Young Gun profiles takes a look at the young talent across the Australian advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector. Aiming to shed light on the varying roles, people and companies across the buzzing industry.
Jess Sutanto, planning director at BMF
Time in current role/time at the company:
I’ve been in my current role for about six months, and at BMF a year and eight months.
How long have you been in the industry?
Almost eight years.
How did you get here? Was this always the plan?
Brand planning was the loose plan, I just really took the scenic route.
I started in traffic, then had a long stint in account service, a short time in CRM planning, and then finally into brand planning. Honestly getting here was really lucky, I was fortunate enough to work with incredibly supportive planners who were willing to take a chance on, and teach, one of the many account managers who wanted to make the move.
Who is your right-hand person/who guides you day to day?
Christina Aventi is my right hand person, boss, mentor, coach and therapist.
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
The combination of work and people. The opportunity to go deep on so many parts of human life, that’s equally academic and pop culture driven, then lets you throw it all around with creative and talented people to produce a business result.
And the biggest challenge?
Making sure to get enough stim. As our time gets crunched it’s too easy to draw on comfort sources. So, being rigorous with inputs, checking my own bias, and safeguarding time to twiddle my thumbs, see, feel, watch, read, and experience things for the sake of it, not just in the context of a brief.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
Not a job, but I’d love to be able to do the job like Christina.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
Controversially, my emails – I’ve signed up to too many newsletters from people and publications far more creative and thoughtful than I am, they’re all just sitting in an enormous unread folder in my inbox waiting.
Otherwise, people. I love getting into other people’s brains and try to get to as many talks, concerts and events as possible.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, all the time. So much so that as a student I was convinced I had narcolepsy.
In five years' time I'll be…
Still loving what I do and sharing that with others.
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