. . .

About me

Maria is the Head of Innovation and Executive Creative Director at Accenture Song, North America. Based in Los Angeles, working across North America and usually found out at the magical intersection of creativity, innovation and humanity.

Previously Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Creative Director at Colenso BBDO, Cannes Lions Agency of the Decade (Pacific Region) for the last two decades, her passion for creativity is deeply ingrained. In her role at Accenture Song she's working at the forefront of new realities and creative technology, helping bring to life David Droga's vision to build the 'the world's largest tech powered creative group'.

She is currently ranked #1 Creative in New Zealand by The One Show, ranked #35th ECD globally by The Drum's World Creative Rankings and was listed in Creativepool's top 100 creative leaders for 2023. In 2020 she was awarded a Certificate of Excellence at Campaign Asia's Women Leading Change Awards and in 2019 she was named in Adweek's Creative 100. She's collected over 400 international and local awards for her work, has judged at D&AD, One Show, Clio, Spikes, Caples and New York Festivals and sat on the executive jury at Canada's ADCC Awards, Gerety and Australia's Award Awards and was Convener of Judges at the New Zealand Axis Awards.

Her passion for creative innovation helped build Pedigree SelfieSTIX - the world's first doggie AR filters, light Auckland's iconic harbor bridge with over 96,000 solar powered lights to demonstrate the city's commitment to becoming 100% renewable, create a treehouse restaurant for Yellow Pages halfway up a redwood tree, an in-flight fashion show for Air New Zealand which took two years to receive civil aviation approval, a digital tool for NZ Breast Cancer Foundation which uses haptic technology to teach your hands how to check for breast cancer, wrap a New York water tower in 50 kilometres of yarn for D&AD's call for entries and spend four weeks in an RV roaming from New York to Los Angeles to share the music of America from a Samsung 'smartphone' before influencers were even born (literally).

In 2016 she returned home to Colenso BBDO, the same place she started her career, winning six Cannes lions in her first six years as an Art Director. In addition to the 11+ years she spent at Colenso, Maria has held creative leadership roles at Special Group NZ and Y&R NZ.

Maria is passionate about the creative industries and in her role at Accenture Song, she's uniquely positioned to explore how emerging technologies can enhance our creativity - not detract from it. With the rise of technology, we're experiencing a loss of humanity. So with a belief that human creativity has never been more important, Maria has recently developed 'How to Stay Human' in partnership with Dr Graham Mead.

See full profile details

Details

ContractPerm, Freelance, Temp-Perm, Part time, Remote

LocationLos Angeles, United States

Skill LevelJunior, Middleweight, Senior, Director

Tagged Job TitlesExecutive Creative Director

Achievements

Contributor:

Maria has been a Contributor since 25th November 2015.

Top 100 Creative Leaders3Judge x 3

See all achievements

Recommendations

Currently No Recommendations

Activity

Connections0

Followers127 Following1

Views2,511

Creativepool member since 12 February 2020

Maria's Followers

Pradeep Upadhyay

Brand Consultant, Triyom Realty

India

Connect

View profile
Marius Tatu

Retoucher, Mobexpert

Romania

Connect

View profile
Joe Marshall

Creative Director, Joe FX

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile
23

Punctum

Czech Republic

Follow

View profile
Joe Brooks

Account Director, Creativepool Ltd

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile
Hkn

Retoucher, color grader, photographer, movie maker, Freelance

Turkey

Connect

View profile
Daniel

Professor

Brazil

Connect

View profile
Michael Tomes

Founder, Creativepool

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile
Collins Wafula

CEO & Director,, Colstar Production Ltd

Kenya

Connect

View profile
Chatchai Butsabakorn

Executive Creative Director, VML

Thailand

Connect

View profile
Anirudh Srinivasan

3D Motion Designer, Anirudh Studios

India

Connect

View profile
Megan Hooke

United States

Connect

View profile
Mikołaj Strug

Senior Architectural Designer, Populous

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile
Joshua Luke

CEO, BlkVision Media

United States

Connect

View profile
2

Sally Owen

Global Transformation Lead, Publicis Groupe

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile
Lisa Rich

Event Organizer at Arts management, New International Performing Arts Institute (NIPAI)

Germany

Connect

View profile
Niklas Mattsson

Business Development Manager, 4IRE

Sweden

Connect

View profile
James Weiss

Join our team as a Blockchain Engineer/a Web3 Designer, Big Drop Inc

United States

Connect

View profile
2

Rebecca Little

Head of Marketing & Communications, Ericsson

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile
Karrik Sulakhe

Creative & Artwork Designer, Founder, Dekoo

United Kingdom

Connect

View profile

« First ‹ Prev

Next ›Last »

OOPS - LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVE JAVASCRIPT OFF. THIS SITE WON'T WORK WITHOUT IT.
NEED HELP IN TURNING IT ON? YOU CAN FIND INSTRUCTIONS HERE FOR YOUR BROWSER.