Noreen Morioka & Nicole Jacek

Noreen Morioka and Nicole Jacek, creative catalysts and design disruptors, talk about their work and how they have made an impact and change in a turbulent media world. Previously, they were co-heads of design at Wieden + Kennedy leading a 100+ design team. They lean into the future, take chances and shake things up to lead brand evolution. We have always admired them for being original, real, fun and crazy and so creative and to never disappoint.

Some of the topics we discussed are:

How to change the Lipservice of Diversity into sustainable real change that affects business and lives.

Noreen and Nicole talk about what needs to be done to make real sustainable change within Fort. 500 Brands, Agencies and Consultancies. Diversity (POC, age, sexual orientation, disabilities, etc.) will be embraced and be an important contributor to the overall business growth of any company. The systemic discrimination will have to end in order for business to continue to grow and be authentic for their customers.

What is the New Normal and how does that affect diversity, the way we work and interact, etc.

We are in a RESET, we are about to reach a tipping point in society where the New Normal will change every few months. There is no new normal, there is an ongoing evolution of societal change where people become more self reliant, become empowered and won't accept Corporate lip service and hollow overtures any longer. We are now looking for true value, transparency and a better, healthier life - all part of the reset.

The role of Mentorship/Guidance to the next generation.

Mentorship is a point of passion for Noreen and Nicole. They believe the role of the Mentor is to guide, nurture and lead by example. Letting go of senior talent because of cost-cutting measures is detrimental to the young staff who no longer have a leader to learn from and micmic positive qualities. Ageism is done at the expense of clients, specifically replacing seasoned, experienced talent with juniors to save costs. The mentorship and guidance of the next generation is invaluable in building sustainable brands and companies.

Agencies and companies Chase Youth all costs. Is this sustainable?

Agencies and brands believe that chasing youth and firing experienced talent is the answer to reducing their overhead and budgets. Unfortunately this has become the new business model for many agencies. Focusing on reducing experienced talent costs will eventually kill agencies. You can make an agency so young that nobody will hire it. Noreen's Japanese anecdotal story about why experience comes at a price due to years perfecting a skill and developing expertise is a good reminder to us all re: the value of experience

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