Creative Access appoints new CEO

Between January to April this year Society ran a rigorous Chief Executive appointment process for Creative Access.

Creative Access is a leading diversity, equity and inclusion organisation in the UK with deep expertise across the creative economy. It provides progressive career support and development for talent from communities under-represented in the creative industries.

Society designed an open, inclusive process that featured an Open Hour – a facilitated Q&A session with the incoming Executive Chair and a member of the Senior Leadership Team  – as well as tailored application questions and assessments designed to showcase capability in addition to track record. Our brief was to identify leaders committed to social impact but proven in commercial growth and business planning, with a genuine fluency across diversity, equity and inclusion.

The successful candidate is Bibi Hilton will commence her role in September 2022. Bibi has been Director of Communications at Creative Access since September 2021. Prior to this, she was global Engagement Director for IPG’s team at Unilever. From 2015 – 220 she was was Managing Director of leading comms and digital agency, Golin. She has a strong track record in diversity, equity and inclusion; from transforming Golin to become the most progressive and diverse PR agency in the industry, to leading the modernisation of Women in PR from an ‘exclusive’ networking organisation to being more accessible and inclusive in her role as President from 2017 – 2020.

Commenting on the appointment, Non-Executive Director Ameet Shah commented: “We were very nervous about this CEO appointment as it was our first post-founder CEO. We were worried whether we could find a good slate of candidates and whether we could work through the process to get to a successful conclusion in a timely and orderly manner. Society were outstanding in helping us do that. They understood our needs and they helped us get to a decision on a timely basis.”