The Challenge
The Australian War Memorial and Commonwealth Bank needed to bring the story of Australia's involvement in the First World War to communities across the country during the Anzac Centenary. Not as a traditional museum exhibition, but as something that would connect emotionally with everyday Australians who might never visit Canberra. The challenge was profound: how do you make a century-old conflict feel personal, immediate and relevant to a modern, diverse audience?
My Role
I was appointed Content Director, with full creative ownership of the exhibition's narrative strategy, storytelling framework and written content from concept through to delivery. This was not a supporting role. I was responsible for defining how the exhibition would communicate, what story it would tell, and how every artefact, panel and interactive element would connect to a single, coherent human narrative.
The Strategic Idea
I made a deliberate decision early: this exhibition would not be about the war. It would be about the people. Every artefact (a letter, a boot, a mess tin, a dog tag) had a human being on either end of it. The person who owned it, and the Australian standing in front of it a hundred years later. That reframe became the organising principle for everything: the physical journey through the space, the copy on every panel, the tone of every interactive element, and the brief to every creative and production partner involved.
What I Led and Delivered
I personally wrote the narrative framework and content strategy that underpinned the entire exhibition. I directed the creative and production team through concept, design and delivery across all 23 locations, ensuring the story-first approach held integrity at every stage. I collaborated with Australian War Memorial historians, government stakeholders, and Imagination's broader creative and production team to translate archival material into emotionally resonant public storytelling. I maintained creative ownership from the Prime Minister's launch in Wodonga in September 2015 through to the Sydney closing in April 2017.
The Outcome
The Spirit of Anzac Centenary Experience toured 23 locations across Australia over two years, engaging more than 350,000 visitors. It was officially opened by the Australian Prime Minister and received widespread critical acclaim for the intimacy and emotional resonance of its storytelling. Audience feedback consistently described the experience as personal, not historical. That was the intention, and it landed.
The Challenge
The City of Sydney's New Year's Eve is one of the world's most watched annual events, broadcast internationally and experienced live by an estimated one million people across the harbour foreshore. The brief each year was deceptively simple: create a new theme that would give the entire event a cohesive creative identity, resonate with an extraordinarily diverse public audience, and provide the narrative backbone for everything from bridge pyrotechnics to VIP parties to a live play for children with special needs. Getting it wrong was not an option. The political, logistical and reputational stakes were enormous.
My Role
As Senior Copywriter at Imagination Australia, I was the primary creative and narrative lead for the event across eight consecutive years, from 2012 to 2019. I personally developed the annual theme name, the strategic narrative connecting the theme to Sydney's identity, the sub-themes for each of the three live party sites, and the messaging across all public-facing communications. For the Lord Mayor's Picnic, held annually in the Botanic Gardens for up to 1,000 special needs children and their carers, I also personally wrote an original four-hour play with songs each year. This was sole-authored creative work, not a team effort.
The Strategic Idea
Each year began with a single organising question: what does Sydney need to feel this New Year? The theme had to work simultaneously as a headline, a visual identity, a narrative framework, and an emotional experience. It had to mean something to a million people who would never read the brief. From "Shine" with Kylie Minogue in 2012 to "City of Colour" in 2015, every theme I developed was built on a specific insight about Sydney's character and what the city wanted to celebrate about itself in that moment.
What I Led and Delivered
I personally conceived and wrote the annual theme and narrative for each year's event. I developed four distinct sub-themes annually for the Lord Mayor's Party at the Opera House, the Dawes Point VIP party, and the Lord Mayor's Picnic. I wrote all messaging across ambient media, event advertising, and communications. I wrote an original four-hour theatrical play with music for the Lord Mayor's Picnic every year from 2013 onward. I collaborated with creative ambassadors including Kylie Minogue (2012), Reg Mombassa (2013) and Jack Thompson (2014), developing the creative framework that guided their involvement. The account was successfully repitched and retained after year three under my creative direction.
