Dee Madigan is one of Australia’s most fearless creatives. As the executive creative director and founding partner of Campaign Edge, Madigan has worked on over 20 election campaigns, including Labor’s 2022 federal victory. Madigan is a regular on Gruen, a media commentator, a published author—and someone who’s built a career out of challenging the status quo, especially when it comes to gender, power and representation in media.
Chatting with B&T ahead of B&T’s Women In Media Awards, presented by Are Media, Madigan reflected on the progress made—and the challenges still ahead—in the push for gender equality.
ENTER B&T’s WOMEN IN MEDIA AWARDS, PRESENTED BY ARE MEDIA NOW!
“The fight for equality is nowhere near over,” she told B&T. “There’s no doubt that men have lost more power in the past 20 years than at any time in history—and rightly so because they had way too much. But we shouldn’t underestimate the backlash from that.”
Madigan has long advocated for more women in leadership, but she’s quick to point out that modern barriers can be harder to spot. “Companies know they can’t be overtly biased against women anymore, so ironically the biases are more hidden—but still very much there,” she said. “They can sometimes be more difficult to identify and call out.”
Her advice for organisations? Be mindful not to “paper over cracks”.
One way to expose those cracks, she suggests, is through anonymous internal feedback. But real change starts further upstream. For Madigan, diversity and inclusion need to be embedded into the people driving the work, not just the outcomes.
“The very best way to ensure diversity and inclusion is part of the process is to ensure the people involved in the process are diverse,” she said.
That philosophy shaped her team’s approach to a campaign for AMAZE (Autism Victoria), where every featured talent in the ads was autistic. “It made for a more complicated shoot—managing the environment in a way that was suitable for divergent needs,” she told B&T. “But it was essential to the integrity of the campaign.”
Madigan also credits much of her team’s creativity and effectiveness to its makeup. Campaign Edge maintains a 50/50 gender split and includes staff from a range of cultural backgrounds. Internally, her management style is deliberately anti-corporate.
“I simply don’t do that old management thing of telling people what they’re good at but also what their weaknesses are,” she said. “It’s bullshit. You employ someone to do a job and as long as they are doing it, trying to change them or make them feel shit about themselves is just stupid. I try and accept people as they are.”
Still, leadership in media—especially for women—often comes with extra baggage. Madigan is no stranger to online harassment and said that the support systems for women facing abuse remain inadequate. “OMG so many many times,” she said of being targeted in these kinds of attacks.
“I don’t ignore. I don’t back down. But the online support systems are not good.” She recalls someone setting up a website in her name, “and putting horrible stuff on there—and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
In such a polarised media landscape, her compass is simple: lead with empathy. “People don’t always say the right thing in the right way,” she said. “That doesn’t mean they’re bad people. Empathy and an assumption of positive intent matter.”
Mentorship is another cornerstone of her approach. “I have a rule. If I’m ever asked for advice by a woman—even someone totally random—I always help,” she told B&T. “And when female staffers want to move on, which is a normal part of anyone’s career, I always help them do that too.”
ENTER B&T’s WOMEN IN MEDIA AWARDS, PRESENTED BY ARE MEDIA NOW!
To young women aiming for leadership roles, Madigan offers practical advice. “Learn the business side of it,” she said. “Be careful about working from home—out of sight can mean out of mind when it comes to promotion.”
And if self-doubt creeps in? “Imposter syndrome seems to be higher in women than men. Ask yourself this—do I know at least as much as that bloke in the next desk? The answer is almost certainly yes. So put up your hand. Ask for the promotion.”
For someone so prolific, Madigan doesn’t take herself too seriously. “Her attention to detail is woeful. She can’t remember faces. And she has the attention span of a three-year-old,” reads her Campaign Edge bio. “But apart from that, she’s quite good at what she does.”
And what she does—whether it’s crafting a campaign, mentoring emerging talent, or calling out inequality—makes a difference. Not because she’s loud, but because she’s deliberate. Madigan leads with empathy, delivers with honesty, and isn’t afraid to make things a little uncomfortable if it means making them better.
Dee Madigan will be a featured speaker at the 2025 Cairns Crocodiles. See the agenda here.
