The first five years in the ad game were tough.

Why?

Because I busted out of uni with ALL the feelings of possibility and enthusiasm to create. But as a young woman in the early 90s (the only female in the large Creative Department) I found it extremely challenging to gain respect amongst many of my peers and senior colleagues.

The sexism of some workmates was enough to fill a book. The irrational and unpredictable behaviour of some staff was not how I’d been briefed.

For an industry responsible for understanding the spectrum of demographics and psychographics within the big-wide-consumer-world, it constantly amazed me how mono-cultured and gendered most marketers were back in the day. The good news was, they were an interesting bunch, filled with unpredictable energy and behaviours.

I was once followed into my shoebox office by a senior staff member to be told;

“You’re lucky you don’t get molested round here the way you strut around this office”.

There’s the time I entered my own office to find a colleague with his penis out and strapped with a rubber band round an Aussie Rules Football (yup… true). And when my Creative Group Head chose not to brief me (though did brief my Writer) on a campaign, “because it’s a blokes’ campaign”. I turned up to meetings nonetheless until it was easier to keep me on the job than not.

Oh… and I wish I could forget the Senior Writer who spat his mouthful of burger at the storyboards I was about to present to client (who were already seated in the boardroom). He was the same human who in my job interview told me he’d heard I was, “a bit of a femo, lezzo, vego”. Delightful.

And the time my superior called me into his office to have me explain what Monica Lewinsky actually did to Bill Clinton. Ask any woman who started out back then, and they’d have same-same-but-different tales.

When I started out?

I didn’t feel empowered enough to call any shots.

The resilience I developed in those foundational years taught me that power often overrides talent. And it’s not enough to be enthusiastic, hard-working, smart and personable. But my advertising years set me up for life!  Took me out of my sheltered world. And gifted me tonnes of brilliant parties.

What am I doing now?

I’m the CEO of a unique NFP called ‘Pathways Melbourne’ – supporting people who are questioning their ultra-Orthodox Jewish lifestyle. So incredibly rewarding and has somehow become my ‘purpose’. I owe my years of advertising, branding, marketing and PR to being able to build the unique organisation from scratch to now.