Cheryl Giovannoni

Cheryl Giovannoni was born and brought up in South Africa and has a BA in English, Communication and Psychology from the University of South Africa.

She spent most of her career at WPP, starting out as a PA in the Research and Strategic Planning Department at Ogilvy & Mather in Johannesburg. She transferred to the London office of Ogilvy as an Account Director in 1993, had a brief foray at Lowe-Howard Spink for a couple of years, before returning to WPP as CEO role of Coley Porter Bell, a boutique design and branding consultancy. She then became UK MD of Landor Associates, a global brand consulting firm in WPP, where she honed her corporate branding skills, being promoted to European President, and then Global Client Leader. The circle was completed with her return to Ogilvy & Mather London as CEO of the advertising agency in 2013, almost 30 years after having started at the firm as a PA.

Cheryl is now CEO of one of the UK’s largest charities, The Girls’ Day School Trust, a post she has held for the past 4 years. She is responsible for 25 schools across the UK, educating 18,000 girls and leading an organisation of 4,000 staff. She has always enjoyed mentoring and coaching women at different stages of their careers throughout her journey. She now gets to spend every day working with future generations of women who will change the world for the better for us all. She is also the champion of a programme called “Undivided”, to address diversity, inclusion and real change within the education sector.