Independent creative agencies are certainly having a moment. They control some of the country’s largest accounts and have been busy picking up silverware around the world.
In this Best of the Best, we’re taking a look at the creative brains inside those agencies. We’ve covered the best independent creative agency leaders (i.e. the CEOs) previously. You’ve had the ying, now we’re giving you the yang.
Before we get to the top 10, a few honourable mentions. Bart Pawlak, 303’s chief creative officer, continues to lead the agency with its impressive and effective Budget Direct work. Hamish Stewart, Apparent’s chief creative, keeps the fires burning at one of the country’s most quietly successful indies and Jenny Mak, ECD of Jnr. is definitely making a mark.
Nominations remain open for upcoming Best of the Best categories. Next week, we’re looking at the Best of the Best holding company creatives.
10. Jenny Lennon, co-founder and creative director, Born the Agency
Jenny Lennon is the co-founder of B&T’s reigning Independent Agency of the Year with fewer than 50 employees.
Along with strategist counterpart David Coupland, Lennon has crafted Born into one of the country’s most interesting and distinct creative agencies. It has a fascinating range of clients and produces some genuinely eye-catching work. A particular recent favourite of B&T’s was its ‘No Bull’ platform for Aussie paddock-to-plate meat brand Our Cow.
Born has a narrative-led approach to creativity and it is starting to pay dividends in the market, with the agency winning work for major brands including Nikon, the WNBL and Carma.
9. Matt Lawson, CCO and co-founder, ATime&Place
Matt Lawson is one half of Melbourne-based creative agency ATime&Place. Together with co-founder and fellow former Deloitte Digital executive Adrian Mills, Lawson has been busy growing a compelling agency.
ATime&Place, like Born, has a distinct approach to creativity. It’s in the business of world-building for brands — creating more engaging advertising and brand experiences. This approach shows up well in its work for Suzuki, in particular.
Earlier this year, it launched DEEP, a new Digital Experience & Entertainment Practice which expanded the agency into the worlds of brand-owned entertainment, end-to-end digital product development, customer experience design and gaming.
8. Gavin McCleod, CCO, Emotive
Emotive has been on a real roll of late and, last year, became fully independent again. Gavin McLeod joined the agency from CHEP Network not long after and has been instrumental in getting Emotive rocking and rolling.
He was described to B&T as having had a “significant impact” on the agency’s culture and a “shot in the arm” for its creative ambitions.
With the agency winning the creative accounts for The Iconic, Activision, El Jannah and more, McLeod’s impact is clearly hitting the mark with clients, too.
7. Jade Manning & Vince Osmond, creative partners, Today The Brave
Today the Brave is another indie agency on a real tear at the moment. In the past 12 months, it has grown significantly, acquiring The Zoo Republic and winning a tranche of full-service accounts including its recent Law Partners win.
Jade Manning and Vince Osmond have been instrumental in helping the agency grow. Both arrived at the agency with some serious pedigree, having served as creative directors at Special and DDB in Australia.
They’ve ensured the hits have kept on coming for Today The Brave, which has recently released some smart work for the University of Sydney, among other clients.
6. Ant Keogh, co-founder, Kerfuffle
Ant Keogh is one of the country’s most well-respected creatives, having served as the chief creative officer of The Monkeys’ Melbourne office for seven-and-a-half years.
But last year, Keogh, along with co-founders Paul McMillan and Michael Derepas, stepped out on their own to start Kerfuffle.
Since then, it has won a series of important accounts, including Bulla and one half of Asahi’s portfolio. The work produced by Keogh and the agency’s rapidly growing creative team has been impressive too, particularly so its new evocative, nostalgia-tinged brand platform for Bulla.
5. Tom Wenborn & Paul Swann, chief creative tinkers, Thinkerbell
Tom Wenborn and Paul Swann are the chief creative tinkers of Thinkerbell South and North, respectively. If you’re not au fait with Thinkerbell parlance, that means they’re the chief creatives in its Melbourne and Sydney offices.
Wenborn’s CV lists some of the most important agencies: CHE Proximity, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Ogilvy. Since joining Thinkerbell in 2018 and becoming chief tinker in 2020, he has led the team to create campaigns that Australians not only remember but actually care about for brands as varied as Cadbury, Foxtel, Toyota and XXXX. Wenborn is also a champion of emerging tech within Thinkerbell and spearheaded its Made Promptly AI production arm, to redefine creative output.
