Ruth Mortimer's Journey: From Digging Up History to Creating It🦖

Ruth Mortimer started her career as an archeologist in the Middle East, piecing together historical narratives from artifacts. What she discovered she truly loved was the storytelling—so she retrained as a journalist and found her way through creative industries to eventually lead Advertising Week globally. The realization that people would pay her to create the stories in her head and make them real across formats felt almost too good to be true.

What makes Ruth's approach compelling is how she's architecting moments that didn't exist before. Watch to find out her leadership philosophy about being brilliant at something instead of everything, why Advertising Week's slogan is "great minds think alike," and what happens when you build your career around what you love instead of fixing what you're not good at. Spoiler: you'll never need to work a photocopier again.

Ruth Mortimer: How She Helped Turn Storytelling into Global Events 🌎

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Archeologist to Advertising Week President: Started career digging up history in the Middle East, loved storytelling while piecing together the past, retrained as a journalist because I didn't want tent life with bad hair and zero makeup 🏺
Education Meets Entertainment: Attracted to Advertising Week's marriage of education and entertainment - excited people pay her to create the stories in her head and make them real across all formats 🎭
Sports Programming Pioneer: Launched Playmaker Awards as sports open to more brands, including beauty, women's sports becoming huge, creating a moment where audience, commerce, and field play come together 🏆
Global Cross-Pollination Strategy: Events in Mexico City, Tokyo, and Europe in early 2026 focused on cross-pollinating learning territory to territory to supercharge knowledge across continents 🌍
Leadership Philosophy: "Be brilliant at something, not everything" - lean into what you're brilliant at and forget what you're not good at (like working the photocopier) 💡