LIA honours creative leader Dörte Spengler-Ahrens with prestigious LIA Legend Award

Yesterday at the London International Awards judging in Las Vegas there was a special moment when the LIA Legend Award was presented to one of Germany’s most awarded creative leaders, Dörte Spengler-Ahrens, honoring her outstanding contributions to the industry and its next generation.

With Creative LIAisons attendees, jurors, and industry heavyweights present, Dörte Spengler-Ahrens was honoured with the prestigious LIA Legend Award. Introduced in 2023, the award recognizes not just creative brilliance but those who selflessly mentor, empower and raise creative standards for the next generation: creative titans whose shoulders others stand on. The two previous winners where Piyush Pandey (in 2024) and Mark Tutssel (in 2023)

The Non-Executive Chairwoman of Jung von Matt Group Germany, Spengler-Ahrens has built a career of firsts: founding MARIA, Germany’s first women’s agency; becoming the first female president of the Art Directors Club Germany; shaping the creative landscape with award-winning campaigns for BMW, Audi, Nivea, Zalando and more; and being a tireless champion of diversity, women’s empowerment and the next generation.

Presenting the award, Barbara Levy, President & Founder of LIA, said:

For the past two years, I have stood on this stage to present one of the most important accolades of this show – the LIA Legend Award.

What makes a Legend a Legend?

Throughout history, there have been great creative people who have stood out from the others by changing the status quo. They are people who are faced with challenges and have come out stronger. We can cite people like Erma Perham Proetz, the first woman to be inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1952. She was a pioneer and her work for a lacklustre product like evaporated milk impacted the way we view content marketing. (It wasn’t Gen Z that “made” create content marketing “become a thing.”)

There are several distinguishable characteristics that determines what is a Legend. Each year, LIA pays tribute to such a creative and self-less person who has raised creative standards and exemplified:
· Passion
· Creativity
· Courage
· Imagination
· Leadership and Self-less Giving

A creative titan whose shoulders the next generation stands on to gain head and heart knowledge.

Today, we want to turn the spotlight on someone who, has achieved many “Firsts” in a long and illustrious career.

She is the Non-Executive Chairwoman of Jung von Matt, the former and first female President of the ADC Germany. She was named Germany’s Agency Person of the Year by HORIZONT in 2018 and was given the moniker, “Braveheart “ at the best Agency Award in 2023.

In 2002, she started her own agency, run by women for women’s products. Today, she continues to empower women in the industry so they have a seat at the table.

She has not just broken the glass ceiling, she has made creative standards go through the roof with the countless award-winning work that she has done. She is a champion of brave, new ideas, and of young people, like yourselves, – a woman who is as committed as she is passionate.

She has been both Jury President and juror at LIA. She has also been a speaker and mentor at Creative LIAisons. She is a creative guru who in her own words, believes in “Changing the world with creativity.”

Through the many years I have known her, and this is going back dare I say decades, she has given me a front row seat into who she is, not just as a creative force but as a person, mentor, wife, mother and a friend.

So it is such a great joy for me to present this Award here in Las Vegas, a city that holds a special place in her heart. Vegas is where this year’s legend got married and ten years ago where she renewed her vows with myself, Laurissa, Patricia and Bee bearing witness. In fact, you might say the 4 of us were bridesmaids.

This year, I am proud and honored to present the LIA Legend Award to a creative leader who has impacted the industry, not just in Germany but around the world. I will now present this award to Doerte Spengler-Ahrens. In the words of the famous female a person, Ilon Specht, who gave us one of the most iconic ad lines, “because you’re worth it.” Doerte I am proud to give you this award.