Client service. Is it perhaps the most under-appreciated skill in adland? Maybe . But it is certainly appreciated at B&T, however.
In this latest instalment of our sprawling Best of the Best series, we’re taking a look at the industry’s top suits, for want of a better word. It might say ‘Account Directors’ in the headline, but these roles are so vast and nebulous these days that everyone from an account manager to a chief client officer was in the mix.
Pulling our lists together is never, ever easy. But this one was harder than most.
Such is the unflashy nature of account management that the 10 (or 11) below are rarely making a splash in the trade press. Instead, they’re working with their clients day in and day out to generate results from thin air.
And in truth, this list could have extended to 12, 15, 20, maybe even 25 names and faces.
We must also give a special shout out to Lauren Doherty, winner of last year’s Account Management trophy at B&T’s Women in Media Awards.
10. Rawanne Auda, client partner, Half Dome
Rawanne Auda has been a client partner at Melbourne indie media agency Half Dome for the past two years. Her impact on the business has been transformative, to say the least.
She leads Half Dome’s client solutions team and a $55 million account portfolio spanning nbn, Ego Pharmaceuticals and more. In the past year, she steered the retention and expansion of its work with The Good Guy, the agency’s longest serving client, as well as renewed and expanded the Ego and GMHBA accounts.
As we were told, “clients don’t just stay with Rawanne, they invest more”.
Auda was also a finalist for the Account Management trophy at B&T’s Women in Media Awards.
9. Toby Aldred, Saatchi & Saatchi MD and chief client officer, The Neighbourhood
Toby Aldred has spent the last 12 years (nearly 13) years of his life with Saatchi & Saatchi.
The last three of those years, he’s spent as the chief client officer on The Neighbourhood, the Publicis integrated agency model for the Arnott’s Group. The Neighbourhood has been running for some eight years now (yes, remember there was a time pre-lockdown) and it isn’t hard to see why.
Aldred has led the teams to continually deliver strong work for the biscuit behemoth, keeping CMO Power List-er Jenni Dill very happy indeed. In fact, the work was so good the pair landed the Grand Effie a few years back for ‘Life’s Little Moments’.
8. Amanda Wheeler, chief client partner, Leo
Amanda Wheeler has been with Leo (or formerly Leo Burnett) for the last four-and-a-bit years. During that time, she’s had a front-row seat to the agency’s reassertion of its leading position within the Australian landscape.
In particular, Wheeler is the client lead on the consolidated Suncorp account—the chunky piece of business that Publicis pinched from WPP’s Ogilvy a few years ago. We described at the time as a “coup”.
The work the two have produced subsequently has been among the strongest in the industry. At last year’s B&T Awards, the pair took home the Best Tech & AI Campaign trophy. They also won the 2025 Grand Effie.
They’re even in the running for the Titanium Lion at Cannes. Should they win, it won’t be the first time that Wheeler and CMO Mim Haysom have picked up metal in the south of France. A very impressive partnership indeed.
7. Shannon Duhig, head of business management & client partner, Droga5, part of Accenture Song
Duhig has been with Droga5 for more than a decade, starting as a content manager back when it was The Monkeys.
Described to B&T as a “classic suit” and not in a black t-shirt wearing creative’s lament fashion, Duhig takes the lead on some of the agency’s most important accounts, including Tourism Australia.
Ensuring effective work on the Tourism Australia account is not simply important for the agency, it’s important for the country too.
Duhig, in many ways, follows in the footsteps of Belinda Drew, the agency’s chief client officer who departed in February after collecting five B&T Women in Media Awards Client Services trophies to become the ABC’s head of marketing.
6. Danielle Chapman, managing partner, Ogilvy Melbourne
You might begin to spot a theme within this list. Good suits tend to spend a long time with their agencies, such is their importance and Chapman is no exception — she’s been with Ogilvy for more than a decade.
Chapman started as a group account director with the WPP agency in 2016 after stints with Y&R and Publicis Mojo, among others. In 2019, Chapman was promoted to managing partner of Ogilvy Melbourne for her work on Mondelēz creative account. At the time, of her promotion she was described as combining “exceptional human and leadership qualities”.