The Outcome
Eight years. Eight original themes. Eight original plays. An audience of approximately one million people each year on the night, with international broadcast reach in the hundreds of millions. Sydney's New Year's Eve consistently ranked among the world's premier public celebrations throughout this period. The 2012 event with Kylie Minogue generated significant worldwide media coverage. The 2015 "City of Colour" theme, brought to life through full pylon projections across the Harbour Bridge, remains one of the most visually celebrated editions of the event.
The Challenge
After years of strategic planning, Toyota Motor Corporation Australia took its most ambitious dealer engagement initiative in a decade: bringing 410 Dealer Principals, their partners, TMCA Executives and senior Toyota Motor Corporation leaders from Japan together in Toyota's home country. The program needed to do more than impress. It needed to anchor an entire commercial network in the cultural foundations of the brand, demonstrate tangible proof of Toyota's electrified future, and unite the Toyota dealer network as a single, cohesive force at a moment of significant transformation in the Australian automotive market.
My Role
I was Creative Director, responsible for the overarching narrative framework, all event communications and the event narrative, and the conception of key experiential touchpoints throughout the program.
The Strategic Idea
The creative concept, "Feel the Future," was built around a three-pillar narrative structure to give the program a chronological arc rather than a series of disconnected moments. Each day represented a distinct temporal chapter: The Past, grounding guests in Toyota's cultural heritage and founding philosophy; The Present, celebrating the strength and unity of the current dealer network; and The Future, delivering the brand's next generation of vehicles and mobility vision at the global source. That structure gave every experience across the five days, from a Taiko drumming performance in a Tokyo Izakaya to a double vehicle reveal at Toyota's global headquarters, its place within a single, intentional story.
What I Led and Delivered
I wrote all event communications and the event narrative that connected each day's experiences to the overarching story. I conceived the opening night performance at the Hilton Shinjuku, combining traditional Taiko drummers with contemporary dance troupe Fabulous Sisters to express the brand's transition from heritage to innovation in a single, live metaphor. I provided creative direction on the double vehicle reveal sequence at Toyota Motor Corporation's global headquarters in Toyota City, ensuring the moment landed as the narrative climax of the entire program. I also conceived the special guest moments and gifting that gave the program its personal, considered quality throughout.
The Outcome
The National Dealer Conference was the most ambitious international program in Toyota Australia's history, uniting 410 attendees across five days and multiple cities in Japan. The program achieved 100% attendance and scan rates across all plenary sessions, vehicle reveals and cultural site visits. The double vehicle reveal at headquarters received a standing ovation from the dealer network. Post-event assessment confirmed the unified creative look and feel successfully maintained a feeling of one team across both the Toyota and Lexus streams, and direct engagement with global decision-makers significantly accelerated strategic alignment across the network.
The Challenge
In late 2023, many major car brands stood at a critical point. After years of supply chain disruption, brands faced a dealer network with genuine concerns about an ageing vehicle lineup and wavering long-term confidence in the brand's direction. The 2023 National Dealer Conference was the moment to address that directly. The audience of 200 Dealer Principals, senior executives and international delegates from the company’s headquarters was sophisticated, commercially driven and not easily impressed. Rebuilding conviction required more than a product presentation. It required a story.
My Role
I was Creative Director and Senior Copywriter, responsible for leading all creative elements of the conference from concept through to delivery. I personally developed the overarching creative concept, wrote the narrative framework that connected the daytime business session to the evening spectacular, wrote all scripts across both programs, and conceived the major show performance piece for the evening reveal. My role was to ensure the event held together as a single, coherent creative experience rather than a series of disconnected moments.
The Strategic Idea
The creative concept was built on the brand’s own simple but resonant truth: every great adventure ends with an even greater yarn. The strategy was to shift perception from a pragmatic, price-led choice to an emotionally driven brand rooted in genuine Australian adventure. A single visual thread, literally expressed as a red line through all creative collateral, connected the corporate daytime session to the high-energy evening reveal, giving the entire event narrative continuity and thematic coherence.
