Sydney has it all – the beaches, the city life, the thriving creative community – and now it also has Assisterhood!
Meet our 2023 NSW Assisters. A host of Marketing, Management, Strategy, Client Service, Creative, and Design powerhouses. Each of our mentors has forged their own unique path to career success, and each understands the power and value a strong mentor can provide – both professionally and personally.
Without further ado, we’re excited to share this year’s lineup with you. No matter what your career interest is, there’s a talented and experienced Assister here for you.
Souad Saied
Managing Director, Hero
Souad believes that humanity should be at the heart of every interaction, whether it be brand and customer, business and employee, or client and agency. As Managing Director at HERO Sydney, Souad partners senior executives to plan and deliver regional and global marketing initiatives at scale.
Souad believes in business as a force for good. She is a passionate DEI advocate and is a consultant on Rare with Google’s Leadership Accelerator for underrepresented talent. She is governed by the belief that if we start working, investing and knowing ourselves earlier in our adult lives then we can make the right choices (and the wrong ones) for ourselves, sooner rather than later.
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Olivia Chen
Creative Director at Studio Chenchen
Olivia has been a designer for 13 years. she has collected a range of clients, meaningful recognition, and influential collaborative partners throughout her professional journey across three continents. Olivia is also an esteemed educator, teaching graphic design at Shillington College in Sydney.
Olivia is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and English, and the influence from both Eastern and
Western cultures shapes our studio and is seamlessly infused into her work.
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Carolyn Cho
Client Partner, INNOCEAN Australia
Carolyn is a Client Partner at Innocean with over 18 years experience in advertising and marketing.
She started her career at Young & Rubicam Sydney and Ogilvy Sydney but has spent most of her career abroad in New York at Saatchi & Saatchi and London at Fallon. She’s been the client lead on many leading global, European, UK and Australian brands.
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Christina Aventi
Chief Strategy Officer, BMF
A young-at-heart veteran with 24 years’ experience, Christina is a brand and communications strategist at BMF, where comms theory crashed into sociology with a little side of pop psychology for good measure.
Christina has contributed to award-winning, effective campaigns across an array of clients (ALDI, Government, FMCG) and is most proud of the behaviour change work she has been part of in both the commercial and social marketing sector.
An industry commentator and regular panellist on Gruen (ABC), Christina has led BMF to be the most effective agency in Australia, in 2017 and in 2019, and number 3 in the world in the WARC Creative Effectiveness ratings.
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Zoe Crocker
Senior Motion Designer, Never Sit Still
Zoe Crocker is an award winning motion designer and illustrator, currently working as a senior motion designer for esteemed animation studio Never Sit Still.
Zoe has been strongly involved in the motion and design community, most recently featuring as a keynote speaker at both The Design Conference 2022 and Node 2022. She has also been featured on Adobe APAC live, spoken at AGDA events, lectured and taught at UTS, and was a finalist for the AGDA Emerging Designer of the Year 2019. Zoe's expertise led her to being invited to judge the Motion and Emerging Designer categories of the 2020 AGDA Awards.
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Feryx Lim
Creative Copywriter at Paper Moose
Feryx is kinda like that girl from Mean Girls who wishes that she could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy. Mostly because she never wants anyone to feel like they don't even go here.
Passionate about diversity, equality and inclusion, she strives to instil a sense of belonging amongst young womxn in the creative industry. Feryx is currently knee deep in her second career as a Creative Copywriter after having worked as a Content Producer and Strategist for many years.
Storytelling has been a constant love in her profession and she's proud to be able to continue taking great ideas from keyboard to the world.
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Avish Gordhan
Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Creative
Over the last 20 years, Avish has worked on 3 continents creating global and local campaigns for clients such as Tourism Australia, CBA, Nando’s, MINI and Go Gentle Australia.
His work has been recognised over 200 times at local and international award shows, including Cannes, D&AD, AWARD, the Loeries, as well as the Australian Effies. Avish is the co-founder of #OnlyOneInTheRoom and a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
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Karishma Suresh
Agency Lead, Google
Karishma has got over 10 years of experience in digital advertising sales and support across Google India and Australia. She is also a trainer, mentor and co-leads the women@Google community chapter. She studied Journalism in India and is now a part time MBA candidate at the University of Sydney.
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Lea Walker
Founder, Mrs Walker
For over twenty years, Lea has been lucky enough to have worked for and partnered with some of the most respected individuals and creative organisations in Australia, London and the US.
She started Mrs Walker after leaving her role as Director of Recruitment for Wieden + Kennedy. The goal was to offer independent and bespoke Talent Consultation in Recruitment and Talent Operations to Agencies and Marketers around the world.
She has worked with the likes of Mother, BBH, BBDO, TBWA, Google, Special Group and Grey to name a few, on roles across all levels and disciplines, as well as Marketing leadership and in house agency roles for global brands. Her clients have so far extended to 17 cities around the world over the last 5 years of business.
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Gerald Torto
Practice Director at Re, M&C Saatchi Group
As a Practice Director at Re Agency, I help high-growth businesses use design to scale smartly at speed.
