CAF is proud to name Shelby Saville, Chief Investment Officer, Spark Foundry, as the Silver Medal Award winner. The CAF Silver Medal is a prestigious honor, given to someone who has achieved significant success working in the advertising or marketing world; has worked toward increasing the stature and raising the standards of the advertising profession; has shown evidence of a consistent and high degree of creative, original thinking; has contributed to the development of others in the advertising industry through professional, civic and community activities; and has spent her career in Chicago. The organization will recognize her accomplishments during a celebration this Fall.

About Shelby Saville:

Baomy Wehrle, CAF President shared, “We are thrilled to honor Shelby Saville as this year’s Chicago Advertising Federation Silver Medal Award recipient. Shelby’s ingenuity to break the mold and test new approaches has garnered attention and numerous accolades across the industry throughout her career. But it’s not only her profound success, but also her contagious, courageous spirit – relentlessly positive, unabashedly human, and always thinking of others – that makes Shelby Saville a standout honoree. At the time where it has never been more important as a leader to demonstrate kindness, Shelby Saville’s connectiveness proves she is a true force and role model for our advertising and marketing community.”

Shelby’s contributions extend far beyond Spark Foundry’s doors. As an active community member, Shelby continuously looks to give back to those around her, especially other women and mothers. Shelby’s commitment to supporting, developing, and mentoring working moms has helped to pave the way for women not only to be part of the media business, but to thrive at the highest levels, all the while meeting the many challenges of motherhood. Not only has Shelby modeled this behavior herself, she’s personally mentored scores of working moms.

One of those mentees, Spark Foundry SVP Amy Durbin, tells a story that really gets at the essence of Shelby’s impact:

“When I was newly pregnant with my first child, Shelby told me she wanted to repurpose our once-a-week status to be ‘working mom’ lessons. Rather than running through status items, we would talk about how I needed to learn to evolve from saying yes to every opportunity at work to learning how to say yes to my family in the same way. When my son was born, one of her gifts was a parenting book with handwritten post-its on certain pages with her own tips and notes she wanted to add on top of the advice from the book. I’ve kept that book as a reminder of how special Shelby is, and how much she’s taught me about giving back to other women in our business.”

Further, for the past several years Shelby has served as a team leader for Habitat for Humanity Chicago’s annual Women Build, an event that brings awareness to gender inequality in homeownership and recruits more than 400 female volunteers to help construct homes to be owned by women. In just three years, Shelby’s Women Build team has raised more than $60,000 for this incredible cause and has helped build several homes for deserving women. Her commitment and results led to Shelby being invited to serve on the organization’s Chicago board of directors, on which she now sits.

Past Honorees