Staff Reporters
Nov 21, 2024

Women to Watch 2024: Elle Bullen, Bullfrog

A brutal battle with cancer may have forced Bullen to pause her career, but her fire to produce meaningful work and challenge gender conformities continue to burn.

Women to Watch 2024: Elle Bullen, Bullfrog
SEE ALL OF THE 2024 WOMEN TO WATCH
Celebrating outstanding talent in marcomms

Elle Bullen

Partner and executive creative director
Bullfrog
Australia 

Elle Bullen’s incredible story of resilience and hope is one that inspires many. In 2019, as co-founder of an independent creative agency, SickDogWolfMan, she was thriving. She was one of Australia’s most-awarded women creatives and was six months pregnant with her second child. 

Then, cancer hit. Life took a turn as she underwent treatment and performed a double mastectomy. Justifiably, the juggle between work, treatment, and rehab took a toll and she made the tough decision to leave the company and industry. Then, upon recovery in 2022, she joined Bullfrog as ECD on her own terms by working a day a week and continues to work part-time for the agency. 

Regardless of her part-time arrangement, Bullen’s impact at Bullfrog runs deep. Her creative team managed to snag new clients—including Ecosa Sleep, OxFam, ANZ Worldline, Australian Grand Prix Corporation, and Dineamic—resulting in a 60% increase in new business wins. 

Bullen also led two major projects, the first being Fair Advantage, a pro-bono residency programme to offer women-owned start-ups a creative and strategic edge, motivated by the lack of funding among women start-ups. Bullen helped to create a space for women to share knowledge and skills to even the playing field for women in business. Secondly, she oversaw the relaunch of Kic, a wellness app, by rejecting diet culture and toxic misconceptions around women’s health. 

In an industry infamous for overwork and tight deadlines, Bullen’s part-time ECD position may have inadvertently paved the path for flexibility to allow women to uphold senior positions at the agency. In fact, at Bullfrog, 21% of the team works part-time, allowing the firm a rare luxury of having more women in the creative department at a ratio of 5:3.

Behind this advocacy for boundaries in the workplace is an unapologetic Bullen, who has spoken about the topic at public forums. While she’s understandably “pissed off it took two run-ins with cancer” to wake up to the lack of flexibility and gender discrepancies in the industry, her drive to make an impact is now being heard by many.

SEE ALL OF THE 2024 WOMEN TO WATCH
Celebrating outstanding talent in marcomms

 

Source:
Campaign Asia

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