Charged with helping brands reach the right audiences on the right channels at the right time, media planners are the lifeblood of media agencies and play a critically important role in an increasingly fragmented and complex media environment.
Whether it’s trying to sweat efficiencies on plan, or finding effectiveness in channels that had been previously overlooked, planners are the vital cogs that can make all of the difference as agencies often battle to do more with stagnant, or sometimes shrinking media budgets.
Australia is a market blessed with some of the finest planners in the world and coming up with a list of 10 is an unenviable task. Nonetheless, B&T has given it a crack.
This year’s list focused on talent with senior media planning job titles, and the editorial team considered nominations received (see below), market research about candidates, the industry profile of frontrunners and their achievements in the past 12 months.
There are some fantastic planners that have just missed the cut this year that warrant a call out. They include Wavemaker’s Ryan Haeusler (who appeared on last year’s list), Havas’ Jessica Loi, UM’s Michael Mellington and Hearts & Science’s Jaime Mills-Blayney.
It’s also worth taking a look at B&T’s Best of the Best Strategy list.
Here are the B&T’s Best of the Best Media Planners for 2025:
10. Hannah Fisher, client partner and head of SA Government, Carat
Fisher is a media strategist, planner, buyer and team leader with 15 years’ industry experience, including 10 years at Carat. She started her career writing TV and radio scripts and now leads the South Australian Government portfolio, working across behaviour-change, tourism, education and public service campaigns.
She’s recently been the leading media planning, buying and strategy on campaigns for Inklings SA, SA Police, Tour Down Under, Tasting Australia and more. Government media planning is a fine art and Fisher’s efforts have been acknowledged by being named Carat’s MVP in its most recent B&T Agency Scorecard.
Known for her collaborative style, process-driven and calm leadership, Fisher is passionate about building high-performing teams and delivering work that makes a genuine difference to the community.
9. Ryan Hancock, national strategy & planning director, Match & Wood
Hancock is not only one of the rising stars at Melbourne indie Match & Wood, but is making waves across the industry. The former karate instructor has been with the agency for the past seven years, leading media planning and strategy at the agency for more than two years.
He works with clients including Renault, Speedo, Horizon Power, Curtin University and more. A finalist at this year’s B&T 30 Under 30, Hancock is a Young Lions alumni, and widely recognised as an emerging leader in the industry.
8. Emma Greenhalgh, national head of communications design, Initiative
With over 13 years in the industry, Greenhalgh joined Initiative four years ago, took over the reins of the communications design craft nationally, and has shone ever since. She overhauled the planning craft and standards across the country, leading multiple award winning and innovative campaigns, including NRMA Insurance Cricket Covers, Beyond 3% and Bruce Highway.
She won Campaign Asia Channel Planner of the Year, was shortlisted in B&T’s Women In Media and was chosen as Initiative’s MVP in its most recent B&T Agency Scorecard.
Greenhalgh has been a critical support to agency leader Jo McAlister as the leadership team reimagines the agency proposition and overhauls its new business product, leading to recent wins including HelloFresh, Aspen Pharmacare and Netflix.
7. Jennifer Carroll, head of planning, Nunn Media
Carroll oversees media planning for all of Nunn Media’s Melbourne 30-plus clients including JB Hi-Fi, Aussie Broadband, Bendigo Bank and Spotlight Retail Group, providing insightful and innovative connections planning. She created and deployed an agency national planning model to bring Relevance planning through the entire business.
Carroll also developed a new planning data stack that leverages global independent agency partnerships through Local Planet and new AI tools.
Testament to her success has been leading strategy and planning for new business pitches worth more than $200 million over the past 18 months.
She was named Agency MVP in B&T’s Agency Scorecard 2024, mentors the agency’s young planners and leads workshops for marketers.
6. Simon Schoen, national head of strategy & planning, Zenith Media
In the past year, Schoen has driven growth, award-winning work and a significant uplift in strategic and planning capability across Zenith. In the markets he directly leads, his leadership has helped with business wins including Mars, Lululemon, Stockland and Flight Centre.
Schoen led the development and rollout of a new national strategic planning process, anchored by a codified ‘Planning Playbook’. Designed to lift craft, alignment, and performance across the entire agency, the process has been adopted by more than 75 per cent of clients.
Schoen’s planning and strategy work led to the RACQ winning Festival of Media Global Award, while he is committed to giving back to the industry and developing emerging talent as a judge for the B&T 30 Under 30 Awards and MFA Awards.
5. Elyse Foley, national head of planning, PHD Australia
Over the past 18 months, Foley has redefined what modern planning leadership looks like at PHD Australia. She returned to the agency two years ago and was promoted to lead media planning in October 2024.
