Look, Mum. I'm a Hall Of Famer.

Proof that winging it is a legitimate strategy.

Tonight, I was inducted into the British Interactive Media Association’s Hall of Fame.

Which feels… surreal. And slightly absurd, in the best possible way.

Because this wasn’t part of the plan. Mostly because there was no plan.

I’ve worked at some of the best agencies in the business. Sat at tables with brilliant minds. Learned from people whose craft I still admire deeply. And yet, I never really fit.

I chafed at the structures. I asked the questions that derailed the brief. I couldn’t stay in my lane. I felt like an outsider in the very rooms I’d fought so hard to be in.

And after years of trying to shape-shift my way into belonging, I stopped.

I hopped off the agency track. Walked away from the titles, the ladders, the safety of the system. I went it alone.

Which many people thought was insane. And honestly, I think I did too.

Because I didn’t have a roadmap, I just had a restlessness. A voice I couldn’t quiet. And a need to build something that felt more honest, more human, more mine.

I chose my own voice, over the approval of others.
Friction over fitting in.
Freedom over a borrowed sense of belonging.

And I made peace a long time ago with the idea that those choices meant opting out of moments like this.

So to be recognised tonight, by this industry, is strange and beautiful and more than a little overwhelming.

I’m grateful. For the belief, the backing, the votes of confidence in my work, my words, and the weird, winding path I’ve taken.

But this doesn’t feel like a finish line. It feels like a marker. A reminder to keep going. To keep building in public. To keep questioning what doesn’t sit right. To keep using my voice, even when silence would be easier.

And if, like me, you’ve spent years feeling slightly out of step; too curious, too challenging, never quite slotting in—then maybe this is a small signal: you don’t have to.

Anyway, this is all to say - Thank you, truly. For seeing me. For trusting the work. For making space for the unorthodox path.

I shared a few words for my acceptance. You can read them in full here:

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I've been staring at blank pages for weeks, wrestling with how to begin. Not because words fail me, but because this moment—being recognised by peers I deeply admire, in a room full of people shaping our collective future, it defies easy expression.

I never dreamed of standing here. Because I refused to play by the rules that supposedly lead here. I haven't followed any prescribed path. I didn't climb the ladder. I've never been an agency kingmaker—nor have I ever desired that crown.

My journey has been gloriously messy. Defiantly non-linear. Forged through intuition rather than calculation.

I've walked the hallowed halls of Naked Communications, Droga5, Ridley Scott Creative Group. Names we invoked like incantations in our industry. Institutions that bestow legitimacy.

Yet standing inside those coveted rooms, I remained an outsider looking in. Not for lack of passion, but because I always moved to a different drumbeat. I asked the uncomfortable questions. I demanded the bigger picture when briefs insisted on tunnel vision. I needed to understand the entire ecosystem, not just execute another task.

For years, I believed I was broken. That if I could just file down my edges, soften my voice, silence my questions, I would finally belong.

But belonging never came. Not on their terms.

So I made the most terrifying choice of my career: I stopped trying to fit. And instead, I began listening to the friction.

I walked away from the safety of the agency machine and stepped into the wilderness. No titles to hide behind. No hierarchy to climb. No structure to define me. Just my raw self, with my work, my observations, and the questions that refused to be silenced. And in that vulnerable, exposed space, everything transformed.

I began writing. With ideas still unfinished and in formation. I shared what I was seeing in real time, as I was still making sense of it. My goal wasn't to impress or position, but to discover if others felt the same dissonance burning inside them.

They did.

What returned wasn't the silence I feared. It was electric recognition. Messages that declared: "I thought I was alone out here." Connections forged through shared truth. Conversations that validated the very questions I'd been taught to swallow.

That revelation shattered my understanding of what constitutes impact. Because it was never about broadcasting finished wisdom from on high. It was about creating brave spaces, where others could finally recognise themselves, and find language for what they'd been carrying in isolation.

