• by Larissa Faw , December 7, 2020

PJ Pereira, Creative Chairman and Co-Founder of Pereira & O’Dell has been selected as the new Jury Chair for the Andy Awards. Pereira’s tenure is two years and although he has served on the ANDY Awards Jury in past years, this will be his first time leading the integrated ANDYs jury.

Pereira will be overseeing a different awards show than in years prior. For one, he has more colleagues joining him for 2021. The Andys are adding five seats to the jury line-up, reserved for rising stars at the Associate Creative Director level or equivalent, also coming from underrepresented groups.

Concurrently, the new “Face The Future” creative mentorship program will match each judge with a recent college graduate. The mentees will be selected from the American Advertising Federation’s National Student Competition, City University of New York schools and Historically Black Colleges & Universities among other institutions. The intent is to form long-term relationships that will sustain beyond this award show. The selection of mentees will be led in partnership with CUNY Professor Rebecca Rivera, and Pereira O'Dell.

The full 2021 jury to be announced soon.

“Award shows can come across as self-serving and self-important, but they also matter for the careers of a lot of people whose only opportunity to grow are their ideas,” says Pereira. “So, we are using this platform to not only to promote these brave minds, but to also accelerate a more inclusive generation of leaders. Unless our industry, including its leadership, represents the population of this country, we will never be able to do the work that we need to do.”