Stephanie Matthews

She/Her

Steph Matthews (she/her/hers) is an inclusion and diversity leader who believes in equity for all. As Senior Business Director for Creative Equals, she partners with global brands who want to embed long-lasting systemic change into their business practises and brand DNA. Her clients include Philips, Mars-Wrigley, McDonalds and Walgreens. Prior to this, she spent 15+ years as a global advertising executive, leading marketing campaigns at Virgin and the RAC and creating award-winning advertising insights for Channel 4, ITV and News Corp.  Outside of the day job, she's active in a number of industry inclusion initiatives including the women's network Bloom UK as 2019 President, Stonewall's School Role Model programme and the Media Trust and BelEve's mentoring programme. She's been recognised as one to watch, with a WACL Future Leader Award in 2017/18, awarded the #2 HERoes Future Leader in 2019 and BIMA Champion of Change in 2021.  Acknowledged as a powerful writer, she's shared her lived experiences for Campaign, The Drum and the Queer Bible and has been featured in the Guardian's Observer. In 2020, she made the semi-finals of Penguin's Write Now competition for her non-fiction writing. Her book is due to be published in 2022.