Dara Lynch is the Chief Executive Officer of D&AD, the global non-profit that champions excellence in design and advertising. With nearly two decades at the organisation, she brings a deep commitment to creativity, community, and raising industry standards. Known for her dedication, warmth and leadership, Dara plays a central role in shaping D&AD’s future and its ongoing impact on emerging and established talent alike.

What does purpose mean to you?

I have a commercial background, originally training as an accountant, before going into the city and then into the design and media industries. At 40 I ended up taking a bit more time off after having my 4th and 5th child. I realised during that time there’s something more I need to do.

So, I joined D&AD. At the time it wasn’t in very good shape. First, I sorted the numbers, then the culture, next was the legacy as D&AD approached its 50th anniversary. This was particularly poignant considering the advertising industry didn’t and doesn’t exactly have the best reputation for fuelling consumption and environmental harm. Our response to this was the White Pencil which recognised people and planet as well as creativity. And although it didn’t necessarily achieve everything it set out to, it got the industry thinking and importantly talking. That was the start of my purpose journey. 

What inspires you?

I struggled a bit with this question when you shared it with me… I know what doesn’t inspire me is flash cars. I’ve got a couple of examples of work I want to share. But I think anything that is deeply rooted in human values that touches you in a way that is surprising.

It’s also the small things I get inspired by. I was in India recently on a business trip and had to hop around town for lots of different meetings. Instead of taking Uber’s, I decided to ride in tuk tuks, as I wanted to see the city through the eyes of the people that live and work there. It was awesome and very inspirational just seeing this vast population of people going about their daily lives. I felt so removed from some of the negative sentiment we feel in the west every day.

How does purpose manifest at D&AD?

I would say 99.9% if not 100% of the people who work at D&AD are at D&AD because of creativity and purpose. And the belief in the impact we can have through stimulation, inspiration, education and enabling an industry to do much better work. I hope we live and breathe the values in our behaviours as well. We’ve been big advocates of sustainability and DEI for a long time and recently co-created our new strategy. Both are on the agenda at every board meeting and have been for years. We also launched a program called Shift, eight or nine years ago. It’s not a DEI program, despite what some think. It’s a talent program where the only qualification for joining is having no qualifications. We’re now in four cities and between 75% and 80% of the young people involved get jobs out of it.