With some help from our friend Kathleen Gunther, we’re taking a look at some of the most creative minds in Melbourne. Gunther partners with independent agencies across Australia and New Zealand to scale their brand presence and drive sustainable growth. This week, we’re chatting with Stake Reputation founder and chief catalyst, Matt Thomas.
1. How long have you been in Melbourne and if you weren’t born here, did you choose it or did it choose you?
I grew up in Canberra and spent time in Brisbane and Sydney before moving to Melbourne in my late twenties (so only “six months” ago but technically 18 years). At the time I was working as an opera singer with a side-hustle in arts marketing. This mostly involved trying to make minuscule budgets stretch further than humanly possible, interspersed with shouting at strangers in Italian over the top of an orchestra.
But it was magical: Melbourne still feels like the only Australian city where you can realistically build a creative life and a professional one at the same time.
So, I definitely chose it. It’s a place that rewards curiosity.
It is also one of the few cities where you can say you used to be an opera singer and people don’t immediately look for a polite way to change the subject.
2. What’s the most Melbourne thing about the way you or your team works?
Probably the collaborative instinct that comes from working in a smaller market.
Sydney agencies can afford to silo. Melbourne teams mostly can’t. So, you end up with the creative director and the strategist and the PR person and the media buyer sitting in the same conversation, simply because that is how the office is laid out. It’s occasionally chaotic but it often makes it easier to ensure the thinking and the making and the story all come from the same place.
3. Who in the local industry has shaped the way you think about leadership or doing business? Tell us about them.
Two people come to mind for very different reasons.
Jo Painter, MD at Icon Agency, was probably the most formative, though without doubt a baptism of fire. Jo is lethal at new business. What always struck me was her ability to think both big picture and deep in the detail at the same time. Her instinct for understanding what a client really wanted, whether articulated clearly or not, was remarkable.
The other is Tom Manning, now creative director at Poem. I worked with Tom at Havas Red and he reinforced something that has stayed with me since: creativity is not casual, it is a practice. Tom has a very deep way of thinking about ideas and a quiet patience under pressure that I always admired. He also has the rare ability to calmly dismantle your thinking and replace it with something better.
4. What’s your favourite Melbourne or Victorian campaign or project and why?
One that always stands out is McCann’s Dumb Ways to Die for Metro Trains.
It is a rare example of public safety communication that became part of global culture. Instead of lecturing people about rail safety it created something people genuinely wanted to engage with.
The deeper lesson is that people remember stories, not instructions. If you want behaviour to change you have to meet people where they are, not where the strategy document imagined they would politely assemble.
5. If you were a Melbourne landmark, what would you be?
The Salon at the Melbourne Recital Centre. It is a relatively small room but one of the most beautiful acoustic spaces in the country. It is intimate, flexible and it helps anyone who performs there to sound extraordinary.
As a singer, it was always my favourite room in Australia to make music in. The audience sits very close, the acoustics are incredibly nuanced, so the space encourages listening in a different way.
You cannot hide in a room like that. But if you do your job well it gives something back to you.
In that sense it’s not unlike Melbourne. A city that has a way of quietly amplifying the right kind of work.
Kathleen Gunther is the founder of Gunther Consulting, partnering with independent agencies across Australia and New Zealand to scale their brand presence and drive sustainable growth. With expertise spanning digital marketing, brand strategy, PR and communications, she brings the pragmatism, specialist connections and industry know-how to help agencies market their most important client — themselves. Kathleen also serves as a Board Member of AWIA, actively shaping Australia’s digital landscape and championing inclusivity in the industry.
