Simone Waugh has built her career on linking brand creativity with business strategy to drive meaningful growth. As managing director of Publicis Australia, she leads with a passion for mixing communications, digital, media and technology to solve complex business challenges.
Grounded in both life experience and leadership, she brings a human perspective to her work balancing motherhood with a high-performing career, championing creativity in an industry that often prioritises speed and efficiency.
In this week’s Fast 10, Waugh and B&T‘s very own Greg ‘Sparrow’ Graham reflect on the opportunities shaping Queensland’s future, while recognising the lessons that have defined both her professional and personal life.
1. You’ve had a brilliant career, starting out client-side at Suncorp Metway Bank, founding your own business, and now Managing Director at Queensland based creative agency Publicis Australia. If you had to pick only one, what would be your career highlight so far?
Simone Waugh: Raising my three children (it’s a career in itself) – I feel grateful every day for them. But if we’re talking paid work, it would be leading Publicis Australia to work on the 2032 Olympic and Paralympics bid 24/7 for six months and helping to win it for Australia.
2. I love how you are immersed in the Brisbane/Queensland market. How do you stay so embedded in the local market?
SW: Every day I turn up out of my pure passion for what we have in Brisbane and in Queensland – our sport, our tourism and our nature – every chance I get I advocate for this place and people, making sure we’re optimising what we have and protecting it.
While remaining a Queensland agency at heart, over the last two years we’ve been expanding the Publicis Australia creative agency nationally, gaining clients in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Darwin. This has been an organic evolution – with clients and brands come looking to work with us because of what we’re doing as an agency, and how we’re doing it.
3. With the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, are your clients excited about the future growth opportunities?
SW: There’s two things clients are getting excited about. Number one is growth that’s happening in the market – the infrastructure, transport, housing, tourism experiences, athlete hubs, and number two is partnership opportunities the 2032 Games presents for their brands to help them unlock growth.
4. As a young girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?
SW: A tennis player, but that was a pipe dream. I flirted with healthcare professions from psychology to optometry, started an accountancy degree and finished a public relations degree. I never really knew, but I love what I do today, working across many categories, topics, people and issues.
5. You’ve left and returned to Publicis Groupe in the past. What’s kept you coming back?
SW: I joined MOJO as an Account Executive at the age of 25 for 4 years then left to go back client side. Then when my third child was three, (13 years ago) I joined Publicis Mojo as their strategy director on contract three days a week. In 2017 I accepted this full-time role as managing director, excited by the opportunity to reshape the brand, culture and make impact in the new Publicis Groupe world of possibilities.
6. As an industry, what’s one thing you would change to make us all better?
SW: Business needs human imagination and creativity more than ever. We need to look after people who are gifted with creativity, critical thinking, who solve problems in ways no-one else thinks of. And we need to make space for problem-solving, some problems can’t be solved in a day – sometimes it can take weeks, even months to crack, but the payoff is exponential growth.
7. You sit on the board of Netball Queensland. Are there any learnings that have contributed to your leadership style?
SW: My leadership style has grown with my board director experience – a clear focus on strategy, risk, governance and asking the right questions to direct the organisational decisions and actions for growth and impact.
8. What’s the best career advice you’ve been given?
SW: Don’t think in a linear way. Expanding is much more useful and fulfilling than climbing. And go where you have leaders that see your strengths and see your value.
9. What’s one thing that’s not on your LinkedIn profile?
SW: My life of family, friends, experiencing the world, holidays, home.
10. Do your parents really know what you do?
SW: They’d probably say I work in advertising which is not how I describe what I do. I lead a creative company of people, who have lots of imagination and who solve big problems. My dad was a mechanical engineer – a creative mind but also rational – that always makes for interesting conversation.
