Hi, I’m Ioana.

I’m a geek.

Though I don’t quite fit the standard shoes. That’s pretty much because some may think geeks walk in ugly shoes. Well, my 30 pairs of shoes would beg to differ. You see, I’m as passionate about patent leather, textured heels and Scandinavian minimalism as I am about neural networks, deep learning or augmentative image generation.

I’ve always been a living dichotomy and perhaps that’s why I’m always looking to write the unexpected industry outcomes. I’m passionate about transformational stories. My career has been about that throughout. From transforming adaptation work into innovative narratives that wins big, to transforming creative departments to deliver more innovative work or transforming agencies, helping them grow and repositioning their creative product throughout. Transformational stories are the ones I like to write the most.

Today I am crafting brand experiences, innovative storytelling and leading the creative change as Chief Creative Officer at MRM UK and mentoring early stage start ups during nights and weekends.

I’ve been in this industry for 17 years and I still love it with the same passion I had in day one.

BIO

Ioana started her career in 2006 but she fast tracked from junior copywriter to Group Creative Director in just over 6 years. During her career she achieved a lot of firsts: the first female Romanian juror at Clio Awards, first Romanian speaker in Eurobest, a “30 under 30” by Forbes and Young Professional of the Year, by IAA.
 
At 26 she was named Group Creative Director of McCann Bucharest overseeing all Coca-Cola Company brands. She led the transformation of the work from mere adaptations in a small market to globally recognized award winning pieces in just a few years. With a mixed experience of digital and integrated, she's later named Executive Creative Director (operating as CCO) in MRM//McCann. After being named ECD and agency lead in 2015, the agency won for two consecutive years Digital Agency of the Year.

In 2018 Ioana joined Energy BBDO in Chicago as EVP Executive Creative Director. There, she oversaw activation, innovation and content work across global brands in the agency's portfolio and creative teams. Her remit was to help transform the creative product with a more integrated, digital first approach. Together with several awards won on a wide range of clients she also helped build the agency’s social and content hub, changing the structure of the creative teams and hiring multifunctional talent that expanded beyond the usual creative structure and included influencers, cinematographers, photographers and musicians.

In August 2022, Ioana returned to McCann Worldgroup as Chief Creative Officer in MRM London. She now oversees the transformation of the agency by rebuilding the creative output and pushing the limits to their digital experiences offerings. 

Ioana has worked in her career in United States, United Kingdom and Romania for top Fortune 500 companies. She managed teams across different global markets including USA, Brazil, Asia and Europe for clients such as The Coca-Cola Company, Vodafone, KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Ocean Spray, Home Instead, Champion, SC Johnson, American Egg Board, Lidl, ROM, Unilever, Mastercard, Julius Meinl, Bayer, Nespresso, Nokia and many more. 
 
A geek at heart she also studied artificial intelligence at MIT and is a start up advisor and speaker at different incubators, including the world’s leading Chicago based 1871.
 
Ioana was in the top 10 most awarded ECD in USA in 2022 according to The One Show rankings, and as of 2023 registered 120 awards and 61 merits and shortlists in the main award festivals and has judged most award shows. Her work has been consistently awarded at Cannes Lions, D&AD, One Show, Clio, Eurobest, Webby, Golden Drum, Euro Effie, Epica and many other shows. She has been a juror in all major global award shows and a speaker at many local and international advertising festivals.