What I Led and Delivered
I directed the creative execution across both venues and both programs. At The Langham, Gold Coast, I shaped the daytime business session to balance commercial transparency with theatrical staging, opening with a traditional smoking ceremony and Welcome to Country by the Yugambeh Aboriginal Dancers. At HOTA (Home of the Arts) that evening, I conceived and scripted a gutsy new vehicle reveal sequence: a performance that opened in complete darkness with a lone guitarist on the venue's proscenium arch, built through pyrotechnics and projection, and culminated in the car bursting through a split LED screen through rolling fog onto custom staging ramps above the crowd. The evening concluded with a headline set from Spiderbait. Every element, from the first cultural performance to the final rock concert, was scripted and directed to deliver a single narrative arc.
The Outcome
Post-event evaluations recorded the highest scores across all key performance indicators in the conference's history. By grounding the launch in a raw, real-world adventure narrative rather than aspirational fantasy, the network immediately connected with the vehicle's credentials and the brand's renewed direction. The event re-established dealer confidence, restored network alignment, and sent 200 Dealer Principals back to their businesses motivated and ready to sell.
The Challenge
For over three decades, Toyota Motor Corporation Australia ran separate conferences for separate parts of its network. In August 2023, for the first time in the company's history, 1,000 people — corporate Teammates, Dealer Principals and frontline sales staff — were brought together under one roof. The mandate was significant: unite a diverse, siloed network behind a single vision, and simultaneously transition the brand's identity from a traditional automotive company to an electrified mobility leader. With the arrival of Toyota's first Battery Electric Vehicle and the next-generation Prado both launching at the event, the creative had to carry enormous strategic weight.
My Role
I was Creative Director and Senior Copywriter, responsible for the overarching creative concept, the narrative framework, the visual and spatial design direction, and all written communications for the event. My role spanned the entire experience from the moment guests arrived to the final reveal at the Gala Dinner.
The Strategic Idea
The concept, "Powerhouse: Strength From Within," was built on a single insight: the real power of Toyota Australia isn't just the vehicles. It's the people who sell, service and believe in them. That reframe shifted the event away from a traditional product showcase and positioned every attendee as a central character in the brand's story. The visual language I directed expressed this literally, with Electric Blue neon rising through classic Toyota Red across all touchpoints, representing the transition from combustion to electrification while keeping the brand's identity anchored and recognisable.
What I Led and Delivered
I developed the creative concept and narrative framework that governed every element of the three-day event. I directed the spatial design language across the Melbourne Showgrounds Exhibition Pavilion, including the modular stand architecture, the central spine layout, the tiered vehicle presentation strategy, and the visual threading that connected the showcase floor to the plenary and Gala Dinner environments. I wrote all event communications across the program. I provided creative direction on the bZ4X plenary reveal and the Prado Gala Dinner reveal sequence, ensuring both moments landed as narrative peaks within the larger story arc rather than isolated product announcements. I also oversaw the creative direction for each of the 22 corporate department stands, maintaining visual and thematic consistency across a highly complex, multi-stakeholder environment.
The Outcome
Toyota Powerhouse 2023 was the largest gathering in Toyota Australia's history. Brand confidence scores rose measurably across both the Teammate and Dealer networks. The event successfully unified a network that had never shared a room before, and delivered Toyota's electrification story with the scale and conviction the moment required.
The Challenge
The 2014 International Fleet Review marked the centenary of the Royal Australian Navy's first fleet entry into Sydney Harbour. The challenge was to create a live spectacular worthy of that history, on one of the world's most iconic stages, in front of a national and international audience. The event needed to tell a century of naval history with emotional resonance and theatrical scale, using Sydney Harbour itself as the canvas.
My Role
I was Senior Copywriter and co-creative on the project, with responsibility for the narrative that underpinned the entire event. On the night, I worked as an event producer aboard one of the seven participating Navy vessels, coordinating live show moments including blank ammunition fire sequencing, lighting cues and crew staging as part of the live performance.
The Strategic Idea
The Opera House projections needed to do more than display imagery. They needed to tell a story that connected the audience to the human history of the Navy across a hundred years. The approach was narrative-first: each sequence of the projection was scripted as a chapter, giving the visual spectacle an emotional arc that moved audiences from the Navy's origins through to the present day.
