In this week’s B&T’s Best of the Best, we are taking a look at the industry’s greatest strategy minds from media agencies. These are the thinkers you want in the room when coming up with a winning media idea and are also your ally in a pitch contest.
This list is focused on media strategists who are on the tools on a day-to-day basis. This means some of the industry’s brightest and more experienced strategy leads, such as WPP’s Katie Rigg-Smith and Wavemaker’s James Hier, are not on the list. There are others who just missed by a whisker, such as Zenith’s Penny Shell, Wavemaker’s James Boardman, Avenue C’s Melissa Mullins and PHD’s David Bielenberg, which is testament to the bench strength of great thinkers in the industry.
Previously, we have run the rule over the top creative strategists, now it’s media’s turn. Stay tuned for our B&T Best of the Best Business Support executives next week. If you would like to nominate a business support executive, email: [email protected]
10. Asier Carazo, chief strategy officer, Atomic 212
Carazo has played a pivotal role in turning around the fortunes of Atomic 212. The agency, which was once known for being a performance media shop, changed tack when he joined from Havas in 2020. Atomic 212 CEO Rory Heffernan said that Carazo “turned our product on its head with a fresh way of strategic thinking”. He developed a new planning process, called Atomic Fusion, and also developed a new research product called Sonar. Carazo also influences the industry; he presented at this year’s MFA EX event in Sydney. A native of the Basque region of Spain, Carazo has worked in Spain, France, New York and Australia for the likes of Gravity, BBDO and Havas. He is described as having “boundless energetic” who always rallies the troops to the cause.
9. Mitchell Long, chief strategy officer, Havas
Long is considered as one of the very best strategists in the industry. He has a laser sharp mind and the unique ability to completely understand consumers and how brands can better impact through their engagement strategies. Every day, Long delivers outstanding positive industry impact, including at MFA EX where his Multiplayer session was top rated by a 2,000 media industry crowd. Google continued to work with Long post event for a different global agency alignment. Long was the national head of strategy at PHD before joining Havas this year. In his first week at Havas, he wrote the pitch strategy to win a new client wholly integrated into the Village. Tourism Fiji CMO Srishti Narayan is one client that has endorsed Long’s strategic foresight, which speaks volumes about the impact he is having for Havas Village clients.
8. Lisa Leach, head of strategy, OMD Sydney
Leach has 28 years of experience in media and marketing. She prides herself on building close client partnerships that support identification of the unwritten brief, and has a history of acting as a true product collaborator, working with specialist product teams to identify future problems and solutions to keep her clients one step ahead. Leach’s passion and commitment to her craft has seen the OMD team deliver more than eight award-winning campaigns this season, including two Grand Prix’s in the last three years at the MFA Awards.
Her work on OMD’s client, Suncorp, saw the team pick up a Cannes Media Lion for AAMI Rest Towns, the MFA Awards Grand Prix for Suncorp One House and a Gold at the Festival of Media for AAMI’s AFL Grand Final activation. Leach is also a passionate industry contributor and loves being involved in MFA Awards and Events committee. She has supported OMD to bring unique sessions to MFA EX, including Indigenous Practices for a Sustainable Workplace. This year she will be joining the team of judges at Festival of Media APAC.
7. Gavin Gibson, chief product officer, Mindshare
Gibson is an award-winning strategist whose work is centred upon delivering long-term brand growth. His specialism is in utilising measurement fundamentals to test audience hypothesis and co-creating with client and agency partners full funnel media solutions. He has extensive client experience in multiple markets across the world including China, where he was Omnicom Media Group’s CSO, and Singapore, where he was OMD’s APAC CSO. As a strategy lead, Gibson ensures data insights and measurement fundamentals form Mindshares media solutions. And it’s been working; the agency has won clients including Unilever, Nestle, Citi Bank and Foot Locker in the past year. With more than 20 years’ experience, Gibson has led strategy and product across multiple markets in APAC, and taken leadership within the agency of the integration of data, technology, and strategy within the agency’s Good Growth proposition.
6. Caroline Hugall, chief strategy officer, Spark Foundry
Caroline Hugall has the unique ability to really understand what clients need having worked agency and client side. She is a strategic marketing leader with 20 years of experience working in Australia, the UK and US. She leads teams to deliver strong commercial outcomes for brands, with global experience in end-to-end marketing planning for both service and product-based clients, from FMCG to financial services. In 2023, Hugall joined Spark Foundry Australia as chief strategy officer.
Prior to her role at Spark, she was group brand strategy director at IAG, overseeing the rise of NRMA Insurance to become the fifth strongest brand in Australia in 2022. She was also previously senior planner for global brand strategy at Mondelēz International, and has also worked in senior planning and strategy roles at Ogilvy New York and Naked Communications London. Caroline is an advocate for women in media, communications and the arts, and is the founder of the How Did She Get There? platform and the PepTalk podcast. In 2024, she hosted a panel discussion at SXSW Sydney on behalf of Spark Foundry Australia addressing how the seven deadly sins have evolved in our increasingly technology-driven world.
