Suzanne Hargrove wins Executive Producer of the Year

Suzanne Hargrove (BSC ’86) is still in shock. In April, the vice president/executive producer at PRETTYBIRD in Los Angeles was named Executive Producer of the Year at the Ad Age A-List and Creativity Awards. Hargrove was chosen because of her “skill, attention to detail and humanity.”

“I’m over the moon that I won this award,” said Hargrove. “I feel like so often producers aren’t acknowledged. I’ve been doing this for decades now. It’s really an honor, and it’s truly humbling. I’m excited and touched by it. This has been the highlight of my executive producer career.”

The A-List and Creativity awards celebrate the year’s most impactful and innovative ideas, the agency and marketing executives behind them and the production professionals who bring them to life. The winners were chosen by four juries made up of leaders from top agencies, brands and production companies.

“This was the inaugural year for the executive producer category,” said Hargrove. “I was nominated by the president of PRETTYBIRD, Ali Brown. I was a finalist for the award with three other amazing executive producers.”

Hargrove’s road to this award started in Dublin, Ohio. After high school graduation, she decided to attend Ohio University to pursue a career in sports broadcasting. Hargrove walked on to the Ohio University women’s basketball team, worked at WOUB doing sports reporting and anchoring, and participated with Athens Video Works (AVW), which is a completely student-run multimedia production house, announcing Ohio University basketball broadcasts.

But, as graduation got closer, Hargrove realized she wanted to do something else. She decided to move to LA to break into the entertainment industry. In California, Hargrove started doing production work on music videos and commercial advertising, which eventually led to her career at PRETTYBIRD. Hargrove continues to work on commercials and music videos, but also creates branded content and does work with film. She is even producing a podcast for Audible which will be released in July.

“We’ve done, and continue to do, some really great work at PRETTYBIRD,” said Hargrove. “But when I look at who I was a finalist with in the executive producer category, they are all really exceptional executive producers. It’s humbling to have won this award.”

Hargrove recently worked on the award-winning CeraVe commercial for the Super Bowl and the Billie Eilish trailer for Fornite. Other clients include Mountain Dew, McDonalds and Expedia.