Swann, meanwhile began his career as a strategist and relocated to Australia from the UK in 2005 to a nascent Naked Communications becoming head of ideas in 2008 and managing partner in 2010. During this period Naked became a highly awarded and sought-after agency amongst both talent and clients such as Coca-Cola and Telstra. Nowadays, Swann lives and breathes Thinkerbell’s Measured Magic proposition and has helped its many clients redefine their categories and pick up silverware along the way.
4. Sam Stuchbury, founder and ECD, Motion Sickness
Sam Stuchbury founded New Zealand agency Motion Sickness back in 2012 while he was still at university and shortly bringing on Alex McManus to help out.
Since then, the agency has become one of the hottest properties around the world thanks to its impressive work for clients such as Sealord and Singapore Airlines. Motion Sickness, despite employing fewer than 50 people, has left more than a mark on the global creative scene of late thanks to its runaway success in Cannes.
This year, it won the gold Glass Lion and the gold UN Sustainable Development Goals Lion for Whānau Ora’s ‘The Māori Roll Call’. The powerful work features more than 500 names of real voters and is the longest ad ever made in New Zealand. This work also saw it named the 2026 Agency of the Year for Good. These gongs followed on the heels of its Grand Prix in 2025.
Motion Sickness is one of the hottest shops in the world. And for good reason.
3. Richard Shaw, CCO, Howatson+Company
Richard Shaw stepped into the top creative job at Howatson+Company a little over a month ago after Gavin Chimes departed.
Shaw has been a key cog in the H+C machinery since January 2022, linking back up with founder Chris Howatson. The pair, like many of the senior bench at H+C, were formerly of CHE Proximity. Shaw joined H+C as its ECD, before becoming deputy CCO in August 2024.
Shaw has been described as “foundational” in H+C’s many, many new business wins and in maintaining its creative standards. His big plan for H+C is to empower its ranks of creative directors to inspire the business to create even better work. But it’s no surprise he’s opting for evolution of its business, not revolution.
The agency’s recent work for Vodafone and Selleys, in particular, have caught the eye. Where Shaw and the rest of the H+C creative team take the CommBank account will certainly be worth watching.
2. Cass Jamcotchian, creative director, Bear Meets Eagle On Fire
Cass Jamcotchian (or Cass Jam to her friends) is one of the most important people within one of the most exciting agencies in the world.
Founder and ECD Micah Walker is also very much on the tools but he featured on our Best of the Best Indie Creative Agency Leaders list. Jamcotchian, meanwhile, joined BMEOF back in 2023 after spending four-and-a-half years at CHE Proximity (we’re spotting a theme, here).
The world-renowned ‘Better on a Better Network’ campaign for Telstra has Jamcotchian’s fingerprints all over it. The ‘Just Enough Bank’ for Bankwest is another brilliant example of Jamcotchian’s work.
Bear Meets Eagle on Fire and Jamcotchian are showing no signs of slowing down, either.
1. Tom Martin & Julian Schreiber, partners and chief creative officers, Special
Topping this year’s list, however, is Tom Martin and Julian Schreiber, Special’s joint chief creative officers.
Special is currently B&T’s reigning Agency of the Year and Advertising Agency of the Year and it took home the Film Craft Grand Prix at Cannes this year for its Uber Eats Super Bowl campaign. It also achieved a rare creative effectiveness trifecta, winning the Grand Effie at the US, Australian and APAC Effies, again for Uber Eats.
But there’s much more to Special than just Uber Eats. The agency, under Martin and Schreiber’s leadership, continues to produce brilliant work for KFC, Pepsi, Virgin Australia, Bonds, Honda, IGA, eBay and more.
With Dylan Alcott, they co-founded Shift 20, bringing more than 200 brands together to improve disability representation in advertising. better. They have judged at Cannes Lions, D&AD and the AWARD Awards, lectured at AWARD School for more than a decade, and continue to shape both the work the industry celebrates and the people who will create what comes next.
There’s precious little that seems to be beyond Special, Martin and Schreiber’s talents.
