About

Take a look at some previous Emerging Leaders who have gone on to cement their leadership skills in media, marketing and advertising.  

Previous Winners

Mandie van der Merwe

Over the last 17 years, Mandie has worked as an art director at agencies in Australia, South Africa and the Middle East. Having now risen to the role of Saatchi & Saatchi chief creative officer, Mandie has always been committed to training and mentoring young talent in the industry. She is chair of Award, has served as a lecturer in South Africa and judged and mentored Cannes Young Lions. Her creative leadership for Tourism Australia, Commonwealth Bank, BIG W and BWS demonstrates the scope and depth of her work, and she has collected more than 200 awards at shows including Cannes and D&AD.

Mitchell Long

Mitchell first joined media and marketing communications agency PHD as an intern in 2011, moving on to secure positions as account executive, investment planning manager and Sydney head of strategy. Mitchell is now national head of strategy at PHD, a major driving force behind the agency’s strategic output. Over the years, he’s worked with brands such as Google, Virgin Australia, Unilever and VW to create a data-led communications strategy and channel innovation that is tech forward and results driven.

Previous Finalists

Jenni Hayward

Jenni was the driving force behind the industry’s first ever social enterprise product, Mood. Created under UnLtd’s Little Colossus, proceeds from the bespoke tea range contribute to funding youth mental health projects. After seven months of long hours and pulling in favours, Jenni coordinated the launch campaign of Mood in 2021, recruiting four agencies across creative, media and PR to work on the project as well as securing media inventory from partners to push the launch.

Ben Campbell

Ben led several strategic projects critical to Nine’s commercial success, from its digital advertising technology platform to the unification of Nine’s data asset following mergers with Fairfax and Macquarie Media. Ben also led the team, in partnership with Nine Technology, that designed and delivered Nine’s addressable TV proposition. Ben has contributed to the development of the digital ad industry through his past positions on IAB councils and today is the director of advertising and data products. 

Hamish McPhee

Hamish became the first Twitch hire in Melbourne in 2020, responsible for driving growth in one of Australia’s most competitive markets. Hamish successfully scaled the business and achieved triple-digital YOY growth, unlocking new advertising categories while also creating a new industry group supporting the LGBTQIA+ community in adland. Today, Hamish can be found in Vancouver Canada working as senior GTM manager of international expansion sales at Amazon Ads. 

Jin Subasinghe

As group sales manager at Paramount ANZ, Jin’s role today is to maximise revenue potential across all screens across a portfolio of Tier 1 and independent agency clients. In her rise through the ranks of the media business, Jin also became a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion. Her work in this space has included being the market representative for Australia in an Equity & Inclusion Global Task Force, alongside regular speaking and mentoring at NGEN events to inspire future leaders. 

Clare Rudduck

Driving diversity and inclusion is also a major agenda for Clare. As founding leader of Yahoo’s (former Verizon Media) employee resource group, Women Advancing Verizon Employees (WAVE), she led several key initiatives that promote inclusion and flexible working for mums returning from maternity leave. With the industry-wide issue of talent shortages, Clare developed a series of training modules for junior to mid-level agency staff to train them on topics including data privacy and trust, and supply path optimisation. Today, she is head of the enterprise solutions group at LinkedIn ANZ.

Kirby McDonald, Client Director

One of Wavemaker’s youngest client directors at age 27, Kirby has been leading a team of more than 10 people on one of the South Australian government accounts since 2017. In addition to her daily role at the agency, Kirby has also held a secretary role at the Adelaide Media Club for a number of years. The judges said: “Kirby is a young gun who is mature beyond her years. She has achieved phenomenal results in the government accounts she has led including for recent campaigns to help stop the spread of COVID-19 in SA.”