In an industry that’s long been defined by change but too often stalled on equity, Aimee Buchanan is one of the few leaders who can claim to have both endured and redefined it. Now the CEO of WPP Media, Buchanan has built her career on a clear, consistent ethos: progress isn’t optional, it’s the job.
With more than two decades of experience in the Australian media market, Buchanan has worked across high-volume blue chip clients, navigated rapid industry transformation, and, during her time at the helm of OMD Australia, helped the agency win B&T’s Media Agency of the Year three years in a row. In 2021, she took the reins as CEO of GroupM ANZ and today leads WPP Media with a sharp focus on talent, inclusion, sustainability, and transparent leadership.
But she’s also someone who’s never been interested in leadership for status’ sake. For Buchanan, leading is about showing up, authentically, honestly, and with intention.
“Getting comfortable with being your authentic self comes more easily with experience and confidence in your skills,” she told B&T ahead of B&T’s Women in Media Awards, presented by Are Media. “But employees and clients can see through it if it’s not real. Our role as leaders is to model and demonstrate it, each in our own way, so people can see and feel it.”
On-time entries for the B&T Women In Media Awards, presented by Are Media, close at midnight!
Buchanan is a long-time supporter of the awards and one of its most decorated figures. She was named Executive of the Year and Woman of the Year in 2019 and topped the Power List in 2018, 2021 and 2023. In 2024, she placed second. But for Buchanan, it’s not about accolades. It’s about the community they reflect.
“B&T do an outstanding job celebrating and recognising the incredible female talent we have in our industry,” she said. “It is honestly my favourite evening of the year. I don’t feel any sense of competition in the room, the event is about the industry coming together to celebrate amazing talent, recognising how far we have come and how far we still have to go”.
That sense of collective progress is what drives her leadership strategy. Recognition is not just about applause, she said, it’s a way to shine light on how far we’ve come and where change is still needed.
Buchanan doesn’t shy away from systemic issues in media and advertising. Under her leadership, WPP Media has taken a deliberately proactive role in addressing one of the industry’s long-standing challenges: the drop-off of women from mid-career to leadership positions.
“I do believe focusing on better policies to support parents is a huge unlock for retaining our best talent in the industry,” she told B&T. “The historical data shows that we have lost people as they enter into the parenting phase… The more we can do to address that, the better”.
That belief has translated into action. WPP Media’s parental leave policy is now gender-neutral, accessible from day one of employment, and focused on equitable access. “We removed the time you need to be in our business to utilise our parental leave policy,” Buchanan explained. “You can now have access to the benefits from the first day you start.”
It’s a change that’s already yielding results. “We have experienced a 50% increase in parents returning to work, and more men taking primary carers leave, promoting healthy gender equality,” she said.
To ease the transition back to work, the agency has also introduced Bridge, a reintegration program that supports parents re-entering the workforce after parental leave. It’s just one component of their broader Thrive Future of Work strategy, which reimagines flexibility and wellbeing through a modern lens.
Buchanan is adamant that policy can’t be static. “They can’t sit still, and they need to be constantly adapted to ensure we are progressing as society changes,” she said. “You can introduce the most amazing policy, but if the people, team and culture don’t support and adopt the policy, it all falls over”.
That insight has driven WPP Media’s evolving approach to policy design, one that is responsive, transparent and rooted in culture. One recent milestone was the launch of company-wide salary transparency.
“We recently launched salary transparency across our business, showing people the salary bands in terms of where they sit for each role,” Buchanan explained. “We included in here an overlay of gender… It was about unpacking salary in more detail and helping people understand things like gender pay gap, but also where they sit currently and what their paths might look like.”
It was also, she said, a signal that remuneration discussions need to be more mature and honest. “It was recognising that we need a more grown-up way of managing remuneration discussions than we’ve had in the past.”
One of the clearest places WPP Media has embedded change is in its hiring process. “Having a balanced and panel-based interviewing process for our senior roles has been key to expanding our talent base and diversifying the people we have brought into the business,” Buchanan said.
“We have run a multi-staged process, with a diverse panel across all major senior hires over the past three years. These panels always include a peer, a direct report, their manager and someone from our people team. From an employer’s perspective, this enables us to look at a new appointment from a few different angles. We also ensure diversity of the panel. It has helped us make better choices on people and created a more inclusive hiring experience for those involved”.
For Buchanan, there is no finish line when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. “By continuing to push, evolve and progress what we are doing for our people here in the local market… these things shouldn’t be static, but rather continually worked on,” she said. “We have enough data now to know where our issues lie, it is about continuing to work to shift the metrics. It’s not always one thing that does that and there is some trial and error but constantly driving, pressure testing and evolving accordingly is our approach to how we make progress”.
That includes WPP Media’s Alpha sustainability strategy, which acknowledges the role of media in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, particularly Scope 3 emissions. “Alpha is more about ensuring we are focused on the environmental impact we have with media,” Buchanan said.
“This needs to be acknowledged and talked about, so that we can address and reduce it. I’m excited about the work we are doing in this space, both in how we are measuring campaigns and in finding ways to reduce our impact. It’s not a set and forget, but something we are constantly innovating to improve and help our clients reduce their carbon impact, most recently with a massive automation and optimisation project.”
For younger women considering a leadership path, Buchanan has one clear piece of advice. “Put your hand up,” she said. “I always say attitude over ambition is what sets you up in this industry.
“There are so many opportunities to get involved, get senior exposure, learn from new people and to grow. We see this in our existing client work, in people stepping up to run, or be involved with, new programs and in new business. If you see a problem, raise it, come with a solution-focused outcome and work with your senior leaders to address it”.
And while Buchanan has achieved just about every milestone a media executive could hope for, her eyes are firmly fixed on the future, not just for herself, but for the generations that will follow.
“My real aspiration is that generations to come don’t see this as an issue,” she said. “I hope that WPP Media continues to shine a light on progressing policy, creating an inclusive workforce and driving the conversation on what matters. I don’t want us to shy away from the fact that there are still very dark corners of this industry where women and minority groups are not always treated equally, not supported, not paid equally and in some instances treated very poorly. That needs to be discussed, with a continued focus on progress”.
On-time entries for the B&T Women In Media Awards, presented by Are Media, close at midnight!
