Page 81 - AdNews Magazine Nov-Dec 2020

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Rather than making “glamorous ads”, Maggs was instead tasked with tracking ad units online on his first day.
“I had no idea what a media agency was — like, none whatsoever,” he says. “I turned up for my internship and they sat me down and said, ‘This is your computer. You're going to be trafficking 728x90 and 300x250 ad units online.’ I kind of sat there and thought, ‘What the heck? When do we start making ads?’"
With a mentor in OMD Brisbane digital account manager Jennifer Hourigan, Maggs built his knowledge and skills, quickly becoming enamoured by the media agency world, particularly by the role of a strategist. This interest in strategy stemmed from the same interest that made Maggs want to become a detective as a child, something he imagines he would have pursued were he not in media. Maggs was fascinated with observing human behaviour, finding insights and using them to effect change in people.
This is an ability Maggs developed early in his career, and during the next few years he would secure dream jobs and be recognised as a rising talent across various award ceremonies, including the national Cannes Young Lions award in 2014.
About a year into his role at OMD, Maggs sat in on a meeting with Ignite Media Brands’ national sales director, Sharb Farjami, and Melissa Fein, state sales director at the time and now Maggs’s CEO at Initiative Australia.
“I don't know what happened in that meeting, but I must have said something that impressed them because a couple of weeks later I received a call from them inviting me to move down to Sydney and work at IMB,” he says.
“No 21-year-old would ever turn that down. I jumped at the oppor- tunity and suddenly I was working in Sydney, at MTV. That's when I
Jase is one of the best strategists
I have had the pleasure of working with. On top of that his drive to make the world a better place is inspiring. You are guaranteed to be drawn into the passion Jase conveys and the positivity he provokes.
Maddison Keogh client advice & management director, Initiative
really fell in love with the industry, the bigger part of the industry in Sydney and work on some pretty awesome brands in Nickelodeon and Viacom.”
Maggs was quickly promoted at Ignite Media Brands, where he worked on accounts including MTV, Nickelodeon and National Geographic as a digital account manager overseeing Queensland and most of the NSW patch, a responsibility worth more than $1 million when Maggs confesses to not knowing how to do his weekly personal budgets. A few months into this role, Maggs would chase down a strategy role at Mindshare, which he secured in late 2012, working on accounts such as Unilever, Volvo, Kimberly Clark and General Mills.
The following year, Maggs was named Mindshare Sydney Rising Star, giving him the chance to work in any Mindshare office around the world.
“Growing up in Cairns, I always told my parents that one day I'd work in New York,” he says. “I don't know where the inspiration came from, probably from watching every movie and show under the sun.
“I thought that would be the pinnacle — that was making it in my mind so I immediately said New York. While I was over there, I just made sure I really impressed every- one and they ended up offering me a job.”
In 2016, while still in New York, Maggs was headhunted by the newly appointed Initiative global CEO Matt Baxter, whose work Maggs describes as “brilliance”. Maggs spent two years in the US as vice-president, director of strategy, but through- out this time became “jaded” with the industry.
“I was kind of one foot out the door,” he says. “I didn't find my passion and purpose through what IdidasIusedto.Iwasworkingon a lot of QSR brands and doing a lot of work in that space and I thought, ‘There are so many things wrong with the world, maybe I could use my skills for good.’”
Around this time, Maggs was introduced to Jack Manning Bancroft, founder and CEO of the Australian Indigenous Mentoring