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The D&AD and its new president, Peter Souter, both celebrate their

40th birthday this year. The difference between them is that one has

already got its mid-life crisis out of the way - and it isn't the Abbott

Mead Vickers BBDO executive creative director.

Today's D&AD, now widely acknowledged as an effective body run in a

highly business-like fashion by its chief executive, David Kester, is a

far cry from the corruption-riddled organisation of a decade ago.

And therein lies the problem for Souter. With the D&AD under Kester's

efficient and dedicated stewardship, many see the president as little

more than titular. What's more, the comparatively short tenure of the

job - just a year - gives little opportunity for the youngest president

in the D&AD's history to make his mark.

It was all so different in 1992 when the incoming president, Tim

Delaney, used his term to clean out the stables and begin the process of

catharsis which Kester and Anthony Simonds-Gooding saw through.

Ten years on, with its reputation restored and acclaimed for its work on

the education of young creatives (on which it spends more than £1

million a year), the D&AD seems to have little need of crusading

presidents any more.

"There aren't any big issues," Delaney says. "Peter doesn't have to do

what I had to do. There's really nothing he needs to fix."

Souter, who edged out Ken Hoggins, the joint executive creative director

of Banks Hoggins O'Shea/FCB, in the final vote, recognises the folly of

tilting at too many windmills.

It's a recognition born of a long association with the D&AD. A D&AD

evening course led to Souter's first job in advertising as a copywriter

at the then Delaney Fletcher Delaney while four D&AD Pencils provide

testament to lessons learned.

Moreover, his 18 months' chairmanship of the IPA Creative Directors'

Forum has warned him off over-ambitious aims. Trying to achieve

consensus proved difficult. "I achieved absolutely nothing," is his

candid verdict.

The issue on which Souter's forum chairmanship foundered - the

under-representation of women in agency creative departments - is the

one with which he wants to associate his D&AD presidency just as Larry

Barker did in his earlier manifesto. But Souter's may prove more

controversial because he favours positive discrimination to correct the

imbalance.

Souter concedes that his view isn't overwhelmingly popular - creative

departments pride themselves on being meritocracies and women who have

fought their way through the system and into senior roles see no reason

why other women shouldn't do likewise.

However, he is firm in his belief that the system is weighted so heavily

against women that something must be done to tip the scales in their

favour.

So much so that he'd considered approaching John Wren and Sir Martin

Sorrell, the respective heads of Omnicom and WPP, to underpin the

initiative with some cash before last year's global turmoil knocked the

idea on the head.

"The creative placement system which condemns so many young people to

sleeping on floors and existing on a diet of Pot Noodles isn't the life

for a girl to live," he insists. "Also, girls have few role models

beyond Rosie Arnold, Kate Stanners and Tiger Savage."

Certainly the statistics provide powerful evidence of a perpetual

problem to which the industry pays lip service but has done little to

address - just 14 per cent of art directors are female and only 7 per

cent of copywriters. "When you consider that 60 per cent of all

advertising is aimed at women, that's a scandal," Souter complains.

So what can be done? For one thing, the D&AD could be an effective

conduit through which to monitor the number of female creatives that

agencies are hiring. For another it could institute a mentoring

programme to help women retain and make the most of an agency job once

they land it.

Not only should a D&AD welcome pack thud on to the desk of every woman

creative on her first day at work but she should be helped in finding

her way through the macho politics into which she has been pitched,

Souter suggests.

"It's not about using feminine wiles - just making sure your boss knows

who you are and that your ideas are respected. It's about knowing what

to do from the moment you walk through the door."

His own experiences confirm Souter's belief that colleges must get

better at preparing their students - male and female - to find and keep

their jobs in a massively over-supplied market.

A visit to a North of England college where the advertising course was

being run by a former agency TV department administrative assistant and

a succession of student books "that make you wonder what these people

have been taught for the past two years" have left him with a jaundiced

view.

"Advertising courses are profitable for colleges because they're cheap

to run," he claims. "Students don't need Macs or production

facilities.

As a result there are too many kids chasing jobs they can never hope to

get. So it's up to us at the D&AD to make sure the best ones get the

opportunities they deserve. In short, we should be hunting for the

Unicorns."

It's a grand ambition which Souter is pragmatic enough to concede that a

year is nowhere near long enough to realise. "Even if I see no evidence

of anything being done - and even if I end up getting it wrong - I'll at

least have opened the debate."