Foley brings the rare combination of commercial sharpness, strategic depth and people-first leadership. She has elevated PHD’s national planning product, embedding its ‘Intelligence. Connected.’ proposition into frameworks, pitches and transformation programs.
This year, she led the rollout and national adoption of PHD’s next-generation Studio workflow, the network’s global AI-powered planning operating system. She also co-designed training, upskilled planners and embedded AI tools into day-to-day craft. This has led to significantly faster response rates to briefs; a huge double-digit uplift in campaign ROI and a substantial reduction in programmatic CPMs.
Foley leads the national training program PHD@PHD, lifting the strategic sharpness and future-readiness of our people.
4. Laura Fell, national head of planning, Mindshare
In just over two years at Mindshare, Fell has overhauled exceptional planning leadership at the ‘Good Growth’ agency. She was tasked with leading connections planning for high-stakes pitches, including Unilever and Nestlé, exceeding expectations in an area where the agency sought improvement.
Her strategic vision and hands-on involvement across the pitch process resulted in $130 million in new business wins, including Nestlé, Unilever and Nova Entertainment. Most notably, she led planning and played a pivotal role in the largest pitch of the year, Suncorp.
Fell has substantially grown and developed the planning team from five to 19 senior planners, including 74 per cent being women. She has advanced planning tools, integrated data-driven strategies, and championed creative approaches that bring Mindshare’s philosophy of Good Growth to life.
Agency insiders say that her ability to combine commercial acumen with cultural sensitivity and team empowerment sets her apart as a leader who drives results and industry progress.
3. Sophie Langton, chief planning & connections officer, Spark Foundry
Langton joined the media industry in 2009, progressing through diverse roles in media and planning at Match Media and Blue 449 (later Spark Foundry), Leo Burnett and Spark Foundry Australia. In January, she was promoted to chief planning & connections officer.
In her planning role, Langton is focused on delivering rigorous channel implementation strategies. She is known to be deeply obsessed by craft excellence in planning to ensure the strategic vision is brought to life across all facets of the brand and consumer experience. She has the innate ability to join the dots between media, creative and measurement.
Langton’s work has been highly regarded by some of the industry’s toughest judges, from Byron Sharp to Jen Davidson of Tumbleturn – calling her work the most “comprehensive implementation plan ever seen”. In the past few years, she has been a regular in B&T’s Best of the Best Media Planners list, and is a worthy entry in 2025.
2. Thad King, national head of communications planning, OMD Australia
With nearly two decades of experience in Australia and the UK, King is renowned for delivering market-leading planning that drives tangible results for clients. He is a trusted voice within Australia’s largest agency, and a key advocate for OMD’s mission, ‘We Create What’s Next’.
This year, King spearheaded a nationwide initiative to train and certify every OMDer in Omnicom’s marketing orchestration platform, Omni. He led the integration of Omni’s agentic AI workflow capabilities within OMD, enhancing rigour and efficiency throughout the agency.
A sought-after industry speaker, King appeared on several major stages, including discussions on ‘OOH Attention Research’ with QMS and Amplified Intelligence, ‘Influence to Impact’ with Omnicom Media, and ‘Future of Audio Effectiveness’ at the IAB’s Audio Summit. King also penned a passionate note to the industry on ‘The messy truth of measurement’, following the Future of TV Advertising conference in Sydney.
King has been integral to OMD’s new business success this year, with planning expertise helping secure several key wins for the agency.
1. Jack Graham, chief planning officer, EssenceMediacom
As the only Chief Planning Officer within WPP Media Australia, Graham leads the largest pure planning division in the country; a dedicated craft team, not combined with strategy or client service. Since joining EssenceMediacom, he has grown the planning team from six to 31 specialists, creating a centre of excellence that powers the agency’s rapid growth.
Graham rebuilt EssenceMediacom’s planning process and tool suite from the ground up, embedding advanced systems and AI driven workflows that connect planning directly to activation. His influence extends globally: he sits on WPP’s global Product Council for planning tools and the AI Development Committee, shaping next generation solutions for the network.
Under Graham’s leadership, Australia is WPP’s leading market for the adoption of open planning systems, tools and AI agents. This transformation has fuelled new business wins, including Specsavers, HBO Max, Lion and ART, cementing EssenceMediacom as one of the strongest agencies in the region.
Graham’s planning leadership has contributed to multiple awards for EssenceMediacom, and his portfolio includes several Gold, Bronze and Silver Cannes Lions. On top of that, he remains the only planner in Australia to win Adweek’s Global Media Plan of the Year – twice. Graham isn’t just setting the standard for planning excellence; he’s building the future of the craft.
