Page 79 - AdNews Magazine Nov-Dec 2020

The Profile
Spreading a little good
Jason Maggs has spent the past 10 years climbing the corporate ladder, taking him to cities such as New York and Cannes. The Queensland-born strategist has also been using his skills for good — carving out a role at Initiative Australia.
We sit down with him to track his journey after he was named this year’s AdNews Emerging Leader, presented by SpotX.
Jason Maggs with his trophy for 2020
Jason Maggs was standing in the middle of LAX airport when he looked up to see the name of the charity program he helped launch in the US, AIME Mentoring,
displayed on the flight informa- tion screen.
Maggs, along with AIME CEO Jack Manning Bancroft, had spent the previous six months putting the program together, which would connect disadvantaged
students in the US with career mentors. The pair spent months creating a campaign and securing free media space to promote the program, as well as organising the travel of mentors. Now, standing with the rest of the AIME group at the airport wait- ing to leave for New York, Maggs describes this moment as one of the proudest in his life. But equally, he says setting up the program was very challenging, a process that brought him to the brink of tears at one point.
“We had all these amazing indi- viduals, incredible future leaders of America all standing there with
WORDS BY
MARIAM CHEIK-HUSSEIN
AdNews Emerging
Leader. their bags packed and ready to get
www.adnews.com.au | November-December2020 79