Impact BBDO’s Ali Rez + Droga5 ANZ’s Damon Stapleton join The One Club International Board

Ali Rez, Chief Creative Officer at Impact BBDO Group, and Damon Stapleton, Co-Chief Creative Officer at Droga5 ANZ, part of Accenture Song, have been appointed to The One Club for Creativity’s prestigious International Board of Directors for a three-year term.

Board members are responsible for providing input and feedback on the club’s ongoing global programming, supporting The One Show and ADC Annual Awards in their region, elevating the annual Global Creative Rankings, connecting the club with advertising and design universities and schools, and recommending outstanding candidates to serve as awards judges.

Rez, who was named Advertising Person of the Year at the 2024 Dubai Lynx, is the most awarded creative leader in the Middle East, and currently leads creative for the IMPACT BBDO Group across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan region.

Rez’s creative leadership has seen Impact BBDO ranked as the No.2 agency in the world on the World Creativity Rankings, while winning more than 30 different No.1 Regional Agency accolades in the last three years. He has spoken on advertising and marketing at more than 50 international venues, including Oxford University, Cannes Lions, 4As China, TedX, London School of Economics, amongst several others.

Rez has won more than 1000 international awards in his career spanning four continents over 20 years, which includes MENA’s first One Show Best of Category Pencil. He is the first One Show jury President to be named from the Middle East region.

Stapleton said: “I am honored and excited to be appointed to the International Board. The One Show has been a huge part of my career; it’s always been the benchmark I’ve measured against for the quality of my work, and that of the industry. I cannot wait to get started and look forward to making a difference.”

Prior to his current role at Droga5 ANZ, part of Accenture Song, Stapleton was the founder of The Monkeys Aotearoa. He has also been Regional CCO at DDB ANZ, and CCO at DDB New Zealand, where he won 20 Agency of the Year titles, including DDB New Zealand being named creative agency of the year in Australia.

His career also included serving as ECD of Saatchi & Saatchi Australia and TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, which was voted South African agency of the decade in 2010. He has worked on global brands such as BMW, Toyota, Nissan, Heineken, Visa, Cadbury, McDonalds and the FIFA World Cup campaign for Adidas in South Africa.

Stapleton is most known for his “Trillion Dollar” bill campaign for The Zimbabwean, and “Penny the Pirate” for OPSM, which together have won over 200 international awards. “Penny the Pirate” was judged to be the most effective campaign in the world by the WARC 100, and The Zimbabwean campaign is in the permanent collection of the British Museum.