Diversity champion Jan Gooding to receive The Drum Marketing Awards' lifetime achievement award
Former global inclusion chief at Aviva and Pamco chair, Jan Gooding has been named as the recipient of The Drum Marketing Awards’ lifetime achievement honour for 2019. She will be presented the accolade at the awards ceremony on April 3.
Jan Gooding, chair of PamCo
As a vocal champion of diversity, Gooding has never shied away from saying publicly that LGBT people in executive leadership positions have an obligation to be out. Her biggest contribution, however, has been her visibility and outspokenness for all 'kinds' of inclusion and diversity. Gooding is credited as being a huge inspiration for all those who fear that they need to be closeted at work and waste valuable effort muting their authentic selves.
With over two decades in the marketing industry, Gooding recently departed insurance company, Aviva, following a tenure of service to focus on a plural career.
Gooding left the insurance business after instilling diversity and equality throughout the company. Most recently she was responsible for the launch of a policy giving employees in the UK, Ireland, France, Singapore, Canada and Italy equal parental leave benefits. She also established six "internal communities" for its workforce to discuss and promote diversity and inclusion efforts; Aviva Ability, Carers, Balance (gender), Pride (LGBTQ+), Origins (ethnicity), and Generation (age).
Gooding is also the chair of the board of trustees at Stonewall, a charity for LGBT equality and a role she has been in since April 2014, which was meant to end in April this year but has been extended until autumn 2020.
Awarded the coveted lifetime achievement accolade for her devotion to diversity in the industry, Gooding follows in the footsteps of previous winners, Unilever's Keith Weed and Sir Richard Branson.
She said: “I am very proud to win this award because I hope all the brilliant people who have worked with me over my career will recognise the part they each paid in such recognition.
“To work in marketing is to be given an extraordinary opportunity to influence the impact of business, through their brands, on the world. I firmly believe that business can be a force for good, and as marketing people, we should be highly motivated by that.”
Gooding’s career began in retail on a Selfridge’s ran management training. In the 1980s she joined the agency Burkitt Weinreich Bryant as an account director and went on to sit on the board of the agency. However, having children meant that her career in advertising was cut short, so she started her own business called Bluedoor in 1997.
In the early 2000s, she moved to the client side at BT as head of brand experience and head of strategic communications. In 2008, she was the interim marketing director at British Gas. Later that year, she moved to Aviva to become global inclusion director, group brand director, marketing operations director.
The Drum Marketing Awards are celebrating over 10 years of recognising the best marketers and campaigns in the industry.
The deadline has now passed but you can still enter by applying for an extension. Please contact Laura Gregson for more details.