Great companies often have one common trait: a kick arse culture. Although it may sound like a tacky cliche, find a winning workplace that is toxic (perhaps aside from the petrochemicals and mining industries).
To merely define HR as providing a cracking workplace culture is simplistic, as too are labelling such departments as the ‘hiring and firing squad’. The best people leaders combine a breadth of skills, including organisational design, recruitment, learning and development employee experience and cultural curation.
This year’s Best of the Best People Leaders list features HR leaders that join up all of these dots. Not all of the organisations have had great years, but its often the tough times (and we operate in an incredibly challenged market) where greater HR leadership rises.
In devising this list, B&T considered which companies have won plaudits for their workplace culture and being an employer of choice. B&T also considered innovative HR policies, learning and development programs, personal reputation and accolades, and HR leaders who have provided leadership during tough times.
In case you missed it, last week we ran the rule over Best of the Best Account Directors, another vital cog in the success of adland—make sure you check it out.
To nominate people for our Best of the Best, including the imminent indie creative leaders, indie media leaders and adtech bosses lists, please fill out the form below.
Here are this year’s B&T Best of the Best People Leaders!
10. Raymond Ly, talent and culture lead, This is Flow
Raymond Ly has not only has shifted culture at indie media agency Flow, but epitomises what culture means for the industry.
He has been instrumental in shaping the four corners of Flow’s culture program (Refresh, Growth, Fun and Impact) and implementing the initiatives that sit underneath each.
Ly’s remit is not just to lead Flow’s culture, including talent development and engagement, he extends this to culture with clients through the agency’s CX program.
Internally, he is described as bringing a passion and energy that has an impact he has on everyone at the agency, making him one of the strongest culture leaders of our industry.
Testament to his success, This is Flow placed second in the small category of Great Place To Work and was a finalist in the MFA Awards Agency Talent & Culture category.
9. Rob Stone, people & culture lead, Omnicom Advertising
Rob Stone leads people and culture across Clemenger BBDO, FleishmannHillard and Credera; while Vivien Hinds holds a similar role across TBWA and Eleven. On the Omnicom Media side, Alexia Bryant is the chief people officer.
Stone gets the nod in this year’s list due to the his work leading one of the largest transformations in Omnicom’s history.
In 2025, he played a pivotal role in helping Clemenger BBDO merge with CHEP Network and Traffik, integrating multiple leadership teams and cultures into a more aligned operating model across the region.
This year, Stone and his team has been at it again, leading the merger of Clemenger BBDO and DDB Australia following a global restructure in the wake of Omnicom’s takeover of Interpublic. At the same time, he supported the reshaping of the earned, PR and social capability across the network by integrating Porter Novelli and Mango into FleishmanHillard.
The undertaking is huge. It involved creating alignment, reducing duplication and building stronger collaboration across people and capability, as well as the complex task of aligning policies, benefits and employee experience across the network.
Stone, a former HR leader at Wunderman Thomson and McCann, has been a regular feature on this list in year gone by.
8. Rebecca Ackland, chief people officer, Southern Cross Media Group
Rebecca Ackland was appointed chief people officer of Southern Cross Media Group in February 2026, and previously served as in a similar role at SCA since 2022, shaping the organisation’s people strategy and supporting its transformation during one of the most challenging times for the Australian media.
Following the merger of SCA and Seven, Ackland has led the new group’s people and change management strategy, with support from her team to unify two high-profile and respected brands. Working alongside the CEO and executive leadership team, the people function established the framework enabling senior leaders and their business units to manage day-to-day integration, equip and enable teams to work more seamlessly together, and deliver operating efficiencies.
It has not been an easy or enviable task. Since the merger in January, there have been rounds of restructures and redundancies, including the recent announcement of up to 300 staff. Ackland and her team have also had to contend with a series of leadership changes and reshuffles, including the high-profile exit of former Seven West Media boss Jeff Howard, who was succeeded, temporarily, by SCA’s John Kelly until Rohan Lund recently took the baton.
All of these changes have occurred after a brutal few years for Seven West Media in which it needed a cultural reset. Ackland has overseen these changes and is pivotal to not only creating a culture of trust, respect and resilience, but shaping the new Southern Cross Media Group for the future.
Testament to her success is that SCA was a finalist at B&T’s Women in Media Awards in the Employer and People and Culture categories.
The deadline for entries in this year’s Awards is tomorrow at midnight!
7. Candice Veasey, chief people officer, Havas ANZ
Candice Veasey, a South African who previously worked at Dentsu, Daily Mail and Mindshare, is a firm believer that empathy is critical to leadership.
Over the past 12 months, Veasey has played a central role to significant organisational transformation, embedding a people strategy into its Havas ANZ’s ‘Deliberately Different’ positioning.
Her work has focused on improving leadership capability, employee experience, inclusion and organisational design, while overseeing the elevation of Group CEO James Wright in mid-2025, and the appointment of Kate O’Ryan-Roeder to Havas Media chief executive, which B&T understands was a hotly-contested recruitment process.
Under her watch, Havas ANZ has earned a 6 point uplift in engagement scores, a 74 per cent Great Place to Work Trust Index, 77 per cent retention rate across media and creative, and 9.6 eNPS for onboarding over 12 months and 100 per cent direct recruitment, reducing the process to six weeks.
Veasey serves on the MFA People Steering Committee, where she helped launch the Psychosocial Safety Code of Conduct that shapes safer working practices across the industry. Her thought leadership has been featured in Campaign Asia and HCA Magazine, championing empathy as a critical leadership capability in modern organisations.
