Celebrating the Planner With the Biggest Heart: The Derek Parkin Scholarship
We can help people and even change the world by learning to work together.
L: Dr. Derek Parkin on the cover of the London Times Sunday Magazine. R: Derek Parkin Scholarship winner Natalia Aristizabal with her Top Dog trophy for the best overall body of work at the Boot Camp for Account Planners this past winter in Miami.
Dr. Derek Parkin, a medical doctor and microbiologist, believed that all of us have the capability to do amazing things. We can transform our world and impact the lives of people outside of our ordinary scope of influence if we only harness the power found in effective collaboration.
In honor of Dr. Parkin’s memory, his son Stuart Parkin, Managing Partner of Sparkin Executive Search—a firm specializing in strategic planning careers—created The Derek Parkin Scholarship.
“The Derek Parkin Scholarship rewards the planner or creative not simply with the biggest mind, but the biggest heart, to go with the mind!” Mr. Parkin explains. “The idea behind the award is to encourage a genuine interest in people and a willingness to actively aid their progression.”
“However, it is more than compassion that is being rewarded,” Mr. Parkin continues. “The Derek Parkin Scholarship reinforces the fact that, by striving to help others, by communicating a genuine interest in their progression and—better still—facilitating it, we enhance our own ability to understand them and so aid them, whether client, creative, planner or suit and, in so doing, we aid our own progression.”
The scholarship is awarded three times a year to graduates of Miami Ad School’s Boot Camp for Account Planning. The winner is selected by the students and faculty participating in the account planning boot camp, and is the individual that best embodies the values of collaboration, inspiration and generous contribution to the experience and growth of their fellow students.
There have been 11 recipients of the $1,500 scholarship award to date, the most recent being Natalia Aristizabal who was chosen by her classmates and teachers in Miami this past March. Two additional winners will be chosen this year for the planning boot camps in San Francisco and New York.
