After 20 years of heading up SAWA, the Global Cinema Advertising Association, its Chief Executive Officer Cheryl Wannell will be retiring on 19 August 2022 to “pursue personal interests with her family.” And while such statements are usually issued by executives being forced out of their positions, that is certainly not the case for Wannell.

Just ask Weischer Cinema CEO and SAWA President, Florian Weischer who said, in part, “Appointing Cheryl as CEO was one of the best decisions SAWA ever made. She led the trade body through sizable changes in the industry such as the complete digitization of the cinema medium and — over the past two and a half years — through a global pandemic that halted the industry. Cheryl’s contribution to SAWA’s success is enormous.”

A few of Wannell’s many accomplishments at SAWA include setting the ethical and technical international standards and best practices for the industrymestablishing a partnership with Nielsen to measure global Cinema industry trends and raising the profile of the cinema medium to the creative community through annual sponsorships and seminars at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Wannell had originally planned to retire in 2020, though the COVID pandemic got in the way. Cinema industry veteran and founding member of the SAWA Digital Committee, Julian Pinn will step into the role of CEO at SAWA.