PERSONNEL: Ad Woman of the Year

"Advertising is a marvelous field for women. They have a warm personal approach and a concern for things that is very valuable. And there is certainly no gender in ideas." The speaker, not surprisingly, was a woman: Margot Sherman, 48, vice president of Manhattan's McCann-Erickson, Inc., named last week, by the Advertising Federation of America, as Advertising Woman of the Year.

Margot (born Alice Martha) Sherman started out as a newspaper reporter after graduating from the University of Michigan, joined McCann-Erickson in 1936 because "what I really liked was persuading people." Her flair for entertaining copy made her a top creative writer, earned a vice-presidency in 1949. Today she wears three hats. She is chairman of the Creative Plans Board, administrative director of the 300-man Creative Division, and takes a hand in the development of talent in the agency's training program. Even more important is a fourth hat, the one she wears as Mrs. Charles D. Peet of Bronxville, wife of a Manhattan lawyer, mother of a son, 22, a daughter, 12. She and her husband duck Manhattan nightlife, spend most of their spare time at home with their family. Does Mrs. Peet find conflict in two careers in the family? "I get disgusted," she says, "with people who try to emphasize 'the battle of the sexes'—always pitting men against women. I think the only important thing is for each person to live up to his own potential." Her advice to women who want a career and a happy home life too: "Find a very understanding gentleman to marry."