Nicky Bryson joins Telstra as new Head of Creative Excellence

Telstra has appointed renowned strategist Nicky Bryson as its new Head of Creative Excellence.

Bryson will step into the role in late January, following an extensive career spanning agency leadership, consulting and brand transformation.

Her background includes senior strategy roles at TBWA, M+C Saatchi and Leo Burnett, along with a pivotal chapter helping build PwC’s CMO Advisory.

In 2020, she co-founded Tenet Advisory & Investments’ Brand & Customer practice.

Bryson brings a broad mix of strategic experience to the role, having begun her career as a qual/quant researcher at House of Brand before moving into creative agencies and consultancies. She has worked across major brands including Woolworths, CBA, GIO, Myer, Caltex, Vodafone and Nestlé, as well as government clients, start-ups and scale-ups.

Bryson is also the founder of mentoring initiative The Trenches, launched in 2019, which has facilitated more than 1,500 mentoring sessions for emerging creative talent. She is an alum of The Marketing Academy leadership program.

Telstra CMO Brent Smart (right) shared the news in a LinkedIn post: “We set the ambition at Telstra to be the most creative brand from this part of the world and we will only be that if we work with the most creative people from this part of the world. When it comes to strategists, Nicky is indeed one of them.

“Nicky has applied creative thinking across many contexts as an advisor, consultant and agency strategic leader. Now she can add inside a major brand to that list.

Smart noted that the role will also focus on developing creative capability across the business, describing it as a blend of strategy, teaching and coaching.

Smart also confirmed Telstra’s agency model remains unchanged: “Importantly, this changes nothing for our brilliant creative partners at +61 and Bear Meets Eagle On Fire, except that they will get even better briefs and closer partnership.”

Bryson officially joins Telstra at the end of January.

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