Being selected to the 2024 LIA Creative LIAisons Mentee Program to get coached by the very best of the industry was one of my biggest honours of 2024.
I am so Grateful to LIA for selecting me and to TBWA\Hunt Lascaris for putting me forward and all thanks to my most successful campaign ‘Stronger,’ which won so many local and global awards in 2023 and 2024. It is my most proudest piece of work to date.
I was so privileged to get coached by Tolga Buyukdoganay, Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy Amsterdam; Josh Rabinowitz, Music Consultant at Brooklyn Music Experience and Damon Stapleton, Co-Founder / Chief Creative Officer at The Monkeys. I learnt something different from each coach.
Damon is an ex-South African, now living in New Zealand and former Group Executive Creative Director at TBWA\ Hunt Lascaris (before my time). He is a known legend and the person who did the “Zimbabwean,” which was one of the most awarded campaigns to come out of Hunt Lascaris. When I heard he was going to be my coach I was extremely excited. Not only is Damon one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, he gave me skills on how to trust my gut and how to start becoming my own leader and not try to be one of my mentors, to truly become Mikaela Elkon. That advice left me with confidence when taking on new projects and presenting myself not only to clients, but to the industry.
Josh was the coach I chose who was a bit out of my field as he is in music, but that was the point, I wanted to learn something different. After doing ‘Stronger,’ which was a song that we made in honor of late rapper Riky Rick, who lost his battle to mental health, we used his words from his social media posts as lyrics and AI for his voice as an anthem for mental health. That project sparked me wanting to get into music a bit more. Josh and I discussed that in depth. I said to him, “I don’t have a music background so I don’t know how to chase music more,” his response; “Clive Davis was a lawyer and music is a universal language that has a space for anyone who wants to fight for it”. Josh introduced me into a whole new creative world and has put me in contact with people in the business whom I have created relationships with.
Tolga is probably the coach that has really become a full on life-long mentor and someone I really aspire to work with in the future. The first thing he asked me was ‘what are your goals’ and my response was to work abroad and he promised to make that our goal and that’s exactly what we are achieving to do together. Tolga is extremely supportive and follows all my achievements and gives me so much encouragement and applause. I have gotten the most growth by getting to have catch-ups with him every month and I am so grateful that he gives me the time. After all, he only signed on for three one-hour sessions!
Not only do I have these amazing coaches working at TBWA\Hunt Lascaris, I am so blessed to have my boss Keith Manning, who is my ECD and who has taken me under his wing and teaches me something new everyday that I bring into my growth. We have one of the best working relationships. Thanks to our project ‘Stronger’ he treats me more as his creative partner than his junior and encouraged me to push the project and trusted me to lead it.
I also have to give thanks to Carl Willoughby, CCO at TBWA\ Hunt Lascaris, who challenged me the most to achieve what I have and without him I wouldn’t have had this amazing life changing opportunity of being a 2024 LIA Mentee.
Thank you LIA for giving me this opportunity, this really felt like a huge achievement in my career and I’m so proud to have been part of this.
