Duncan Shields

The Ad Man

More than twenty years of making ideas for brands, from early radio and interactive work to leading creative on Telstra.

2003

Learning to make things people notice

Started working in advertising in 2003, with radio and interactive work, before the career had a shape.

Earlier

The internet was still becoming part of the brief

RMG Connect / JWT London

Early digital and direct work at RMG Connect and JWT London, when the medium was still changing what a brief could be.

At 29

Creative Director at 29.

WPP / Enfatico · Dell

Joined the WPP/Dell Enfatico venture and became a Creative Director at 29. A quick education in ambition, pressure and the distance between a pitch and a living business.

DDB

Scale changes the job

Telstra · <p>Led creative on Telstra, then Australia’s largest advertiser. Scale makes the idea matter, but it also makes the decisions around the idea visible.</p>

Deloitte

Strategy before execution

<p>Worked within Deloitte’s Narrative Strategy practice, helping organisations find the story underneath the strategy.</p>

May 2020 → now

Building the thing instead of advising it

HUMBLE

Co-founded HUMBLE and spent six years learning what changes when the work has payroll, hiring and delivery attached. The creative work became inseparable from the responsibility around it.