Guiding a team of designers, strategists, and copywriters to make two key things for ambitious founders with ambitious growth plans;
1. A compelling story that captures the who, what, why and so what
2. A flexible system to bring those stories to life through signature brand experiences
I love tech, I love branding, and I'm fascinated by people. In my role as practice director, I get to work with all three.
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Hannah Sturrock
National Head of Engagement, ACA
Hannah is a strategic thinker, marketer and advertising industry leader. With a background in project management, operations and agency leadership she’s a proud generalist with a passion for diversity, inclusion and gender equality.
Hannah’s experience includes Wallpaper* London, Karmarama, BMF and The Hallway, where she helped the agency grow to almost 50 staff, winning NSW Agency of the Year twice. She was named one of AdNews 30 Emerging Leaders and won a place in the Marketing Academy scholarship program.
Hannah joined Advertising Council Australia in June 2021 as National Head of Engagement, leading industry action on diversity and inclusion under the new Create Space program.
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Cat Burgess
Head of Frost Place
Cat is the Head of Frost Place – a specialist practice for the place and property industry to support the success of entrepreneurs looking to create outstanding places.
Being with the business for almost 20 years, she has been the GM, the Strategy Director, and now heads up Frost*place - the leading authority on visions, brands and marketing
for cities, places and property.
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Niall Hughes
Group Account Director at Icon Agency
Winner of Professional of the Year (Silver) in the PRIA’s Golden Target Awards, Niall has over 15 years of experience in PR and communications spanning the UK and Australia.
Niall is driven by his desire to create an inclusive industry and has spoken at the shEqual SH!FT panel on the representation of women in marketing creative and has also pioneered a new disability employment scheme within his current organisation.
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Renata (Nata) Yannoulis
Senior Strategist, TBWA/Australia
Renata’s career has spanned PR, content, social-digital management, brand and strategy disciplines. She is currently a Senior Strategist across the TBWA\Sydney group. She has led the strategic thinking across education, FMCG, retail, tech and fashion categories.
In 2021, Renata became a founding member of the ACA Diversity and Inclusion Committee, where she played a pivotal role in rolling out the Create Space brand, research and findings.
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Maddie Marsh
Client Services, Meta
Passionate about brands and creativity delivering commercial results I have step-changed businesses through a relentless push for growth and possibility.
I spent 17 years driving growth through world class effective and award-winning ideas across a broad range of businesses in Australia, Europe and the UK at creative agencies such as Leo Burnett and Clemenger BBDO.
Curious about the future of our industry and keen to build my tech, commercial and innovation experience I’ve spent the past 2.5 years as a Client Partner in Financial Services at Meta. I love the fast pace, high performance culture of Meta which feels like a natural home for my infectious energy and provides endless opportunities to think about the box solving problems using creativity in all its forms.
I’m beyond delighted to take part in the inaugural program of asisterhood in NSW as believe first and foremost that our industry is about and fuelled by extraordinary people.
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Ali Ozden
Creative Director, Universal Favourite
Ali is a Creative Director and have been a designer for over 15 years. He's worked in studios of all sizes, but has found a home at Universal Favourite, a full-service design studio in Sydney. Having worked with businesses of all sizes, he believes that strong ideas and great design are key to helping businesses of all sizes to reach new audiences, and connect with their existing ones.
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Tamara McCann
Head of Agency, Google
I spent nearly 20 years leading some of the world's best brands at creative agencies. Then for the past 3 years I've been applying those strategic and creative skills to accelerate growth for one of the best innovation companies in the world.
My teams and clients would callout my infectious energy, drive for results and passion. I'm a leader of people and thrive off nurturing current and ex team members to be at their rockstar best.
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Sonja Källström
Business Designer - Growth and Business Design, Accenture Song
An open-minded and visionary thinker who energises and connects people through ideas and actions.
Sonja is passionate about creating brands and experiences that challenge category norms and drive business results. Previously Head of Strategy at Re (M&C Saatchi Group), Sonja joined Accenture Song in 2022 to get more involved in designing new experiences, products and businesses models using web3, AI and other emerging tech.
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Bronwyn van der Merwe
VP of Design, Culture Amp
As the VP of Design at Culture Amp, I lead the design capability for the Culture Amp product. Our mission is to create a better world of work, through employee engagement, development and performance.
I have had the honour of being a jury member for various design awards including Women in Digital, Cannes Lion, D&AD and the Good Design Awards - always an incredible source of inspiration and jolt of creativity.
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Trang Young
Value Stream Lead - Australia Business Transformation, ANZ
Senior Marketing and Digital professional leading large (50+) teams of marketing experts to deliver end to end, data driven, creative marketing experiences. 20 years digital experience and a recognised driver of digital advancement in ANZ Wealth through the ability to identify and embed emerging skills and technical capability.
A proven track record of demonstrating return on direct marketing investment and achieving sales targets through creating a culture of digital optimisation. A people leader, an agile enthusiast, and self-confessed geek who is a strong conduit between business and technology.
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Penny Brown
Head Of Production at The Monkeys part of Accenture Song
Starting out as a co-ordinator in the creative department and after many years of working her way up to EA for the Executive Creative Director of Publicis Mojo, Darren Spiller, Penny is now the Head Of Production at The Monkeys (part of Accenture Song).
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