Winning IPA Speaker's Cup 2023 speech advocates creative side hustles

Each year agencies can put forward one person to take on the challenge and deliver a two-minute speech on a topic that they would like to spotlight in the advertising industry. The main objective of the IPA Speaker’s Cup is to champion people speaking passionately and persuasively on their feet without relying on PowerPoint.

This year, 10 contestants arrived at Number 44 to present their speeches in person in front of each other and a panel of judges chaired by Creative Salon Worldwide's Claire Beale. They spoke about a variety of issues impacting the ad industry from diversity and mental health to AI and protecting marketing budgets.

IPA Speaker’s Cup 2023:

• Jennie Alves, Wunderman Thompson: How we should make the most of AI's opportunities
• Christian Deeming, Total Media: Need for meaningful content for micro audiences in digital
• Shulamit Ferber, dentsu X: Why it benefits everyone if we stop being so formal and become more human
• Barney Gill, Medialab: Why we should not cut marketing spend
• Tamzin Howard, St Luke's: We need to rethink failure and embrace its benefits (psychological safety)
• Charlotte Ingle, The&Partnership London: What more we need to do to help with mental health issues in our industry
• Sonia Khanna, M&C Saatchi: Why we need to spend more time in the same room as the client
• Will Lane, The Advertising Association: If we want to thrive we have to become more diverse
• Beni De Makoso, Ear to the Ground: Why people need side hustles to stay creative
• Katie Wright, iProspect Leeds: Practical ways the industry can stop women feeling like imposters

Following some outstanding speeches, the IPA Speaker’s Cup was won by Beni De Makoso for his star quality and was utterly persuasive in his passion, and faultless in speech and body language. For winning the IPA Speaker’s Cup, Beni took home £300, a half day’s training from Make Yourself for Ear to the Ground, and the opportunity to display the engraved cup for a year. Charlotte Ingle was awarded second place, while Barney Gill and Will Lane came in joint third.

Commenting on the day, Chair of Judges and Creative Salon Worldwide Co-Founder, Claire Beale said: "One of the really wonderful things about the IPA Speaker's Cup is that it combines the communication skills needed to capture hearts and minds together with some of the really important issues that young industry talent are passionate about. It was so inspiring to hear them all talk so eloquently about subjects they care deeply about, and the calibre of all the speakers was incredibly impressive. Huge congratulations to all of the competitors and particularly, of course, to the phenomenal winners."

 Watch the speeches: