Virginia is one of the pillars that Hatched is built on. A true veteran with twenty years experience in both creative and media agencies her industry knowledge is boundless, In her career she has worked on an incredibly diverse range of clients so whether it’s something you wear, something you eat or something you live in Virginia has the knowledge. Virginia also runs her own creative business and also runs two children. This proves that when it comes to multitasking, chicks rule. That last sentence proves that when it comes to misogyny men do.

Like a lot of people in the advertising and media game Andrew has worked in both Melbourne and London. He started his career in digital planning & buying and went on to have extensive experience in overall media strategy and channel planning.

In his 17-year career Andrew has worked across a range of big categories including energy, finance, telecommunications and travel. In London he worked on two of the biggest campaigns of their respective years. T-Mobile’s “Liverpool St. Dance” and “Welcome Home” both showcased real performers performing live in front of hundreds of unaware onlookers and resulted in millions of views.

A family man Andrew enjoys going on long family rides on the weekends. He also is currently in the midst of tending to a growing vinyl collection. We tend to think with his T-Mobile experience and music knowledge it’s just a matter of time before Andrew unleashes a spontaneous solo song and dance extravaganza through the Hatched offices.

Don’t keep us waiting too long Andrew!

This is Alyce. 10 years experience has taught her a few things about the media game.  From working on clients such as Hairhouse Warehouse she’s learned how to plan, buy, monitor, and that she likes getting her hair blow waved once a week. In her career Alyce has worked in agencies big and small on brands such as Target, L’Oreal and Spotlight. She has also learned one incredibly valuable thing – that’s if you put boxing’ in your list of hobbies your bio will be written very, very delicately.

With 14 years of media experience across some of the countries’ biggest clients Sharni brings a wealth of experience to Hatched.

In that time she has worked on big car brands like Ford, retail giants like Officeworks and Kmart and hair and skincare mainstay Garnier. She’s been involved in famous campaigns like the National Australia Bank’s ‘Break up with the other banks’ campaign while also finding time for more altruistic clients like the National Home Doctor Service.

Sharni loves minimal design and has recently rebuilt a 100-year old Edwardian house. Her minimal design is no doubt under constant threat by her two energetic sons. Sharni is also oddly enough a fan of excel spreadsheets outside the office and uses them to plan shopping expeditions and the like with military detail.

Another interesting thing to note about Sharni is that when she wrote dot points about herself she did it in third person. History has told us that this is a sign of either greatness or craziness. At Hatched we don’t hire crazy.

Emily, our new hatchling, is big on media experience. In her five plus years in the game she’s worked for big retailers like Bunnings and JB Hi Fi, big food manufacturers like Simplot and big toy distributors like Big Balloon.

Emily’s also got a big heart, as evidenced by her work for Oxfam and her adoption of a rescue dog Shadow, a beautiful Kelpie cross Heeler.

A spontaneous soul Emily and her husband got married at their engagement party. We don’t know if Shadow played a role!

Remy is another new communications coordinator here at Hatched. She comes to us after completing a course with the longest title ever – Bachelor Of Communications Majoring in Public Relations and Minoring in Marketing and Media at Swinburne University.

In her spare time Remy does intelligent things like watching documentaries and supporting Collingwood.

That last fact alone should tell you that Remy is incredible smart, beautiful and a born leader. Collingwood is also coincidentally, the same football team that the author of this bio supports.

Lucy has been in the media and marketing game for twenty years. (She also spent two years on client side but we don’t talk about that). In her time in media and marketing she has worked on some of Australia’s and the world’s biggest brands. Lucy has a child and, like a lot of parents, enjoys cooking, bushwalking and taking her three year old to the beach, unlike a lot of parents though Lucy never leaves her three year old at the beach. Lucy studies nutrition and has an innate knowledge of foodstuffs. This has made it exceptionally difficult to steal her lunch from the fridge.

Rae rocks. She’s only been in the game for 10 months but in that time she’s already worked on blue chip clients like Wesfarmers group.

Rae is well versed in media and beyond. She’s worked at TV stations in Australia, a magazine in China and has at one point, even been a professional Bollywood performer.

Rae loves music and loves to dance meaning Friday nights just got a lot more interesting in the hatchery.

Rowena is an individual and, at Hatched, we love to work with individuals. We like untraditional people. Those that have had careers in other fields and had true life experience. Rowena’s definitely one of those.

Which is not to say she has just entered the media game. She’s 16 years deep having spent some of that time working in the Philippines on their number one retail brand. She’s also worked on massive global brands like Uniqlo and Forever21 and worked with regional clients such as Samsung Electronics and FedEx. 

Part way into her media career Rowena took a hiatus to obtain her nursing license. After completing her course, she went back to media. Needless to say, if anyone ever takes a spill after Friday drinks we’re calling Rowena.

At Hatched we’re used to people transferring to the media industry from different disciplines. Rebecca is one of those who have taken a unique path to arrive at Hatched

Rebecca graduated from the University of Auckland majoring in psychology and philosophy. She then started her digital media career and, in 2006, moved to Melbourne. There she worked for Frank Media before beginning a ten-year stint at Dentsu Aegis.

Rebecca’s career highlights so far include the BMW Z4 launch where a troupe of actors acted out the media strategy for the clients in a presentation for the ages.

In her spare time Rebecca enjoys spending time with her kids and entertaining family and friends. Her husband is a keen cook, which means Rebecca gets to do drink duty. And through that subtle manipulation we see the power of the before mentioned psychology degree.

Aaron has spent the majority of his ten years in media working in SEM at advertising agencies. An acronym specialist he has also worked in CRO and SEO among others. Aaron has extensive experience across a number of categories and has worked across large businesses such as RMIT, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Jetstar, RACV, GE and Sensis.

Though he has worked on some massive businesses throughout his time Aaron’s career highlight has come from one of the smallest. Smiling Mind is a web and app based meditation program designed to bring more mindfulness into people’s lives. Aaron developed their search strategy that led to thousands of people downloading the app.

It is perhaps because of this mindfulness that Aaron is able to balance work, a family and a somewhat time consuming hobby. In his spare time Aaron enjoys creative writing. He writes articles about the struggles of daily life under the pseudonym “Adman” and is also working on his novel The Amber Table – A sci-fi thriller.

Our new account director Leanne Waters, has worked for 12 years in media and in that time has worked on an impressive list of clients that include STA Travel, Melbourne’s GPO, G Adventures, Carsales.com.au, Caradvice.com.au, Vileda, iRobot, Sumitomo Tyres and High Sierra.

One of the clients she’s most proud of is the charity Movember, who she has been working with for ten years. In that time she has seen it grow from the peach fuzz of 30 moustaches to the juggernaut of facial follicles that it has become. Movember now boasts 5 million “Mo Bros” and is a global non-for profit leader & movement in changing the face of Men’s Health.

Outside of work Leanne likes eating cheese and drinking wine. She also likes going camping, hiking and heading to the dog beach with her rescue puppy Frankie.  She also takes her dog to a thing called “Humming Puppy Yoga”. While I have no idea what that is you have to admit that it sounds awesome!

Leanne also likes Survivor but… who cares. Humming Puppy Yoga FTW!

The founder and fearless leader of Hatched is the man responsible for putting entrepreneurialism back into media.  And he’s a lot more than hard to pronounce eight syllable words. Jack is an anti jargon as they come. While he knows his ROIs from his CRMs he also knows the thing clients want most from their media agency is transparency and great service. And that is what Hatched delivers in spades.

Madeleine comes to Hatched after spending 6 years in store management, where she worked on brands like Subway and Dotti. Fast food and fast fashion quickly lost its lustre so she moved to the wonderful world of media.

Outside of work Madeleine loves going on adventures. As a footy fan she can be found following Sydney throughout the AFL season. She considers eating her passion and is so enamoured with the very concept that she wrote it in all caps in her bio.

A complex creature with contrasting hobbies Madeleine likes being active and strangely considers sunbathing as being active.

Craig’s first office job was at Advertising Investment Services and it came about because he applied when he initially thought their acronym, AIS, stood for Australian Institute of Sport.

Craig is no longer confused by acronyms. He holds a CPA and a Masters and has worked in agencyland both here and overseas. It’s fair to say he knows his ABCs, and his MAFS, ROIs and FMCGs.

Craig likes to relax with coffee. We encourage this. When stimulants are what you use to relax you tend to be an incredibly productive worker.

Nabeel studied I.T. at Mumbai University and worked in Mumbai, Dubai & Muscat before eventually moving to Melbourne in November 2014.

I.T. couldn’t hold Nabeel and he went on to spend three years producing social media content before moving to media where he has spent the last five years. In that time he has worked across clients like Mountain Dew, Oman Air, Simplot, Snooze, Bulla and more.

Like a true established Melbournian Nabeel likes to spend weekends people watching from cafés and enjoying new restaurants. Nabeel also professes to a love of football and is a diehard Liverpool FC supporter. He also follows AFL and has been a Tigers supporter since 2015 – so no bandwagon claims please.

Kimberley Leopoldo is another of our fresh Hatchlings. And when we say fresh we don’t mean inexperienced. After finishing advertising at RMIT Kimberley worked with clients like EnergyAustralia, Asahi Premium Beverages, Twining’s, Sukin, Caydon Property Group and Carmans Muesli.

In her spare time Kim and her friends explore Victoria, taking road trips, visiting Hanging Rock and travelling to other out of the way places. No stranger to the edge of danger Kimberly’s next mission is to go cliff diving!

Kimberley says her most interesting work to date has been on Asahi and Vodka Cruiser, which is sure to come to the fore at social events. Unfortunately, this is doubly worrying as Kim is a self-confessed social media junkie, adept at the quick pic snapchat post.

What happens at Hatched stays at Hatched Kimberley!

Vanessa, our new communications director, is a media veteran, having worked in the industry in Sydney and Melbourne for the better part of 16 years

In that time she’s worked across a wide range of brands in a wide range of categories. These include international and local big names like Universal Music, SEEK, Wotif, The Samsonite Group, Vileda, Nutribullet and Cake Boss Baking.

Vanessa has a 2 year old daughter, a 10 year old Labrador and a husband of indeterminate age. She loves exploring, keeping fit, decorating cakes and occasionally imbibing the finest wine our region has to offer.

As well as a media veteran Vanessa is also a Celine Dion concert veteran having seen the songstress in Las Vegas twice. I really don’t know if Hatched heart can go on Vanessa.

Janine is our new Finance Assistant. She started working in advertising while holidaying in London in the 1980s. After returning to Melbourne she toured all the big agencies in town – the DDBs, the Saatchis and the George Patts to name a few. Eventually Janine ventured into the glorious world of media where she now resides.

But to think media is all that Janine had going for her would be doing her a disservice. She has studied creative writing and completed a Masters in Screenwriting. If the Hatched agency suddenly finds itself the setting for a new age rom com we know who we’ll be looking at Janine!

There is an old adage that says ‘when life hands you lemons make lemonade’. This adage doesn’t apply to our new recruit Farah because when life handed her lemons she discovered that she enjoyed the taste.

Yes Farah eats lemons for fun. But odd fruit choices aren’t all she’s about.

Farah previously worked in an agency for two years and in that time worked on over forty accounts, which is some serious experience to embrace in a ridiculously small time period. She then moved to UNIQLO to work with a global brand and, while running their national search campaigns, increased their online revenue significantly year on year.

While Farah likes growing revenue she doesn’t like growing dogs and has a Chihuahua whose name is ‘Chi Chi’. This name is not only fun to say it helps remind people that the dog is not Pekingese.

