"When it comes down to it, it's creating rather than operating."

Emily Cook is Managing Director of dentsu Queensland, leading a team of more than 75 people. Her superpower is limitless entrepreneurial spirit.

We start with what that means for her. She's curious about how else something could be done, then gets stuck in and builds it, always with the goal of setting her people up for success. We get into the assumed knowledge in our industry, why every leader needs to understand the commercials of how a business makes money, and the difference between being told you're smashing it and actually knowing where you're heading.

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"I actually really like feeling uncomfortable."

Leisa has never quite known what comfortable feels like. She lives in shades of uncomfortable, and she's built a life and a career around seeing how far she can push herself.

Leisa is CMO at QUT, the university she studied at, after a decade as Audience Director at the ABC and earlier years at P&G and Coca-Cola. She was ranked Australia's #1 CMO in 2020. She's also climbed Kilimanjaro, paddled the Hawkesbury for 100 kilometres, and trekked Nepal just months after breaking her tibia.

We start with her superpower, limitless adventure, and why the bigger the challenge, the better the planning needs to be.

We get into the launch of Mother at Coca-Cola, a product that flopped so badly she thought her career was over. She takes us through the war room, the tank and the relaunch that turned it into a success within six months.

She tells me about her friend Jo, whose final wish was simply for Leisa to have a good life, and how that wish has shaped every career decision since.

And we land on leadership: the bosses who showed her what good looks like, and something she realises out loud for the first time on this mic. She's still doing the work when she wants to be leading it.

This one stayed with me because of one line Leisa left me with: this is a special time. Whether we're in the hard bits or the good bits, we so rarely stop to notice.

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"I actually learnt that I'm more intimidating than I think I am."

Kedda Ghazarian found that out from a friend, over a drink, completely by accident. It's the kind of gap between how we think we show up and how we're actually received that runs right through this conversation.

Kedda is Head of Marketing at Bonds, where she's helped launch Bloody Comfy Period Undies, The UnGenderwear Project, Be The Village, and convinced Robert Irwin to get into his undies for Bonds' US launch. Her team was named AdNews' 2026 Marketing Team of the Year.

We start with the little kid at the grown ups' table. Kedda talks about stepping into leadership before she felt ready, and why she now believes "all leaders should ask the dumb questions" in the room.

We get into why she's a chronic oversharer, and the boundaries she's still working out now that she's single for the first time in her adult life.

She tells me what it actually takes to get a brand as loved as Bonds to lean into a campaign as bold as the Robert Irwin one, and why knowing exactly what you have permission to do is the real unlock.

And we land on her superpower, limitless play, and why she refuses to let a title move her away from the creative work she fell in love with in the first place.

This one stayed with me because Kedda names something so many of us do quietly. We keep chasing the next rung, and forget to enjoy the one we're standing on.

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