Bloom North announces 2026 President and Vice President

Bloom North, the not-for-profit aiming to uplevel and support women in media, has appointed its 2026 presidential team.

Beth Sutherland, 2025’s Vice President and Senior Associate Director at EssenceMediacom, is continuing her successful tenure leading the organisation as she steps into the role of President. She will be joined by Saskia Starritt, also a Senior Associate Director at EssenceMediacom and Head of Marketing at Bloom North, who will serve as Vice President in 2026.

In their partnership, the pair are committed to building on the successes and learnings of 2025 to expand the network’s reach, relevancy, and impact on women across the phases of their career. This will include expanding Bloom North’s online presence to TikTok and YouTube.

To facilitate this, Bloom North’s events and content will be organised across three key pillars with clear focuses:

• Bloom Community – meaningful networking and supporting wellbeing
• Bloom Development – career progression and professional development
• Bloom Drivers – thought leadership and change-making

On her goals for Bloom North in 2026, Beth Sutherland shared:

“I am absolutely thrilled to be taking on the role of President in 2026. I care deeply about the Bloom North network and have seen firsthand the opportunities it creates and support it provides for women across media.

“A key advantage and reason I wanted to continue in the presidential team is to meaningfully action our learnings from 2025. This year, we have seen a shift in the types of events and content our community wants to engage with most, which has shaped our priorities for 2026. In particular, there has been real demand for wellbeing-focused events. So, there will be an increased emphasis at Bloom North on creating safe spaces to practice wellbeing. 

“Moreover, we saw a fantastic response to our panels and workshops aimed at driving the conversation about midlife women’s experiences working in media. Not only are we going to continue these hard-hitting, honest conversations about tackling ageism, we are determined to engage leaders across our industry to drive tangible change too.” 

This year marks eight years since the not-for-profit was established to champion equal opportunities for women in the media, creative, advertising, and communication industries across the North West.

Returning to the original mission of Bloom North is a key focus for the 2026 presidential team, as Saskia Starritt explained:

“A lot has changed since Bloom North was first founded, both in our industry and of course the working world generally. Our network and its presence in the Northern media scene has grown significantly, which is fantastic. However, we don’t want to lose sight of its founding purpose and mission, which are still entirely relevant today.

“We are doing a lot of work this year to bring Bloom North’s values and bold identity to life and to the forefront of everything we do both in person and online, so that we can drive real change, create conversation, and ensure more people can access our community.”

For more information about Bloom North, visit its LinkedIn, Instagram or listen to the award-winning Blooming North podcast.

Source: Bloom North

  Agency, Appointment, Beth Sutherland, Bloom North, President, Saskia Starritt, Vice President