Cheryl Wannell joined SAWA in 2003 when she relocated to London and in 2006 returned to Australia and now runs the Secretariat from Sydney. In 2004 she became General Manager and subsequently in 2017 became CEO and is responsible for running the day to day operations. During her tenure the size of the body has doubled. Besides driving the profile of the medium the body is responsible for setting standards and recommendations both ethical and technical aspects of the Cinema Medium around the world. She does this through her co chairmanship of the SAWA Digital committee. Cheryl’s background is in Marketing, Sales and Business Management. Prior to this role Cheryl was Global Managing Director of the Cinema advertising company Val Morgan based in Australia– her operational expertise saw the company grow from an Australian company into a Global organization operating in 8 countries. In 2015, through her efforts the Cinema advertising industry supported cause by providing Cinema advertising globally an important engagement for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The campaign in 2018 and again in 2019 is for the United Nations World Food Programme concentrating on Zero Hunger Goal Number 2. Central to this, SAWA holds a seminar each year at the world’s leading Festival of Creativity Cannes Lions which was voted in 2018 number 1 in the track for Good. Cheryl also sits on the United Nations World Food Programme, Global Impact Council. During the pandemic, SAWA spearheaded by Cheryl, set up a Global Task Force of world experts from the Cinema Medium concentrating on areas of Research, Marketing and Analytics to create a blueprint for members to tackle the challenges that lay ahead as the Cinema Industry returns to some normalcy. This Global Task Force has been a huge success and given confidence and support to the global membership body through these incredibly difficult times.
Since retiring from SAWA, Cheryl now consults as a Senior Consultant for the United Nations Development Programme (the UN’s largest agency) based in New York. Her role is to market and launch global campaigns for the Climate Emergency as part of the Sustainable Development Goals together with securing new partnerships for the UNDP.