initially sparked by a small film titles project. I supplemented studio work with freelance gigs during quieter periods as we slowly built up the agency.
Returning to Dublin in 2016, I've focused on creating stand-out work and building a strong team around me. Throughout my journey, my focus has always been on producing exceptional work and aligning myself with organisations that share this commitment to quality and creativity. Which is ultimately what led me to ICAD.
LBB> What made you return to Ireland from the US and what makes Irish creativity different to that of the rest of the world?
Kasia> We (myself and my husband) decided to return home to Ireland for our family. Ireland is a great place to bring up kids. Don’t get me wrong, New York is amazing, I absolutely love it, but we got to a stage where we weren’t using New York like we had been in previous years. We decided to come home and build a studio with the bold ambition we experienced in New York.
There's something special about the creativity here – it's got this unique blend of storytelling and resilience that you just don't find anywhere else. There’s this deep cultural heritage that seems to seep into everything, often hilarious but heartfelt. There is also an undeniable wit and humour that I suppose allows us to make hard topics a bit easier to swallow. Throughout our industry's challenges, Irish creativity keeps on thriving, maybe it’s the defiance in us?
LBB> And how has it changed in the last few years?
Kasia> I suppose as a response to greater diversity and more access to the wider world through new media, our creativity inevitably has evolved to compete and communicate to new audiences on the international stage.
With new audiences and new tools our industry has changed. There’s been a noticeable shift in how studios and agencies operate, leaning towards a more interdisciplinary approach that echoes the model of agencies I experienced in New York.
Agencies are under increasing pressure to deliver a broader range of outputs for an ever-expanding range of platforms.
New technologies are having a considerable impact. I've seen how they have transformed our workflow. The benefit is the accelerated speed in which we can explore ideas and produce higher-quality work. But the drawback is the constant need for learning and adaptation. Staying up-to-date with these technologies requires a lot of time investment, which can sometimes be challenging to manage alongside project deadlines.
There’s obviously also a massive emphasis industry wide on sustainability, notably becoming a driving force in creative decisions. It is something we as a studio are trying to incorporate into our creative process. But I’ll leave this to the experts: designdeclares.com is a great place to start.
LBB> What does ICAD mean to you as an organisation?
Kasia> ICAD is a community of like-minded creatives that truly cares about continuing and nurturing excellence in Irish advertising and design. There is so much pride in our industry, and there is a real hunger to create work of the highest standard for clients anywhere. At a time when there are so many shifts in how we work it’s important to have structured community leadership that advocates for all of us.
LBB> What are you most excited about regarding your new role?
Kasia> I'm really interested in pushing forward the idea of a circular economy in Ireland, especially when it comes to creative services. It's a big challenge we're all facing, from holding onto talented people, to making sure we're sourcing materials and services sustainably. To tackle this, everyone needs to be involved – businesses, government, and the audiences we engage with.
We've got to educate and build trust with the decision-makers in large organisations, so they see the value in choosing Irish creatives for their projects.
In the long run, we need a big plan for this, but right now, I'm focused on something more immediate: promoting our members and their work.
If we can shine a brighter spotlight on Irish creativity, both within our industry and beyond, we might start to see fewer instances of big projects being sent overseas only to come back feeling disconnected from our culture and audience. Organisations like ICAD, IAPI, 100 Archive and IDI are already doing great work in this area. By getting the word out about what we do, we can show the world the unique creative flair of Ireland and hopefully keep more projects closer to home, where they belong (and bring international projects and programmes to our island too).
As the presidency is a voluntary role I anticipate my time to be a challenge. Fortunately there are lots of smart, creative people around me, so I believe in designating where possible, not getting involved when not needed, and staying focused on the long term goals (while also not sleeping).
LBB> What are some effective ways ICAD will be championing its members in the coming year?
Kasia> We are working hard to build our Upstarts program for young, ambitious creatives free of charge. Upstarts aims to up-skill promising talent through connecting them with creative leaders across our industry on a series of briefs, and culminates in an exhibition of their work for industry. Hopefully this means opening doors for an ever-wider cohort of emerging talent.
We have also launched our ICAD Promotes series, a monthly members interview series to promote their work across all our channels and share insights into their creative process and obsessions.
The Emerging Directors Awards (EDAs) is coming up in June, thanks to amazing work by Rachel Murray from Publicis Dublin, and Ross Killeen of Motherland. Again this programme shines a light on emerging talent.
This year we will be delivering events for Mental Health Awareness Week, an area Neil Rooney is very committed to and interested in.
We are also looking to reignite Creative Shorts – a celebration of all the off-the-clock creativity in our community. We’re all working on briefs for clients, but so many of us have passion projects to share and celebrate.
Everyone should also keep their eyes out for upcoming ICADemy workshops – a fun workshop format that combines theory and practice, while also giving our members a format to share ideas and skills as we all explore our creative process and chase creative excellence.
And of course the ICAD Awards are a great night where we get to see the very best of Irish creativity celebrated in a brilliant event in September.
LBB> Tell me a little more about what kind of working relationship you have with Sarah Chadwick and Neil Rooney as your VP and ED respectively.
Kasia> As a producer, Sarah Chadwick is a tour de force when it comes to getting things done, very committed, interested and a good laugh – which is important when you are doing this on your own time. I’d say we have a pretty good working relationship; we both entered the exec board simultaneously, so we share similar experiences navigating the intricacies of ICAD. I know when I’m up against it, I can rely on her. Having her as VP was one of the reasons the presidency was attractive to me.
I was part of the committee responsible for appointing Neil so obviously I have very high regards for him. I was extremely excited about the prospect that he would be leading ICAD into the future. I think we have a mutual understanding of the realities and challenges of ICAD but (hopefully) we are also equally optimistic about what our combined efforts can achieve. Similar to Sarah, we are both new to this and still finding our feet, our communications commonly feature the sweating emoji.
LBB> Nathan Reilly, the outgoing-president of ICAD has said that now comes a "new era" for the organisation – what defines that new era?
Kasia> Looking back at how far ICAD has come, it's clear that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to our past presidents, directors, and members. They've really put in the hard yards to steer us to where we are today – a financially stable and well-governed organisation. It's no small feat.
Now, while we've had our fair share of challenges along the way, it's exciting to see us starting off on the right foot, financially speaking. I’m optimistic it's going to breathe new life into what we can achieve. And having Neil stepping into the role of executive director means we've got some continuity in leadership, which is a bit of a game-changer for us. Usually, it's all about volunteers taking the reins for a set period, but this new setup brings a sense of stability and continuity that we haven't had before.
Our board makeup is looking more diverse than ever, which is fantastic. It's all about getting different voices at the table. And it seems like more and more people are keen to jump on board and get involved. We've been getting some really positive feedback from our members which is great.
We want to build on this and take the lessons from the past and use them to propel us forward. With our new lease on life I’m hoping we can achieve even bigger and better things for ICAD and the members and industry we serve.
