Young Innovator Nominee: Christopher Vega, BBDO

Why he is nominated: In his short yet impressive career, Chris Vega has gone from being an intern at FCB to a senior copywriter. Almost 2 years ago, he was offered his current full-time job at BBDO New York through a cold call, becoming a member of the agency’s inaugural BBDO Creative Residency program. As a Creative Resident, he’s worked on many of BBDO’s biggest clients including AT&T, Band-Aid, Campbell’s, Exxon, FedEx, GE, Pedigree, Visa, and many others.

Throughout his career, Chris has been a MAIP honoree, an AdColor Future, and a winner of Google’s AdByte competition. In this last year, he’s coached the winning AdByte team of 2016, he started MAIP’s Creative Crash Course, he’s been on the Adcolor Advisory Board, and he is currently the Communications Chair for Stanford’s Young Alumni in NYC.

On top of all this, he also produces music and records other artists in his free time. Less than a year ago, Chris created and taught a free, 8-week portfolio class for diverse creatives — on his own — during the few off hours he had from his full-time job. The program has been so much of a success that he’s currently working with the CCO/Chairman of BBDO Worldwide and the CEO of BBDO Americas to expand it to other BBDO offices across the country. Not only is the class disrupting the business of expensive portfolio schools, but it’s also helping to bring in a new stream of diverse talent to the industry.

There couldn’t be a better reason to nominate him for this award. If he wins this award, Chris plans on using the money to fund the expansion of his program to include classes for other disciplines within advertising and to other related fields. That’s why choosing Chris would mean more than just choosing someone to win an award. It would be choosing to seed the next generation of diverse, young talent in the industry.

The Young Innovator Award celebrates excellence and innovation by young professionals. See the other nominees and their backgrounds and check back to learn who has won this prestigious honor from The Advertising Club of New York and Google, with support from The Drum.