We like it when people come to us from different professions. They question things. They ask why things are done in the way they are and sometimes their questions lead us to discover new approaches that enable us to improve ours and our clients’ businesses.

Our new Communications Coordinator, Harmony, comes to us from a hospitality background, where she has worked for the past ten years. Communication in hospitality often requires interpreting and comprehending orders from staff and patrons in chaotic environments – the perfect training for a job at Hatched!

Outside of work Harmony enjoys socializing, live gigs, drinking wine and eating cheese, which you would expect from someone with a hospitality background. What you wouldn’t expect is that she also enjoys snowboarding, skateboarding and extreme pursuits. We’re imposing a hallway skateboard speed limit for everyone’s safety until we can ascertain her skill level.

We’re stoked to have the extremely awesome Harmony join the team at Hatched!

Our new communications director Tori is a wellness fanatic that radiates health.

She started her media career back in 2002 working on Blockbuster and the Herald Sun. For those who don’t remember Blockbuster it was where you hired your Friends box set before Netflix came about.

Tori have worked both in Melbourne and Sydney for a multitude of agencies before deciding to go with the best one. She loves working on luxury brands and counts the Kallis Pearls launch with Natalie Imbruglia as a career highlight.

Tori is a background specialist and has been an extra in 10 ads. She is also a qualified yoga instructor, a fact she finds funny but the rest of us find intimidating.

While studying Marketing and Media at Murdoch Uni in Perth Adrian joined forces with two friends and started an advertising agency specialising in the hospitality industry.

After realising that his finance department was mostly accepting contra foodstuffs in lieu of payment Adrian moved to a full service advertising agency and enjoyed direct deposit pay checks and a well stocked fridge.

Since then Adrian has worked client side, managing global digital marketing programs, and agency side running specialised digital and integrated media agencies in a global communications holding group.

Outside of work Adrian has a full home life. He has a wonderful family with two boys and together they enjoy a wide range of outdoor pursuits.

To complete Adrian’s overachieving status he coaches the Williamstown under 9’s soccer team and for the past 4 years has been a Board Director for Crimestoppers Victoria. Proving it’s not just crime that doesn’t take a break.

Our new Communications Coordinator, Emily Stewart, is known as ‘Stewie’ because Australia lacks imagination when it comes to nicknames.

Emily is another fresh face here at Hatched. It’s her first job in the media industry and she arrives after studying a Bachelor of Design in digital media. Initially Emily was heading for the world of web design but after a brief foray decided that the world of media could offer infinitely more excitement.

She has arrived brimming with the exuberance of a young spirit embarking on an exciting new path and we’re going to try and siphon that exuberance and share it with the rest of the staff.

Fun fact. Instead of owning a dog Emily has a rabbit that thinks it’s a dog. This must prove to be incredibly cost effective.

With 19 years’ media experience Stephen is no stranger to the game. He’s worked in both the UK and Melbourne across the European and APAC markets.

Stephen’s a retail specialist who has been awarded for his work numerous times. Some of Australia’s biggest retailers, such as JB Hi Fi, Bunnings and Officeworks have used Stephen’s knowledge and intuition to further their business.

Stephen lives a very active life, or rather, Stephen’s kids live a very active life and he gets his exercise keeping up with them.

He’s currently sitting at 65% English and 35% Aussie. And he’s worried what happens when he gets to 51% Australian. Um… You’ll be able to expose your skin to the sun Stephen!

Our new recruit Ash brings to the Hatched family a heap of media experience. Ash knew from a young age that media was an above average medium and so embarked on a 3 year media and comms course. What followed was eleven years of working in the industry on such businesses as Lion Nathan, EGO Pharmaceuticals, Metcash Group and Loreal.

In her spare time Ash likes to go on day trips to explore new beaches and walking trails, finishing with a good meal at one of our glorious pubs. It’s not all outdoor exploits though, Ash also enjoys cooking, playing Nintendo and Melbourne’s recent lockdown has resulted in her embracing the artist within and explore her new hobby of painting.

