Meet The B&T 30 Under 30 PR Finalists!

In these strange plague times, B&T is more determined than ever to unite the industry and revel in the glory of our industry’s best and brightest overachievers.

That’s why over the next few weeks we’ll be celebrating adland’s youngest and most talented individuals; that’s right, B&T‘s 30 Under 30 finalists.

There are 10 finalists in each category, and 10 categories overall. So, if you’re keen to see who made the ultimate list this year, now’s your chance. Let these individuals inspire you, make you seethe with jealousy and ultimately motivate you to do the best work you can, and enter the Awards in 2021.

Without further ado, here are the 10 PR finalists.

Ayla Fitzgibbon, Red Havas

Ayla began developing her skills through an internship at PR body, PRIA, to support the World PR Forum Australia. She commenced her career at Max Australia, and was elevated to Account Manager, specialising in B2B technology brands, in just three years. She worked across major global enterprises including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle, Symantec and NEC, becoming a prominent figure with clients and building a presence within the industry.

Ayla joined Red Havas in 2016 and was one of the founding members of the Technology and Business Practice, leveraging her contacts and specialist knowledge to grow it through new business contributions and organic growth. She has been recognised as a finalist at the IT Journalism Awards for Media Relations, which champions best practice PR, while she was crowned Australia’s Top Future Leader at National and State level at the PRIA Golden Target Awards.

Bella Twomey, G Adventures

Bella is the Communications Manager for the APAC region for G Adventures. After cutting her teeth in PR Agency world, developing high-level media and content strategies for clients in the tourism, automotive, food and beverage industries, Bella transitioned to client-side, having been drawn to G’s ethos of sustainable travel through making the world a little bit better, one adventure at a time.

At G Adventures, Bella is solely responsible for all Media and Communications for the brand across Asia Pacific, including trade and consumer media (across all verticals), as well as influencer and content marketing. She specialises in backing up strategic thinking with solid tactical executions, believing nothing engages an audience more than a good story.

Danielle Veivers, Honner

Danielle began her PR career with Honner just over three years ago as a graduate, following a six-year stint at Westpac while studying a dual-degree in business (PR) and journalism. Since joining Honner, she has progressed to an Account Manager and works with financial brands, including Colonial First State, Hamilton Lane, and Cromwell Property Group.

She works independently – often taking the lead on accounts; offering strategic advice, tactical support, and issues management to C-Suite executives; and acting as an extension of the in-house marketing team. Her commitment to clients is reflected through positive client NPS scores, averaging +9, which we receive annually, and internally through the Employee of the Quarter award, which she received several times.

Most recently, Danielle secured an overseas exchange opportunity to represent Honner in Europe as part of the Global Communications Partners network.

Emma Bedson, Edelman

At 19, Emma moved from Melbourne to Sydney and was head-hunted to launch a Nike pop-up retail experience, showcasing the Nike Pro TT Turbo Speed – “the world’s fastest running suit”. She then moved on to a fulltime role at One Green Bean. Working with the lead data analyst, she developed an extensive data-driven measurement process for Scentre Group. The reporting metrics went beyond measuring coverage clippings and analysed the local and national business impact as a result of PR. At the time this was a first-of-its-kind approach to PR measurement.

Her current position at Edelman has enabled her to grow her career in integrated communications. Her team grew a project 600 per cent for Unilever’s TRESemmé, executing a 360-integrated campaign alongside TRESemmé’s sponsorship of New York Fashion Week. They created real time content that would be used across social, owned, digital, point-of-sale, an experiential activation and a TV commercial directed by Gracie Otto – which is now being amplified across multiple global markets. She also helped launch Unilever Australia’s first shoppable Instagram for TRESemmé. This project saw double-digit growth in brand sales and has been described by Unilever Global as Best in Class.

Felicia Coco, LaunchLink Communications

Felicia began her career while still studying, taking an entry level role at Microsoft in their marketing department. This kickstarted her passion for tech. Inspired, she got her first agency role at Bradford PR, working on Australia’s very earliest startups. She took her next role at PR Group where she was the lead for names like Dropbox, Square, Invoice2Go and Eventbrite.

