Kia ora and welcome to the Kātoitoi 2021 podcast series. This is a special limited edition podcast series of five interviews commissioned by Creative New Zealand as a part of the 2020 Kātoitoi pilot. This interview and illustration sits within a series of commissioned essays, interviews, podcasts and artworks to be published over 12 weeks supported by CNZ. In this special series we’ll hear from five of the review panel, each of whom looked at work within three categories to help select the final complied archive for this year. Kia ora I’m Louise, Design Assembly Founder and Director and today I’m talking to Maria Devereux. Maria is Executive Creative Director at Colenso BBDO in New Zealand, recently named Cannes Lions agency of the decade for the Pacific Region. Having started her career at Colenso BBDO as a designer, she’s since worked in creative roles both locally and internationally on a range of clients including Google, BMW/MINI, Air New Zealand, Viagra Canada and MARS Global Petcare. In 2019 she was named in Adweek’s Creative 100 and in 2020 she co-created a leadership program designed to bring empathy to the way we work and lead. She is a passionate member of the Mentally Healthy Change Group in Australasia and was recently awarded a Certificate of Excellence at Campaign Asia’s Women Leading Change Awards. She’s collected over 100 international and local awards for her work at multiple shows including two One Show Grand Prix and three One Show Gold for her work on Pedigree SelfieSTIX.