Late entries close this Friday for B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards! For more than a decade, the Awards has propelled the careers of some of the advertising, marketing and media industry’s most promising talent. Some of the industry’s leading founders, directors and luminaries had their first moments in the spotlight at B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards.
Each week, B&T will take a look back at the journeys of some of our 30 Under 30 winners to find out how they’re still changing the world and why there’s still so much more to come.
Christiana Brenton has always been driven by the power of human conversation. Long-form storytelling, she believes, has the power to slow people down and leave an imprint long after the episode ends.
Brenton won the Awards in 2018, a recognition that “felt like a rare moment of validation,” she told B&T.
That validation gave her the courage to leave Australia and rebuild her career in the UK, a move that would change the trajectory of her life.
In 2019, Brenton moved to London to join Acast, where she met her now co-founder, Georgie Holt.
Brenton and Holt resigned from their executive roles in NY on the same day and launched Telling Media, Europe’s first female-founded podcast agency. Not long after, they saw a LinkedIn post from Steven Bartlett about building a podcast media company after the success of The Diary of a CEO. On a whim, they drafted him an email. He replied within 24 hours. Two weeks later, they were building what is now FlightStory – the creator-led media company behind some of the world’s fastest-growing IP.
From Acast boardrooms to backing herself with no safety net, her journey as a co-founder was driven by her belief in long-form storytelling.
“We’re consuming more content than ever, but feeling less nourished by it. That’s why I believe so deeply in podcasting. It offers something people are starved of: space to think,” Brenton said.
“At FlightStory, we have a saying: ‘Embarrassment is the price of entry’. I almost didn’t submit my 30U30 application because self-promotion made me uncomfortable. Imagine if I’d let that hesitation win? I may never have taken the leap that led to everything else.
“For anyone considering entering, don’t delay. Your next chapter could be waiting on the other side of one bold decision,” she said.
Are you the next Christiana Brenton? Enter this year’s B&T 30 Under 30 Awards to step up and stand out. Late entries close this Friday, 6 February!
This article appears in B&T’s 75th anniversary print annual, a limited-edition coffee table book releasing in February.