A year later she started at M+C Partners and lead the Airtasker account. However, her passion was really working with Silicon Valley startups. In 2017 at 23, she booked a one way ticket to Silicon Valley to have a crack at running her own PR shop. She didn’t know anybody when she landed, but managed to hustle, network and land a few clients. LaunchLink.Co was born from there. Fast forward to 2020 and LaunchLink has an impressive portfolio of clients from Australia, USA, UK, Germany and Asia! She’s currently working on launching in New York and London.

Georgia Colahan, OPR Agency

Georgia was struggling to get a graduate communications job and was about to accept an advertising role for an organisation she wasn’t passionate about – simply to pay bills. That day, she received a call from OPR Agency – where she’s now been almost five years.

In 2018, she began working with the Microsoft Australia philanthropies team on its Digital Custodians program, which is a joint venture between InDigital and Shared Path. The program’s goal is to close the digital skills gap which prevents Indigenous communities from applying technology to address their cultural, economic and social needs. It was this work that saw her travel to Kakadu in 2019 where she was the agency lead on a partnership between CSIRO and Microsoft, working with Traditional Owners and Indigenous rangers.

James Kean, Herd MSL

James’ early career spanned a number of marcomms disciplines, including; event management (LOST Events) and experiential marketing (Red Guerrilla) before transitioning into a career in PR (Red Agency and Herd MSL) for the last five years. Recently, he’s led a step change in measurement, evaluation and insights for HerdMSL – pioneering the ROAR (results, outcomes, analysis and recommendations) framework for our clients.

His achievements in the business have been recognised by his appointment to the Publicis Groupe’s Next Generation Board (NGB) and his internal appointment as HerdMSL Innovation Lead.

Louise’s key career highlight is adding approximately $185,000 in recognised revenue and an even larger pipeline of opportunities to Hotwire Australia in the past 12 months, through the creation of the Content Unit.

She started her journey at a Senior Account Executive level and worked to formally introduce the Content Unit in late 2018, at which point she also made my first hire to the Unit. The Content Unit drives clients to address the changing media consumption habits of consumers, so they can create and distribute personalised and integrated communications programs that go beyond traditional media relations.

In the 12 months since launching the Content Unit, she has won a retained account and approximately 20 projects, and provide strategic counsel and content execution across all Hotwire account teams.

Maya Ivanovic, Palin Communications

Maya uncovered a passion for health PR through internships at the Museum of Human Disease, Cosmax Prestige Brands and OneProfile Communications. She landed an Account Executive role at health PR agency Palin Communications, executing product launches, awareness/advocacy campaigns and medicine registrations/reimbursements.

Some of her key achievements include: Current Chair of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA)’s NSW ‘Young Guns’, Winner, Fundraising Campaign, PR Daily Nonprofit PR Awards 2019, Highly Commended (National), Thought Leadership, PRIA Golden Targets 2019, Honourable Mention, Awareness Campaign, PR Daily Nonprofit PR Awards 2019, Winner, Consumer Campaign (NSW), PRIA Golden Targets 2018 and Winner, Best PR Campaign, PRIME Awards 2017.

Rachael Gadgil, History Will Be Kind

Rachael launched her career with a part-time role while at university which introduced her to the agency world. She quickly progressed up the ranks and today is an Account Director at History Will Be Kind (HWBK).

AT HWBK, she is responsible for the creation and delivery of high impact communications programs for clients including Google, YouTube, Etihad Airways, International Convention Centre Sydney, amaysim, Market City and Randstad ANZ.

p.s There’s no big in-person party like usual this year and we’re going to have to content ourselves with virtual drinking games and remote flirting. We’re rapidly figuring out just how the fuck we’re actually going to do that so stay tuned, but don’t buy any bloody tickets just yet.

Thanks to all of our sponsors!