The Creative Women program provides mentoring and community experiences to help women develop their career in the creative industries.
WADE KINGSLEY, FOUNDER, THE CREATIVE COACH
“I started The Creative Women program to address a missing gap”
The Australian media, marketing, and advertiser communities need to do more to support women.
In 2025 a leading trade industry website published a list of the Top 30 Creative Directors in Australia. 29 were Male. This isn’t about creative directors - this is about shining a light on a problem that is systemic in the industry.
Women are overlooked when it matters.
This not-for-profit program is designed to grow year-on-year. All women in the program have mentoring that is driven by them and for them. (The last thing I’m going to do is mansplain a Women’s Mentoring Program).
Once we assemble the mentoring panel, our participants are able to choose their own mentoring sessions at times that suit them. They might choose to have all their sessions with one mentor, or multiple sessions with different mentors. Each mentor brings different experience and perspective and can be helpful in very different ways.
We also have guest speakers to join our group meetups, plus an offsite experience where all the participants and mentors come together to discuss some of the bigger challenges for women in the industry.
Thank you for your support of The Creative Women program. I hope it is around for many decades to come.
Wade
The three components of The Creative Women program
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One to one mentoring
6 × 60 minute sessions across the 6 month program. Participants choose which mentors they wish to have sessions with from our expert panel of carefully selected professional women.
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Guest Speakers
Learning from the experience of others through exclusive inspiration sessions. In 2025 we heard from Martial arts expert and personal coach Nadine Champion and leading advertising industry expert Zoe Scaman.
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Offsite Experience
Our program participants and mentors come together in Sorrento (Victoria) for 2 days of discussion, inspiration and community building.
Our 2025 Program participants
Millie Michael
Sheridan Comer
Pip Bulmer
Lauren Aramani
Mia Sherman
Olivia Fleming
Laura Pozzobon
Katy Bristow
Ellie Beale
Cody Bennett
Alyce Zerner
Belinda Porter
Natali Mikic
Our 2025 Program mentors
With over two decades of Creative Leadership experience, culminating in a stint as Chief Creative Officer in New York, June Laffey's mission now is to inspire, empower and lift-up a new kind of leader. How? Through insights, tools and strategies it has taken her a lifetime to learn. She's always been a creative thinker, cared deeply about people, and always, always come from a place of love. For much of June's career I have had a focus on health comms, but the principles apply through the line. She's also taken a special interest in coaching women, and helping them to shine.
Lizzie Young is a media executive with 25 years’ experience across the UK, US & APAC. She currently leads Commercial Radio & Audio on behalf of the Australian audio industry. Her remit at CRA covers industry wide initiatives including regulatory affairs, audience measurement, demand generation, digital transformation. Previously Lizzie was APAC CEO and Global Growth Officer of social media start-up WeAre8, spent 12 years at Nine, Australia's largest locally owned media company, rising to the role of Managing Director - Local Markets, Group Marketing & Commercial Partnerships and 12 years in radio at Southern Cross Austereo and Global Radio in London. Her roles have spanned content, marketing, sales, commercial partnerships and operations. In recent years she has executed a number of transformation projects resulting from M&A activity, leveraging new platforms and technologies for growth. Lizzie is also a former non-executive director of ASX listed real estate classified business Domain and Founding Board Director of Future Women where she remains as an Advisor and Mentor.
Lisa Lie is the founder of Learna, a microlearning app that helps teams build the people skills to solve real work problems - fast. Think feedback, working through change, managing others - the messy stuff no one really teaches you, but everyone is expected to know. With a background in media, coaching, and people and culture, Lisa has worked to help teams grow through change and lead with confidence. She brings a smart, no-BS approach to learning that’s designed for fast-moving teams who don’t have time for theory. Whether she’s speaking about leadership development, career growth, or creating a culture where learning actually sticks, Lisa delivers practical insights that help people take action - not just take notes.
