About Neil Lawrence
THE CENTENARY INSTITUTE LAWRENCE CREATIVE PRIZE
Why the Centenary Institute "Lawrence" Creative Prize?
Neil Lawrence, Founder of Lawrence Creative Strategy and Executive Creative Director of STW Group - Australia's largest communications group - was the Inaugural Chair and was instrumental in the establishment of the Centenary Institute Medical Research Foundation. He is also a member of the Foundation's Board of Trustees.
Neil has worked ceaselessly towards the Foundation's successes, creating an annual fundraising dinner and art sale - the Foundation's largest individual fundraising event, now in it's fourth year and responsible for funding the Institute's Bioinformatics team. He also created and produced a prominent national advertising campaign and created the rebranding for the Institute.
Neil's reputation in the creative sphere is global: he has represented Australia internationally as the Chairman of Judges at International film and advertising awards and The Australian awarded him Marketer of the Year for running the Kevin07 ad campaign. Since then, he's run and won campaigns for Australia's first directly elected woman Premier Anna Bligh and for the Minerals Council of Australia.
His work combines creative flair with a deep understanding of highly complex, strategic political and corporate issues. One of his various probono campaigns recently was the launch of indigenous nonprofit group GenerationOne whose goal is to end the disparity between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in one generation. He writes regular columns analysing campaign strategy for The Australian and has appeared on the ABC TV series Gruen Nation and The Drum, focusing on political campaigns. Neil likes boxing, surfing, playing bluegrass guitar "quite badly" and wandering in the rainforest at the family retreat near Jamberoo.
The Centenary Institute Lawrence Creative Prize focuses on creativity - the essential ingredient in all human endeavour, whether in science, art or marketing. It will be presented to the Medical research scientist who demonstrates the greatest creativity in their scientific approach in a given year.
