HAVAS Red has signed a formal partnership with leading First Nations advocate and BlackCard founder, Mundanara Bayles, to launch HAVAS Blak, a communications offering. Havas Blak is designed to advance First Nations understanding, advocate First Nations voices and reshape Australia’s Indigenous communications landscape.
Announced during National Reconciliation Week 2026, the initiative reflects this year’s theme, “All In,” reinforcing the need for collective action to drive meaningful, systemic change.
Despite growing demand, Australia’s First Nations communications sector remains under-scaled, fragmented and unable to meet national demand, creating a critical gap in culturally informed storytelling and engagement. HAVAS Blak has been created to directly address this need, combining Mundanara Bayles’ nationally respected cultural leadership and BlackCard’s transformative approach with HAVAS Red’s scale, influence and strategic communications expertise.
Together, the partnership aims to build a First Nations-led PR force that embeds authentic perspectives into mainstream communications and places First Nations voices at the centre of national conversation.
“HAVAS Blak is about action, not intention. The communications industry has a responsibility to help shape a more inclusive national narrative, and that starts by creating greater space for First Nations voices to lead. Partnering with Mundanara ensures this is built on authenticity and focused on impact. Launching during National Reconciliation Week under the theme ‘All In’ is a clear reminder that meaningful progress requires collective and sustained accountability,” commented, James Wright, group CEO HAVAS ANZ, global CEO HAVAS Red and global chair HAVAS PR Network.
“This partnership is about shifting power, ensuring First Nations perspectives are embedded, respected and heard at the highest levels. HAVAS Blak creates a platform for culturally grounded storytelling that reflects truth, drives understanding and delivers real outcomes for our communities. ‘All in’ means walking together to reinforce Aboriginal self-determination through economic resilience, and that’s exactly what this partnership with HAVAS is designed to achieve,” said Mundanara Bayles, founder of BlackCard and co-founder of HAVAS Blak.
“Our pro bono partnership with BlackCard has shown what’s possible when collaboration is grounded in trust and shared purpose. HAVAS Blak is the next step, moving from support to true co-creation, embedding cultural intelligence and First Nations perspectives into the core of how we advise clients. Early work we have partnered on recently, includes the launch of Culture Capital, the release of the Bros and Cons platform and Mundanara’s advocacy work with a recent Jamie Oliver campaign for the launch of his children’s book “Billy and the Epic Escape,” added Myrna Van Pelt, managing partner, corporate, HAVAS Red.
The launch formalises an existing relationship, with HAVAS Red having provided pro bono strategic communications support to BlackCard for the past two years, helping lay the groundwork for a scalable, long-term partnership. This included launching BlakCast, Australia’s first podcast network owned and led by First Nations people.
Bayles and Wright also share a commitment to advancing First Nations mental wellbeing through their joint involvement on the board of mental fitness charity Gotcha4Life, further strengthening the partnership’s purpose-led foundations.
HAVAS Blak will deliver: First Nations-led strategic communications and storytelling; provide cultural capability training and consultancy services to enable leaders, corporate and government to work more effectively with members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, businesses and communities; media training and leadership visibility to help strengthen First Nations voices; programs that elevate representation across business, policy and public discourse; and broader consulting to HAVAS Village agencies to accelerate the growth and momentum of the First Nations partnership offer across the wider client ecosystem.
By uniting cultural authority with communications scale, HAVAS Blak’s vision is to establish a powerful benchmark for culturally informed influence, storytelling and impact in Australia.