5. Catherine Rushton, chief strategy officer, This is Flow
Catherine ‘Crush’ Rushton doesn’t just have the best nickname in adland, she is also one of the industry’s shining stars. She is a product from the school of Katie Rigg-Smith, taking the helm of strategy at Mindshare – an agency that is renowned for its smarts – before joining This is Flow in 2023. Since then, Rushton has developed from being one of the sharpest strategists to a business leader at one of the hottest indies going around. At the award-winning Flow, Rushton not only leads strategy, but has also shaped an agency culture that continues to win accolades for being one of the best places to work in the industry. Crush is also a regular speaker and panellist, including at the recent MFA X and Cannes in Cairns events this year. She is not just an outstanding strategist and planner, who has led prestigious accounts like Unilever, but an industry leader who has helped guide This is Flow to new heights.
4. Raj Gupta, chief strategy officer, UM
A former lawyer, there are few who think more astutely about media strategy than Raj. He has led strategy not just for UM in Australia, but also in Singapore, where he was MEC’s APAC strategy chief before the agency merged with Maxus to form Wavemaker. While at MEC Asia-Pacific, Raj led transformation projects for clients and headed data acceleration initiatives with Citibank, Chanel and Colgate-Palmolive. Those that know Gupta, describe him as sharp, tough and one of the smartest thinkers, who is always two or three steps ahead of the room. He is also renowned for being a mentor and makes time to help his colleagues thrash out ideas. His level of skill, experience, leadership and personality make him a fundamental part of UM’s success.
3. Sophie Price & Matt Scotton, chief strategy officer & chief product officer, EssenceMediacom
Price is one of the country’s most experienced and awarded strategists. She has led strategy at various media agencies including UM (2015-2018), where she worked with the Coles Group and Optus and Bohemia (2028-2021), where she worked on Fantastic Furniture, Freedom and Plush. Sophie’s communications planning capabilities has resulted in some of Australia’s most famous and effective campaigns in recent years. She is the winner of multiple Cannes Lions, Australia Effies, MFAs and has been awarded Woman in Media in 2016, 2018 and 2021. Price is part of the famed strategy duo alongside chief product officer, Matt Scotton.
Scotton is another highly-awarded strategist and product leader with a career spanning media, strategy and creative agency roles. With more than 13 years of industry experience, he has a track record of developing products, planning processes and breakthrough work that drives growth for the brands and the agencies he works for. Scotton is passionate about helping brands find their purpose and design communications that build mutual value. The pair are one the reasons why EssenceMediacom won the B&T Awards Media Agency of the Year, and are a duo feared by rivals when up in a pitch contest.
2. Alex Pacey, chief product officer, OMG
Alex Pacey is an industry leader with more than 23 years of experience focused on communications strategy and planning. He is a multi-award winning planner, including Cannes Lions Grand Prix, and has helped guide some of the world’s biggest brands across a myriad of categories. A PHD stalwart for more than 10 years, Pacey stepped into the OMG hot seat a few years ago and has since helped several agencies to Agency of the Year honours across multiple years. He is responsible for the product that supports both strategy and planning functions across Australia’s largest media agency group. Most recently he has been featured in the latest book from Karen Nelson-Field, The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint. Pacey shared his expertise in attention-focused products, as well as his specialised skills in simplifying integration challenges and emphasising the crucial elements of people, product and process. He is one of the industry’s progressive thinkers and game changers.
1. Chris Colter, managing director, media strategy, Accenture Song
Colts is widely revered as one of the top thinkers in the industry. He is a part of the famed Initiative triumvirate, alongside Mel Fein and Sam Geer, who recently moved to Accenture Song to lead their media operation. Colts developed his stripes at UM Sydney before taking the step across to lead strategy for Initiative in 2019, helping elevate the IPG Mediabrands agency to become the hottest media agencies in town. According to several industry insiders, Colts has developed a reputation for being the one of the top strategist in this market, if not the world. As one industry leader put it: “I’ve worked with some of the very best strategists in the world, and outside of Mat Baxter, nobody comes close to his level of strategic thinking and capability”.
One aspect that sets Colter apart is his speed of thinking. “He does a deck in 45 minutes that would take any other strategist, including myself, a week”. Another who worked with Colts, told B&T, “We actually have to be careful who he is exposed to because clients become obsessed with him.” Those up against him also respect his remarkable ability to think outside the box and at breakneck speed. Colter is also someone who excels in all areas of strategy, including analysis, channel planning, portfolio management and insights. As one opponent puts it: “He started as an ideas guy and has become the best ideas strategist I’ve ever seen.”