We’ll be looking forward to hearing Ash’s country pub reviews, seeing her paintings and witnessing her self-proclaimed dominance over all things Mario Kart. We also feel the urge to remind Ash that the above things are all subjective and the next meal she enjoys may well be humble pie.

Reg is coming up on 7 years working in media across a variety of brands in categories such as Retail, Auto, Education and FMCG, recently making the exciting transition from a pure digital role into comms planning/ strategy.

Outside of work he enjoys running, cycling and going to the gym. He also enjoys playing video games, reading comics, watching movies and ‘tinkering’ with his PC! We’ll leave that alone.

Apparently he is not funny or interesting, but we laugh at him anyway.

Julie has an identical twin sister and so, if American comedies have taught us anything about twins, her life has been a rollercoaster ride filled with humorous hijinks, shameless shenanigans and hilarious cases of mistaken identity. In reality though Julie spent many years studying at Sonoma State University in California and Monash University in Melbourne earning both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree.

Being well travelled and well educated resulted in a wealth of experience. Julie has worked with auto brands at The San Francisco Chronicle during their transition to digital before moving to Australia where she worked for REA Group across their real estate portfolio in both Adelaide and Melbourne.

In her spare time Julie enjoys typical Melbourne pursuits like sampling new restaurants around town. She also enjoys country music, Mad Men and romance novels with a long haired Norse god on the cover. Julie is known to carry tabasco sauce in her purse at all times which we think is a brilliant if unorthodox self-defence weapon.

We hope it remains in your purse Julie!

Clare is one of our new Hatchlings. She comes to us with 4 years of media experience, having worked on L’Oreal and their three main signature brands, Garnier, Maybelline and L’Oreal Paris.

Clare loves camping and tries to get out of the city at least once a month. And when she’s not enjoying the great outdoors Clare enjoys hanging out with her 7 month old Staffy, Lucy.

Despite these normal habits Clare also has a penchant for cheeseboard combinations that some would describe as bordering on maniacal.

We’ve seated her far away from the kitchen to be safe.

Our new Communications Executive Bronte possibly has multiple personality disorder. After midnight on Saturday, she becomes multi lingual and morphs into Dora the Explorer.

While she possibly has multiple personality disorder Bronte definitely has multiple nationality disorder. Born in New Zealand she made the trip over the Tasman to study advertising at RMIT.

That move was followed by Bronte winning an influential job placement where she got to work on a range of clients. While these clients included Twinings, Don Smallgoods and Racing Victoria it was her work for the AFL that has become a career highlight to date and turned her into an avid AFL fan. She supports the Eagles which means she travelled from New Zealand to Melbourne to follow a club from Perth.

Bronte is going places!

Georgie comes from one of Australia’s most successful real estate websites realestate.com.au. That website may not be as successful now that Georgie’s left and joined Hatched because the girl is amazing and is as irreplaceable as they come.

Coming from that background means you can be sure Georgie knows property and how to market it.

Georgie enjoys walking with her cavoodle Archie and dining out. She also knows the moves to 90% of Dirty Dancing and isn’t afraid to let you know.

Our Christmas parties are about to get very interesting.

We have a media freshie with Lauren. Which isn’t to say she has spent her time idle. Lauren recently finished a Bachelor of Business Marketing at RMIT all the while working as a legal secretary. She was the marketing intern at the Olivia Newton John Cancer Wellness and Research centre as well as doing freelance marketing work. Needless to say she’s ready to hit the ground running.

Speaking of running Lauren is of the new breed that values wellness over richness. She loves cooking and her family, yet hardly ever cooks her family members.

Lauren likes to make her bed in the morning and keep her wardrobe colour coordinated. This makes total sense in Sydney but falls flat once you realise Melbourne is more about the black than the fuchsia.