Our Young Guns profile takes a weekly look at some of the young talent across the advertising, ad tech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles, people and companies across the buzzing industry.
Today we speak to Isobar Australia associate strategy director Stephen Graham.
Time in current role/time at the company:
Two years, five months.
How long have you been in the industry?
Ten years there about.
How did you get here? Was this always the plan?
Absolutely not the plan. I wanted to be a journalist, but post GFC publishing in the UK wasn’t that appealing. I did write though, and before moving to Australia and getting into strategy I was the managing editor of Jaguar and Land Rover’s digital and print customer magazines.
Who is your right-hand person/who guides you day to day?
I’m lucky, I have two - my pet dog Winston and my sage like boss Shaz (Sharon Behen, our exec strat director).
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
Being able to connect all the things that are changing in the world, like culture and technology, to the one thing that doesn’t change – people. That’s also what attracted me to working at Isobar.
And the biggest challenge?
Meaningful reinvention.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
That job doesn’t exist yet.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
1. Any Scorsese film.
2. Live comedy (Richard Pryor and Seinfeld).
3. Colleagues, friends and my fiancé.
My favourite advert is:
‘Power of wind’ – Epuron. I love everything about it and it reaffirms my belief that there’s never a boring product, only boring ads.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I’m actually really funny. Just a shame they haven’t realised yet.
In five years' time I'll be:
Happy. And as long as I’m still working with interesting people, on interesting things, that shouldn’t be too difficult to achieve.
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