Congratulations to the Cannes Young Lions Winners!

This week I had the pleasure of competing as a finalist in the Cannes Young Lions Australia competition for 2017 which was without a doubt, one of the most challenging, rewarding and enlightening experiences of my career so far (despite it just beginning!)

The bootcamp kicked off on Tuesday with a great motivational pep-talk from Richard Sauerman who delivered the hard hitting no-bullshit advice I needed to get me amped up for the challenge ahead. Our charity client for the next day's brief was then revealed; we were to be working with AIME (Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience) which is an amazing initiative to help bridge the gap between indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians graduating from high school through mentoring. We were lucky to then be taken off-site and treated to a walking tour through the heartland of Indigenous inner Sydney and a mentoring session AIME's own Jake Thompson to help familiarise ourselves with this amazing charity and to inspire us with the work they do.

The next day, we met bright and early with AIME's CEO & founder, Jack Manning-Bancroft who delivered our brief; to make mentoring famous via National Hoodie Day. Armed with the brief and 24-hours to complete our response, we set to work to try and crack it. It was an extremely challenging undertaking, one that I was not expecting! As a junior team, I never realised how much I relied on my creative directors for guidance or how I relied on needing to walk away or sleeping on the brief to gain some fresh perspective, so it was a very interesting test of my partner and my creative process. I am so grateful for the experience and how much we both learned from taking part in the challenge and I think it will make us better creatives, not only for next years should we make finalists again, but also for our entire career.

Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up in all categories, but in particular to my colleagues, Tristan Viney and Rosie Stone for securing the runner-up position of cyber category and fellow Ogilvilians Alex Little and Karsten Jurkschat from the Melbourne office for taking out first place, also in the Cyber category. I also want to extend a big congrats to the print category winners and new friends, Jenna Morrissey and Rachel Harley - a well deserved win in a very challenging category. I wish you all the best when you represent Australia in Cannes Young Lions and SPIKES in Singapore this year.

And on that note - bring on next year cos we are coming back with a vengeance!