Steve Barrett, Media Week, 03 June 2008, 07:30am

The search is on for media's brightest young stars

Media Week has reinstated its popular 30 under 30 initiative, which attempts to identify the media high-flyers who are going to be the managing directors and chief executives of the future.

Steve Barrett, editor of Media Week

The commercial media sector is sometimes shy about promoting itself and the career opportunities that exist within it. Think media studies and the mind automatically turns towards journalism and broadcasting, rather than media sales or communications planning.

That's why initiatives such as 30 under 30 are so important (and, indeed, the Channel 4 Plannertarium scheme that culminates in an intensive away-day workshop in July). They recognise the young achievers in the sector and provide a useful addition to the successful recipients' CVs.

They hopefully provide an incentive for the brightest young stars from the media agency, media owner and client communities to continue to ply their talents in the commercial media sector.

In this week's feature, we catch up with some of the previous winners to see how their careers have progressed since they were nominated for 30 under 30. They have followed disparate paths, but in most cases their promise has been realised and they have achieved significant promotions in a relatively short space of time.

For example, Alistair Ballantyne has moved from group account director of IPC Media to global sales director of Metro International. Nicola Ponting has remained within the IPC stable, moving up from senior sales manager of IPC Ignite to her current role as a digital director at IPC Inspire. Ollie Bishop has risen from senior agency sales manager to agency chief executive, while Karen Wall has moved from head of marketing to assistant managing director.

This year there is an added incentive for the 30 chosen ones, as they will be whittled down to a shortlist of six for consideration as the Rising Star of 2008 at the Media Week Awards.

So, if you are one of media's brightest stars and not the shy and retiring type - and, let's face it, many of you don't immediately fit into that category - or if you know of a young media type who is destined for greatness that you would like to nominate, why not send details to the 30 under 30 contest by emailing Media Week's features editor harriet.dennys@haymarket.com.