An Interview with ADCE President Dörte Spengler-Ahrens

m&k You are the first woman to lead the ADCE—what sense of responsibility do you feel in this historic role, and what was your first thought when you received the offer?

Dörte Spengler-Ahrens The ADCE is a major pioneer in diversity—in fact, it had a female president as early as 2000! Incidentally, the ADCE also consistently meets the quota for women on its juries.

Throughout your career, you’ve always positioned yourself as someone who takes radically new approaches—from founding MARIA to the various Jung von Matt locations to the new pricing structure. What drives you to constantly question the system?

The Jung von Matt agency’s guiding principles are: „We believe in the power of the unexpected. We stay unsatisfied.“ I’ve added “Fuck Boring” as my own personal motto.  I’m convinced that, amid the overwhelming flood of content and AI-generated drivel, only the unexpected can truly surprise—and it has to spark an emotional response. With this credo, you can build brands and sell products in a way that resonates emotionally and lasts.

You have spent your entire life advocating for diversity and the advancement of women. How frustrating is it still that women are underrepresented in leadership positions in the creative industry—and what specific changes can you bring about as ADCE President?

Women in creative leadership roles are still glaringly underrepresented in our industry. The ADCE is an exception—it maintains a 50/50 quota without exception and had its first female president as early as 2000. The issue of female leadership is particularly close to my heart. I have also been a strong advocate for women at ADC Germany, and I look forward to continuing to promote and champion this cause at the ADC of Europe. To make a difference in this area, women in our industry still have to do more than just be good—they also have to prove themselves. That sounds absurd, especially from an international perspective, but it’s the reality.

You started out as an art director and later moved into copywriting—how did this shift in perspective shape your creative approach, and what did you already know about yourself back then that made you a leader?

I studied communication design/graphic design and started out as a junior art director. I soon realized that art direction requires emotional daydreaming—you have to lose yourself in the images to create good artwork. Concept development, on the other hand, is more of a thought process, and I simply enjoyed coming up with ideas more than I did bringing them to life. Writing really exercises your brain, and that helps when it comes to strategic concept development. To this day, I love both.

Founding Germany's first women-led agency in 2000 was a bold move. What was your vision back then, and why was it important not only to create good advertising but also to demonstrate that it was done under women's leadership?

MARIA was the first German agency focused on women. In our day-to-day work, we realized that when it came to products aimed at women, we had an unerring instinct for concepts that would resonate with them—that insight was our instinct. And we had the courage to turn that—combined with our creative expertise (we were all in leadership positions at Jung von Matt)—into a business. The response was overwhelming, and we’d already secured our first client within the first month. Nevertheless, the clients were exclusively women’s products—mainly women’s magazines. The market hadn’t yet internalized the fact that 85% of all purchasing decisions are made by women—even when it comes to car tires. After a year of thematic monotony, I was drawn back to working with a mix of brands at JvM. And I got the chance to found Jung von Matt Spree with my colleagues.

Opening up the ADCE Awards to all participants in independent competitions—that’s a real paradigm shift. How were you able to implement this more inclusive approach, and who objected the most?

We want to strengthen our position as Europe’s leading platform for creative excellence while opening up the organization to an even larger, more diverse, and more significant creative community. That is why the ADCE Award is introducing, for example, an expanded eligibility system. Instead of being open only to winners of competitions held by ADCE member clubs, as was previously the case, the award is now open to anyone who submits work to competitions organized by the 25 ADCE member clubs, as well as to selected eligible competitions run by non-member organizations across Europe. This marks an important step toward a more inclusive and representative European competition model that opens up more opportunities for independent creatives, emerging talent, and smaller markets. At the same time, it better reflects the diversity of cultures, perspectives, and creative voices that shape today’s Europe.

You're known as a fighter. How do you maintain that energy and radicalism while also serving as the president of a major European organization? Where do you draw the line?

My hope is that the ADCE will become the most prestigious, respected, and relevant award in Europe, and I will do everything in my power to achieve and maintain that. Being president is an honorary position. I am very happy to dedicate myself to this cause. Yes, that’s right—I advocate for outstanding and, therefore, effective creativity, for ideas, and also for the vision of a creative Europe.

With the LIA Legend Award and all the international successes under your leadership—what was the moment that truly felt like a breakthrough, and what does this status mean to you personally? 