This rhythm; of noticing, naming, and sharing without pretense, became more than practice for me. It became revolution. A methodology anchored not in pedestaled expertise, but in fierce curiosity. Not in polished performance, but in raw participation. Not in absolute certainty, but in offering what I have, while I have it, before the moment passes.

When I wrote about the quiet rage women carry beneath professional smiles, Or the crushing weight of working motherhood with its invisible labour, its relentless emotional and professional taxation, Or the vertigo of abandoning institutional safety, Or how identity and technology are fundamentally rewiring belonging in our culture

The aim was always the same: To illuminate what hides in the shadows. To articulate what floats, formless, in our collective fog. To leave behind tools, not just clever hot takes.

Because once you work this way, once you’re stripped of armour, without gatekeeping, you discover this essential truth: You don't need to be the loudest voice to ignite change. You simply need the audacity to go first. To make your thinking accessible when others withhold theirs. To say, "Here's what I'm witnessing—perhaps you're seeing it too."

Right now, this ethos of openness, of collective navigation, isn't just virtuous. It's vital. Because we aren't standing on solid ground anymore. The terrain beneath us is shifting violently; economically, technologically, culturally. The ladders we were promised are splintering under our very weight. The playbooks we memorised have become dangerous fiction.

Increasingly, people find themselves adrift; between identities, between certainties, between what was promised and the harsh reality of what is. In such unstable times, our instinct is to retreat behind walls. To wait for absolute clarity that never comes. To hoard our knowledge and guard our learnings as if they were scarce resources. But when everyone withholds, that's when all momentum dies. And that collective paralysis doesn't protect us. It abandons us to isolation.

If we're all clutching what we know, what we've witnessed, what we've painfully learned, then we're condemning each other to start from zero. To navigate blindfolded through minefields. To face the same bewilderment alone.

We can no longer afford this self-protective instinct. Not now. The change is too ruthless. Systems too fragile. The cost of silence too catastrophic.

So I invite us—no, I implore us to model what this moment requires. Not calculated expertise. But raw, unflinching presence. Not unattainable perfection. But urgent, messy participation. Not territorial gatekeeping. But radical generosity, especially when instinct tells us to retreat to our own fortress.

For those recognised here tonight, this charge carries even greater weight.

In this room—among the BIMA 100—you hold more than recognition. You wield influence. Visibility. Power. Being among the BIMA 100 isn't just an honour on your LinkedIn profile. It's a platform from which others take their cues, and with that comes a very real responsibility. Because people aren't just watching you. They're deciding their own courage based on yours. Looking to see how you respond; not during comfort, but when the ground shakes beneath us.

In this moment of change, true leadership isn't about commanding attention. It's about creating illumination. Not waiting for complete understanding before sharing. But offering what you've learned while still discovering. Not building monuments to individual achievement. But creating networks of possibility that outlast us.

From this stage, I ask you to become the example this industry desperately needs. Show others how to extend possibility rather than protect position. Demonstrate how to harness change rather than merely withstand it. Embody how to navigate with integrity when certainty is a luxury none of us have.

Because generosity in an age of scarcity isn't just radical. It's revolutionary. It lifts with quiet force. It resonates beyond the moment. It transforms what we all believe to be achievable.

This Hall of Fame recognition isn't for my certainty or expertise. It's for all those moments I chose to share what I was still figuring out—like a night early in my career when I sat in my kitchen at 2 AM, finger hovering over "publish," terrified that I had nothing worth saying. That vulnerability never gets easier. But I've learned that our most valuable contributions live in that uncomfortable space between certainty and silence.

Tonight, I accept this honour alongside you, the BIMA 100, not as achievement, but as renewed commitment to our shared responsibility: To make generosity our default stance in uncertain times.

Because in the end, our legacy will be measured not by what we achieved for ourselves, but by how many others could see further, because we lifted them to stand on our shoulders.

Thank you.