What I Led and Delivered
I personally wrote the narrative framework and script for the Opera House projection, co-developed the content that brought it to life visually across both sides of the building, and wrote the live show script that choreographed the performance on the harbour. On the night I moved from writer to producer, coordinating real-time show elements aboard a vessel, ensuring the live performance landed as scripted against the backdrop of seven ships, fireworks launched from the fleet, and a national television broadcast on the ABC.
The Outcome
The Royal Australian Navy International Fleet Review Spectacular was the first live event ever to project simultaneously on both sides of the Sydney Opera House. Seven Navy vessels participated in a choreographed live harbour performance broadcast nationally on the ABC. The event was watched by hundreds of thousands of people on the foreshore and millions more on television, and stands as one of the most technically and creatively ambitious live events ever staged in Australia.
The Challenge
In 2020, Mastercard faced a significant perception problem. Known primarily as a credit card company, the brand needed to reposition itself as a technology-first business in the minds of its most important commercial audiences. The Global Experience Centres were conceived as the vehicle for that shift: permanent, immersive environments in Sydney, Dubai, New York and Singapore where Mastercard could demonstrate its technology capabilities directly to business clients and partners. The challenge was not simply to showcase products. It was to make each visit feel like a personalised, consultative experience that left every client with a clear understanding of how Mastercard's technology could solve their specific business problems.
My Role
I was Senior Copywriter with full narrative ownership of the experience. I wrote the storytelling strategy that governed how clients moved through the space, the content for each individual storytelling zone, and the scripting for the MultiTaction table, the centrepiece interactive element that personalised each client's journey. The flow of the experience and the story it told were mine.
The Strategic Idea
The narrative approach I developed was built on a single insight: Mastercard's technology is only meaningful when it is seen through the lens of the client sitting in the room. Rather than presenting a fixed product showcase, I structured the experience as a consultative journey. The MultiTaction table I scripted functioned as the opening chapter, using a lens-based navigation system to capture each client's priorities and build a tailored profile that then shaped every subsequent zone they experienced. The story changed depending on who was telling it.
What I Led and Delivered
I wrote the narrative framework that gave the entire experience its flow and logic. I developed the content for each storytelling zone, covering community solutions, products, innovation and data services, ensuring each zone connected to the overarching repositioning story rather than functioning as a standalone product display. I scripted the MultiTaction table interaction, including the lens navigation journey, the data capture and profiling sequence, and the personalised roadmap output that each client took away at the conclusion of their visit. I also scripted the closing Innovation Map experience, which translated the client's identified priorities into a tangible, actionable growth roadmap. The wider creative and technology team built and delivered the environments. The story those environments told was mine.
The Outcome
Prior to the disruption caused by COVID-19, the Mastercard Global Experience Centres recorded more than 500 client visits across Sydney, Dubai, New York and Singapore. The centres successfully repositioned Mastercard as a technology partner in the minds of its commercial audiences, moving the brand conversation away from payments and into the broader territory of data, innovation and business transformation. The personalised storytelling approach ensured no two visits felt the same, which was both the strategic intent and the creative achievement.
The Toyota Women’s Conference is an annual event, inviting women from across One Toyota to come together as part of a rich community to align and actively contribute to the 2030 People and 2025 DEIB strategies within Toyota Australia.
The theme of 2024’s event was ‘Thrive: Inspiring Progress Together’ – which was brought to life through a dynamic, live floral backdrop and media walls, and further emphasised via immersive lighting. These elements encouraged guests to photograph and share the event as well as take inspiration from it.
The vibrant space enabled all attendees to network, socialise and listen to a range of internal and external presenters covering topics including: imposter syndrome, overcoming limits, wellness, risk taking and finance. These were presented via a main plenary space as well as four breakout spaces. At the conclusion of the event, the main stage backdrop and media walls were removed and rearranged by professional florists to create bouquets for every guest to take as a parting gift from the day.
This segment-winning video was created to (mockingly) pitch the idea that euthanasia should be compulsory for anyone over 80 years old. It caused a lot of controversy, but was (oddly) championed by euthanasia advocate groups after airing.
