Suhana Gordhan, Executive Creative Director at Duke Group, Cape Town.
Suhana represents Africa and South Africa on the One Club International board and is 7th on the Loeries 2022 list of top-ranking Executive Creative Directors in South Africa. Prior to becoming the ECD at Duke Group, Suhana spent 5 memorable years at FCB Johannesburg, where she was creative lead on Coca-Cola and USAID. She is passionate about the art of copywriting and loves parenting an idea well enough so that nobody molests it along its journey from birth to maturity. She believes that the best agency-client relationships are more marriage and less bondage. Gordhan is a Hindu, who learned very quickly that there are no sacred cows in advertising. One of her favourite moments was during her time as Creative Director on Nando’s, when she pissed off a dictator and won a Loerie Grand Prix because of it. Some of her other accolades include a Black Eagle, multiple awards at the Loeries, Creative Circle Ad of the Year, Pendorings, The Bookmarks, Cannes Lions, a graphite D&AD pencil and 2 Merit awards, and Best of Show in radio at The One Show Awards. One of her career highlights was being selected by FCB Global as one of two Creative Directors to attend a surfing and leadership program in Nicaragua in 2016. In 2017, she was named one of Destiny Magazine’s Power of 40 Candidates. In the 2019 Loeries’ Creative Rankings, she was ranked top 15th Creative Director in the country. Gordhan’s work for Coca-Cola featured in Contagious Magazine as one of three campaigns in The World’s Best Strategies. She was baptized as a One Show Juror in 2017 on the Direct Panel. In addition, she has served at Cannes in the Direct Category as well as on Print and Out of Home at The Clios. Gordhan has a strong commitment to the South African industry and was thus nominated to join both The Loeries Board and The Creative Circle Exco. She is the former Chairperson, or as she was fondly nicknamed, ‘The Chair Aunty’ of The Loeries. Gordhan also runs an initiative called Open Chair with Co-Founder, Simoné Bosman. Open Chair creates the space for young women in advertising to have face time with senior female leadership. During Lockdown in 2020, she was invited to be part of a Technical Working Group of the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19. When not making ads, she enjoys people watching, hiking in the mountains and training Capoeira – a 400-year-old Afro-Brazilian Martial Arts (often mistaken by her colleagues to be an innocuous dance form).

Karien Cherry, Director at Giant Films
Ranked as the Number 1 director in the African & Middle Eastern region – awarded by the 2020 Loeries – Karien’s work has seen both viral fame and international recognition. Her career kicked off with a Cannes YDA shortlist and her award winning work has since won Gold at Ciclope and been shortlisted for “Advertising Excellence” at the AICP awards – the only non US campaign to receive this honour. In 2021 she became the first female to direct for Heineken.

This year, Karien served on the D&AD Direction Jury for the second consecutive year and continues to be one of South Africa’s most prolific directors. Her work spans both international and local brands including Heineken, KFC, Google, New Balance, and Chicken Licken. She is sought after by creatives for her effortless collaboration, her knack for comedy and performance, and her keen sensibility to adapt the tone of her work to serve the script.