Ogilvy has doubled down on Chapman’s importance to the firm. She now serves as the global client lead for Cadbury and Ogilvy’s lead on the total Mondelēz account across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. That’s some remit.
5. Antonia Glezakos, executive director, Smith St.
Antonia Glezakos is another leader who has served for a very long time within Omnicom. She joined OMD in 2008 as an account manager before rising, steadily but inexorably to become the agency’s Melbourne managing director.
But last year, Glezakos was promoted to become the executive director of Smith St., Omnicom’s bespoke agency for Coles Group.
An industry insider told B&T that Glezakos had significantly expanded its Coles Group’s capability and evolved the relationship from a traditional agency to a more fully integrated model. They also said Glezakos’ ability to lead a very complex business with a strong human focus set her apart from the crowd.
4. Celia Blackwood, MD OpenEra, WPP Media
Celia Blackwood’s CV makes for impressive reading. Three years as client service director at PR agency Ikon. A contract stint as group client director at MediaCom. A year as Spark Foundry’s general manager of media for Westpac, then back to WPP to become Essence’s chief operating officer.
In 2024, she Blackwood enjoyed her first stint as the MD of one of WPP Media’s bespoke ‘Open’ models, OpenMind, for Nestle. Four months ago, she became MD of OpenEra, the bespoke model for the massive consolidated Suncorp media account.
Given Blackwood’s vast experience, it’s no surprise that she was described to B&T as “excellent” in her role.
3. Maddison Keogh, managing partner APAC, EssenceMediacom
Another WPP Media face and again described to B&T as “excellent” in her role, Maddison Keogh is EssenceMediacom’s APAC client managing partner. In this role, she also serves as the client lead on the vast Uber APAC media account, which is led from the Sydney office.
Keogh has been with EssenceMediacom since January 2025. Upon joining she was described as a “hugely impressive client leader”.
That’s no surprise given her extensive experience across the country’s top media shops. Prior to joining WPP Media, Keogh spent nearly seven years with Initiative, rising from an associate director to become the head of client service for Rufus, its bespoke agency for Amazon. She would also serve as the overall head of client service within Initiative Sydney.
2. Lisa McMillan, MD, UM Australia
Lisa McMillan has one of the single most important jobs in the Australian advertising industry, leading UM’s 80-strong team on the Australian Government’s master media account, as well as the ACT account.
At the time of her appointment in June last year, McMillan was hailed for “her ability to work with complex multi-stakeholder organisations” and her “personal passion for policy and politics”.
Prior to joining UM, McMillan briefly served on a contract as head of media and chief client officer for the M+C Saatchi Group and its now-departed media agency Bohemia.
Before that, she spent nearly three years as the chief client officer for Starcom Australia working primarily with Proctor & Gamble. Before that, she spent five years in the US as the global and US client lead for Spark Foundry. That’s some pedigree.
1. Sasha Firth & Tori Lopez, managing directors, Special Australia
But taking the top spot today is Special’s MD double-act: Sasha Firth and Tori Lopez.
Lopez has been with Special Australia since the start, joining as a business director in 2015. This followed an extensive career in account services roles at Droga5 New York, where she led the Puma account, among others, as well as roles with Anomaly, Mother New York and Host.
Lopez was a finalist for both the Client Services and Account Management categories at last year’s B&T Women in Media Awards, too.
Firth, meanwhile, is a relative newbie to Special, joining two years ago as client services director. Previously, Firth had served as managing partner of DDB. At DDB, she led the Westpac account. Before she served as MD of of Y&R ANZ.
As Special told B&T recently, it works with clients in an open, transparent manner to identify the root of their problems, not simply provide them with answers. It’s an approach that has helped the agency produce exceptional work for all manner of clients.
“With clients, internally or externally, we ask, ‘What’s the real part of the problem?’ Not ‘This is fine’ or ‘This is the answer you want’. It allows you to dismantle it, identify the problem and then come up with the answer,” Firth told us.