Virginia Scully is an award-winning people and culture expert with nearly three decades of experience in the creative and media industry. As the founder of Human Kind Collective, she provides specialized HR consultancy services that help businesses and their teams thrive in the evolving workplace. Having worked in media and creative agency roles she transitioned to People and Culture later in her career and believes in life long learning and leaning into opportunities when they arrive. With a proven track record in organizational development, Virginia successfully led the People and Culture function at Hatched Media, scaling the company from 5 to 80 employees across two markets while maintaining a connected and collaborative culture that sustained profitability through rapid growth. A dedicated mentor, Virginia devotes time to supporting women. She is passionate about gender equity, mental health awareness, and empowering women in the workplace. As a certified Mental Health First Aid instructor, and a co-founder of Never not mentally healthy - she also educates community and workplaces on mentally healthy practices. She believes the world needs more Human Kindness and seeks to collaborate with like-minded people and business'
Sarah Mazur has spent the past 29 years at the intersection of creativity and commerce, first in full-service and media agencies, later as national sales coach and trainer, and now as founder of Agent for Change. Her goal in every role has been the same: help good ideas land and help the people behind them thrive. She learnt her craft at JWT and Mindshare, moving into a leadership position as Managing Partner, successfully navigating a male dominated world. From 2010–2016 Sarah was Southern Cross Austereo’s dedicated national sales trainer and coach, collaborating with stakeholders across metro and regional markets to build the company’s Sales Playbook while coaching leaders and delivering workshops to lift performance. She founded Agent for Change in 2016, partnering with agencies, media networks, high-growth brands and individual leaders to sharpen communication and embed competencies to power performance. Licensed facilitator of Coach U’s Coaching Clinic · DISC practitioner · Master NLP practitioner · Currently completing a Diploma of Counselling to deepen my work in behavioural change, relationship dynamics, and grief & loss. Outside of work her passion project is my volunteer role with Horse Shepherd Equine Sanctuary. You can also find her kayaking on the Noosa River, at yoga or ceramics and walking my gorgeous Vizslas on the beach.
Gemma O’Neill is CEO of Three Birds Renovations, an incredibly successful home renovation business aimed at helping women create their dream home. Gemma is also Co-Founder of a women’s content and event business called Besties with her best friend and broadcaster, Jackie O. Gemma and Jackie have created a cult following for their candid podcast called Her Best Life. Gemma has had a career spanning 25 years in Media and Entertainment, holding executive positions such as Head of the Hit Network at SCA in Australia, Chief Content Officer for NZME in New Zealand, Creative Executive for Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films and Managing Director of the Gemmie Agency where she negotiated the highest ever media deal in Australia. Gemma is a recipient of the Telstra Corporate Business Woman of the Year award, she has her MBA from Melbourne University and has completed the AICD Board Directors course. Gemma is a Non executive board member for Carrie’s Beanies 4 Brain Cancer and is an advisory committee member for Soho House. Her true love is as a mum to her 2 young sons and on the weekend you’ll find her cheering on the Sydney Swans with a glass of French rose.
Danika Johnston is a passionate leader with twenty six years experience in the media, entertainment, digital and technology sectors, driving strategic and commercial direction for businesses and implementing transformational change. Having worked across mainstream media companies and also start-up businesses, Danika is well regarded for leading teams to operational and commercial success and for building credible brand partnerships to deliver business capabilities and outcomes. Danika is passionate about people and performance and using creativity and strategy to solve business challenges with a future mindset. Danika is also a board director, wife, mum of three boys, ocean obsessed, and a board advisor and mentor for women in sport.
Chloe Hooper is on a personal mission to make a million women believe in themselves. She is the host of The Limitless Equation podcast where she interviews senior women around the industry to uncover their superpower. From this experience, she has gained a wealth of knowledge in how to build your career. Chloe’s approach to coaching is authentic, she is not afraid to help you reach solutions and has a unique ability to see the bigger picture which helps set you on the right path.
Feedback from our 2025 Participants
Diversity
“I have loved the diversity of companies within the group. You should be really proud of what you are creating Wade. You are at the beginning of something really special”.
Community
“Finding a sense of community of amazing women who have similar lived experiences made me feel seen and heard. We work in an incredibly fast-paced industry where these conversations can be put on the back-burner, caught up in being ‘busy’ and it was so important to take the time to have them”.
Discussion
“Loved the round table discussion. Very open and vulnerable room that left me feeling very inspired. Great opportunity to meet other like-minded individuals that will continue to build on the network.”
A Village
“The cohort are my new village. New people to connect with, with similar experiences and challenges to me. I felt heard listening to the cohorts and them listening to me. I felt honoured to be given the opportunity, especially having access to the mentors.”
Action-orientated
“There is so much ‘talk’ in the industry but little actual action. Which is what makes this program so valuable. Women have power but not the tools to weild it, so these sessions give us the opportunity to make change - our voices can be heard.”
High quality mentors
“Mentoring has been invaluable, especially the access we have to the high calibre of mentors. This program has been crucial to the development professionally and personally that I have experienced in 2026.”
Reserve your place for 2026 now
In 2026 we will have two cohorts - one running from January to June, and the next running from July to December.
Places are limited to 15 participants and are available now for both 2026 cohorts.