Everyone knows PR. They get stories that matter to brands in front of the masses. Whether that’s positioning, a new product launch or promotion of a person.
But there is another, slightly less well known and certainly underappreciated form of communications. It has a variety of names and a variety of different audiences. You might know it as corporate comms, public affairs, reputation management or something similar. These are the folks who get the issues in front of the eyeballs that really matter and keep their clients in (or out of) the conversation as needed.
For the purposes of this final instalment of B&T’s 2025 Best of the Best season, we’re calling them the Spin Doctors. That might conjure visions of Alistair Campbell or Lynton Crosby, but we promise those similarities are at best incidental.
You’ll all be delighted to hear that B&T’s Best of the Best will return in a new and improved format next year. So mark your calendars for May, when we’ll be providing a new update. But now, once more unto the breach.
10. Shane Allison, founder and CEO, Phronesis
Shane Allison is the founder and CEO of Phronesis. The agency positions itself as the defender of clients’ reputation capital and it offers corporate affairs, M&A support, issues management and reputation risk readiness services for a host of clients.
Following time at Sefiani and ZMM Group, Allison now leads a team of seven at Phronesis. He came highly recommended to B&T as the “OG of the new breed of issues management advisors”. That might sound a touch oxymoronic but today’s complex world requires complex communications. Not many are better prepared to offer them than Allison.
9. Tom Horn, market lead Australia and New Zealand, Burson
Tom Horn leads Burson’s corporate communications offering across Australia and New Zealand, a role he’s inhabited since July last year when WPP rolled up BCW and Hill & Knowlton. Prior to that, Horn was BCW’s corporate practice director in the Antipodes.
Burson has created some pioneering initiatives over the last year, including its Reputational Capital tool platform and framework that uses AI and data analysis to unpick the relationship between proven drivers of reputation and business outcomes such as stock price, sales and purchase intent.
8. Susan Redden Makatoa, co-founder, Stratagem
Susan Redden Makatoa is one of the co-founders of corporate advisory firm Stratagem, along with Peter Fraser.
Redden Makatoa and Fraser had worked together at Edelman where they served as head of corporate, APAC and lead government relations counsel, Australia, respectively. Since launching, the business has grown to support clients across the business, government, not-for-profit organisations and international sectors. Redden Makatoa came highly recommended to B&T, too, with one person saying “Not the biggest name in the space but that’s not always a bad thing. Susan is trusted”.
7. Nino Tesoriero, Chief Counsel, Ogilvy PR
Ogilvy PR’s Nino Tesoriero has been with the business for more than a decade, joining as a director in 2015 before rising to his current role. Previously, he was a senior communications advisor with Cato Counsel and before that, a communications advisor to the Prime Minister’s office during Julia Gillard’s premiership.
Tesoriero was another who came with a sterling recommendation to B&T, with one noting he is the “first port of all for any C-suite leader when it comes to reputation management and crisis control”.
6. Tracey Cain, CEO, H/Advisors APA
Tracey Cain has been at the helm of H/Advisors APA for nearly 30 years. Acquired in 2023 by the Havas Group, APA (Australian Public Advisors) offers a range of services from crisis communications and management to media and communications management. The firm has worked for clients ranging from the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association of Australia and Raytheon to Adelaide-based space tech firm Fleet Space Technologies and Southern Cross Care Queensland.
Cain’s experience is exceptional, too. Having started out as a journalist, she became a Ministerial media advisor in 1992 before heading to Washington DC to be a media advisor at the White House.
5. Emma Webster, partner, Hawker Britton Group
Emma Webster joined WPP-owned Hawker Britton back in 2021 after a storied career in the political communications landscape.
She joined Julia Gillard’s office as an executive assistant in 2012, becoming an assistant advisor the year after. In 2014, she joined the office of the Chief Minister of the ACT. In 2017, she joined Victorian premier Dan Andrew’s office as a senior media advisor. In 2020, she became the head of communications for the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, where she worked with elected Traditional Owners of Country in Victoria and secured the Yoo-rrook Justice Commission, the first Truth-Telling process in Australia with the powers of a Royal Commission. She also sits on the board of the Human Rights Law Centre.
4. Robyn Sefiani, President ANZ and Reputation Counsel, Sefiani
Robyn Sefiani’s name is synonymous with expert communications in Australia and New Zealand. She founded her eponymous agency on the eve of the Millennium, it would be acquired by the Clarity Global Group in 2022. It offers clients services from crisis management to sustainability comms, investor relations, government relations and more.
This year, the agency has won a suite of awards at different PR and communications shows. It has produced a selection of deep, industry leading reports into the reputational challenges presented by AI and won new clients including Greensteel Australia, the company planning to build Australia’s first hydrogen-fuelled, emissions-free steel plant.
3. Vanessa Liell, partner and co-founder, Orizontas
Vanessa Liell has a storied career in the world of corporate communications and founded Orizontas in 2022, as well as its sister business Rethink Everything in 2023. Prior to this, Liell was CEO of The Herd Agency when it was acquired by Publicis in 2017 and served in a range of senior agency roles before that, too.
Orizontas, meanwhile, has gone from strength-to-strength and was named Inaugural Corporate PR Agency at the B&T Awards earlier this year. Our judges lauded Orizontas for its work in corporate affairs, policy and regulatory strategy crisis and issues management across topics including energy transition, geopolitics, defence, healthcare and even outer space. Few agencies are able to match the breadth of Orizontas’ capabilities.
2. Bryan Tyson, chairman Australia; head of APAC region, global deputy CEO, SEC Newgate
Bryan Tyson has one of the most extensive job titles in the industry and leads the Asia-Pacific operations of the Milan-headquartered SEC Newgate communications business.
After serving as press secretary for former NSW premier Nick Greiner and Planning and Energy Minister Robert Webster, Tyson joined the Kreab Gavin Anderson and served as its managing partner until May 2013 when he joined SEC Newgate Australia as its founding managing partner. In 2019, he became the global business’ deputy CEO. Tyson has led several high profile and complex crisis and public affairs campaigns and financial transactions in the infrastructure, transport, banking, energy, agriculture, arts, media, and sports sectors.
SEC Newgate was also named global agency of the year at the Global Sabre Awards last month. Tyson serves on the boards of the Sydney Swans, the Clontarf Foundation and the Committee for Sydney.
1. Kirsten Mulley, CEO, GRACosway
Topping this inaugural list, however, is GRACosway boss Kirsten Mulley. The Omnicom-owned communications business offers all manner of strategic and complex communications solutions for Just over a decade has passed since GRA integrated with Cosway in 2014 and it now offers industry-leading services in Western Australia we operate through GRA Partners, and in New Zealand through GRC Partners and Porter Novelli.
Mulley started her career as—you guessed it—a journo at Fairfax before switching into public affairs roles. In 2003, she was chief of staff for the New South Wales Government before joining what would become GRACosway in 2008. In 2021, she was chosen to succeed Les Timar as its CEO as he moved to become the Clemenger Group CEO.
With GRACosway recently described to B&T by someone very in the know as Omnicom’s underappreciated superpower, Mulley should be set for a very big 2026.