My breakthrough as a creative came when we won “Cannes Independent Agency of the Year” with JvM and were named the “Most Successful Agency in ADC History” in 2024. As a creative, it was definitely winning the Horizont Award and being named a “Lia Legend.” As a person, it’s being the mother of a wonderful son and the wife of a wonderful husband.

You encourage more women to „take up space“—specifically, what advice would you have given your 30-year-old self to help you move even faster and more radically? And what advice do you give to young women in the industry?

I have three pieces of advice for women who are 30 now: Find out who the best ones are. Don’t give up until you’ve secured a spot among the best. Pay attention to who recognizes you as someone with special strengths, talents, or skills, and stick with that mentor.

With 25 clubs from 24 countries under one roof—that’s European creative policy at its very best. Do you see the ADCE presidency as the culmination of your career or as a starting point for something even bigger?

The ADC of Europe is, so to speak, the ADC of all ADCs. It is not a national ADC, but a European one, in which entries that were submitted to national awards are evaluated by a pan-European jury. This is important in order to distinguish itself from international awards, which tend to have a very internationally conformist perspective, and to adopt a European perspective as the ADCE. This perspective is also broader than that of a purely national award. This is ensured by the European entries, but above all by the European jury, which is composed of some of Europe’s most respected and internationally acclaimed creative minds and combines outstanding expertise with diverse cultural perspectives.  All of this strengthens the ADCE’s position as one of the highest benchmarks for creative excellence on the continent.

Dörte Spengler-Ahrens studied visual communication and began her career as an art director before transitioning to copywriting. After working at several agencies, she joined Jung von Matt, where she became the agency’s first female creative director after just three years. In 2000, she founded MARIA, Germany’s first women-led agency. In 2002, she returned to Jung von Matt as a partner and co-founded Jung von Matt/Spree, the group’s first Berlin-based agency. In the years that followed, she founded several successful companies within the Jung von Matt network, including Jung von Matt/9, Jung von Matt/Pulse, Jung von Matt/Fleet, Jung von Matt/Elbe, and Jung von Matt/SAGA. Throughout her career, she has worked for major international brands such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Sixt, NIVEA, Zalando, and BVG. Her creative leadership and award-winning campaigns have made her one of Germany’s most prominent figures in advertising and communications and have shaped Jung von Matt’s identity and reputation over the past two decades. Her achievements have been recognized with numerous awards, including the „Germany Agency Person of the Year“ award at the 2018 Horizont Awards, the „Braveheart“ Award at the 2023 Best Agency Awards, and the prestigious 2025 LIA Legend Award. Throughout her career, Dörte Spengler-Ahrens has won several Grand Prix and international awards. Under her leadership, Jung von Matt has been recognized as one of the world’s leading independent agencies at the Cannes Lions, LIA, the New York Festivals, and other major international competitions. For more than two decades, Spengler-Ahrens has represented the German creative industry at major international award ceremonies and has served as jury president, festival president, and juror at competitions such as Cannes Lions, LIA, the Clio Awards, Eurobest, The One Show, ADC*E, and ADC Global. She is also a member of the advisory boards of D&AD and the New York Festivals. In 2024, she was appointed non-executive chairwoman of the Jung von Matt Group—another first in the company’s history. With this new presidency and the opening of the 35th edition of the ADCE Awards, the ADCE marks the dawn of a new era of European creativity, which invites creatives from across the continent to showcase their work, exchange perspectives, and compete on a truly European level within a community that celebrates cultural diversity, creative excellence, and shared values.

The Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE) is a nonprofit organization based in Barcelona that brings together 25 professional clubs and associations from 24 European countries. Founded in 1990, ADCE promotes creative excellence in advertising and graphic design throughout Europe, represents more than 7,000 professionals, and showcases top-tier local work. The new president of ADCE is Dörte Spengler-Ahrens, chairwoman of Jung von Matt. ADCE is part of the One Club for Creativity based in New York, home to The One Show , ADC Annual Awards, Art Directors Club of Europe (ADCE) Awards, ONE Asia Awards , Type Directors Club Competition, Young Guns , Young Ones Student Awards , Next Creative Directors ONE School, ONE Creator Lab, Where Are All the Black People? Conference and Career Fair, Portfolio Night, Creative Week and more. The One Club is the world’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and celebrating the global creative community. Revenue from entries to global awards ceremonies is reinvested in the industry to fund programs under the organization’s four pillars: education, inclusion & diversity, gender equality, and creative development.