Page 47 - Adnews Magazine May-June 2021

Profil
www.adnews.com.au | May/June 2021 47
Imogen Hewitt on
crimping shears,
saving jobs, and
communications
Imogen Hewitt was a newly minted CEO when the pandemic hit, but quickly realised that no-one else had a playbook in their bottom drawer to deal with such a crisis.
Imogen Hewitt
WORDS BY
Imogen Hewitt, CEO of media agency Spark Foundry, was just a little girl when she was attracted to advertising.
Being on television was the goal. When she was about six, one of her friends was the girl who played Barbie in the Mattel ads.
“In an early sign of my competitive nature, I played hair salons with crimping shears with this little
friend of mine’s impressive blonde locks, which ended up in her par- ents threatening to sue my parents for loss of income,” says Hewitt.
“An early lesson that advertis- ing can be brutal.
“But I was not put off. Despite my mother’s warnings that advertising was full of posers and I wouldn’t have a job after 40, I persevered and landed myself work experience in the creative department of an agency called BAMSSB at the age of 16.”
Hewitt took her first role as a CEO in December 2019, which didn’t leave a lot of time with the holiday season ahead to settle in before a pandemic that no-one knew was coming.
She arrived at Spark on December 4, 2019. Before she could find her way round the
CHRIS PASH