6. Elisa Nerone, chief people & sustainability officer, REA Group
Elisa Nerone is one of the more experienced HR chiefs in the industry and oversees the company’s global people strategy, leading functions spanning talent acquisition, organisational development, remuneration, HR operations, employee communications, community partnerships and sustainability.
Since joining REA Group in July 2024, Nerrone has led the company to win a Culture Transformation Award and the business was ranked third in Great Places to Work for large companies.
Prior to REA Group, Nerrone held senior HR leadership roles at BHP, where she helped steer people strategy across the mining giant’s Australian, Asian and global operations. She has previously led HR teams at Latitude Finance and Holden.
Outside of work, Nerone is a strong advocate for helping the homeless community, and an advisory committee member of A Home For All Foundation.
5. Marilla Akkermans, founder and MD, Equality Media + Marketing
An industry veteran who has previously worked at Hatched Media, Nunn Media, Metricon, and Maxus, Marilla Akkermans set up Equality Media + Marketing to redefine what an agency culture should look like.
The agency established Equality Time, a four-day, 32 hour working week that bakes hybrid working and flexibility into the agency’s DNA.
It has paid dividends, aside from impressive growth, Equality has a retention rate north of 90 per cent, all employees feel empowered and the overwhelming majority believe the organisation prioritises their mental health.
Akkermans is admired for being “radically transparent” to staff and clients alike, and a true champion of diversity who acts rather than just talks.
Equality Media + Marketing took out top spot in this year’s AFR Best places to work list for media and marketing companies, beating Publicis Groupe, TFM.Digital and others.
4. Jodi Paton, chief people officer, Hoyts Group
Jodi Paton leads the people, performance and culture function across a workforce of more than 3,000 people at Hoyts, Val Morgan and Val Morgan Outdoor.
Joining Hoyts Group 13 years ago, Paton is the type of HR leader that values camaraderie and making sure staff feel a sense of belonging rather than employee perks.
Its employment value proposition is focused on Belonging, Blue Sky, Well-being, Growth and High Fives – and the company has continued to test its connection to staff in recent years through focus groups and surveys.
In the past 18 months, she has led reforms including gender-neutral parental leave, inclusive recruitment practices, and initiatives that have significantly increased female representation, particularly in senior roles.
Paton has also launched programs to support and upskill female team members, including leadership training, mentoring and revised hiring practices to build a strong pipeline of future leaders.
Her career spans more than two decades, including HR leadership and talent development roles at InterContinental Hotels Group and Jones Lang LaSalle.
3. Pauly Grant, chief talent officer APAC & ANZ, Publicis Groupe
Pauly Grant is responsible for driving the people and culture strategy across Publics Group.
Grant is a passionate advocate for inclusive and enabling cultures, and believes that fostering a supportive environment is essential for driving exceptional business performance. Her focus is on evolving the traditional concept of employee experience (EX) to encompass a holistic life experience (LX) and is playing a key role in AI knowledge and adoption across the region, where she works closely with APAC CEO Jane Lin-Baden, the executive committee, global chief talent officer Emmanuel André, and in-market CTOs.
In 2026, Grant made the HRD Hot List for the Best HR Executives in ANZ while in 2025 she was among HRD’s APAC Top Women in HR.
Her work leading people and culture at Publicis Groupe has seen the company top the Nurture Category at this year’s AFR Best Places to Work, and come second place behind Equality Media + Marketing in the media and marketing category.
2. Nikki Harrison, chief people officer, Enero
Nikki Harrison oversees culture, talent and inclusion across Enero’s entire portfolio – from creative agency BMF and digital specialist Orchard to the global tech PR agency Hotwire Global.
At Enero, she leads the group’s RAP Committee, which led the organisation to receive official accreditation from Reconciliation Australia for its Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan, a commitment that includes a CareerTrackers partnership placing Indigenous interns across BMF and Orchard.
Her remit spans the ADVANCE Leadership Program (equipping leaders globally with inclusive leadership skills), mandatory Respect at Work training for every employee across the group annually, and group-wide Mental Health First Aid and psychosocial safety programs.
Before joining Enero in early 2024, Harrison held senior people leadership roles at KPMG Australia, Vodafone and Qantas, and most recently served as chief people officer at M&C Saatchi Group. underrepresented tech-enabled communities and has won international industry recognition.
Under Harrison’s leadership, BMF has also won the B&T Award for Culture three years in a row.
1. Scott Laird, chief people officer, WPP Media
Over the past year, Scott Laird has led the design and rollout of WPP Media Australia’s ‘Limitless’ people strategy, that focuses on ‘limitless growth’ for staff and clients. The framework upskills its 1,000-plus local workforce through the WPP Open AI platform and a dedicated high-performance coaching program.
A key focus has been L&D. Laird developed a ‘Limitless Learning’ strategy, appointing a dedicated L&D lead and working within his team to evolve the approach. It’s built on the belief that learning should be continuous and connected, not a series of standalone programs, and that it should link performance, capability and leadership in a practical, measurable way.
Programs such as A-Game (rolled out to 1,000+ employees), Illuminate (client leadership) and Infinity (leadership development) are all part of a broader system designed to create a shared language of performance, clearer progression pathways and greater accountability at every level.
Other programs that have caught B&T’s eye are WPP Media’s efforts to improve salary transparency and IGNITION ’26, a six week media strategy sprint that invites undergraduates from Sydney and Melbourne to build a cross-channel media campaign to raise awareness of Dolly’s Dream.
Baird’s efforts have helped WPP Media with the Employer category at Women in Media and the Agency Talent & Culture (large company) category at the MFA Awards.
