Yasuharu Sasaki, Global Chief Creative Officer of dentsu, will serve as Grand Jury President at ADFEST 2026, leading the panel of Jury Presidents in judging the Lotus Roots category. He will also serve as Jury President for the Creative Strategy Lotus, Effective Lotus, INNOVA Lotus, and Sustainable Lotus categories, and will deliver a keynote speech at the event.
Sasaki, based in Tokyo, was appointed Global Chief Creative Officer in October 2023, capping a 30-year career at dentsu. He continues to serve as Chief Creative Officer in Tokyo and previously spent seven years as Executive Creative Director. During that period, he became one of the youngest Executive Officers at the agency, overseeing one of the largest creative teams in the world.
He now leads dentsu’s global Creative Practice, including Dentsu Creative, and is responsible for setting creative standards and fostering a culture of innovation across the company.
Sasaki began his career as a copywriter at dentsu in 1995. With a background in computer science, he was an early advocate for interactive advertising and founded Dentsu Lab Tokyo in 2014.
“I believe the highest form of creativity is work that creates discontinuous change – work that shifts reality,” said Sasaki.
“Such work moves people deeply. In other words, it produces both surprise and empathy: it makes us feel something unexpected, and it makes us recognise something true.”
To learn more about ADFEST 2026, go here.
