Equality Media + Marketing topped the list of 2025’s Best Places to Work in the Media and Marketing category by the Australian Financial Review (AFR) and BOSS Magazine.
The publication’s annual Best Places to Work list recognises and celebrates the achievements of the best small, medium and large organisations in nine industry categories.
The list and awards are based on anonymous staff survey, written submission, including academically grounded and human-centred framework designed to assess workplace experiences such as culture, policies, employee experience and best practice workplace strategies.
Equality Media + Marketing
Marilla Akkermans and EMM team
The Melbourne-based agency was named the #1 place to work in marketing and media in the Australian Financial Review’s 2025 Best Places to Work list-marking the third consecutive year the independent agency has been recognised on a national stage.
Equality has built a reputation as one of Australia’s most progressive and people-first workplaces, leading industry transformation through its four-day workweek at full pay, groundbreaking gender equity initiatives, and a culture of radical transparency and care.
“When you put people first, everything else falls into place. Creativity soars, trust deepens and the work gets better,” Marilla Akkermans, founder and managing director of Equality Media + Marketing, said.
With three straight AFR wins under its belt, Equality has proven that small agencies can drive large-scale change.
“We’ve always believed that small independent agencies don’t have to play small,” strategy director Leah Cioccio said.
“Being recognised alongside national and global organisations shows that values-led businesses is not only viable – it’s powerful. We’re not interested in being the biggest,” Akkermans added. “We’re here to be the best – for our people, our clients and the future of work.”
iProspect Australia
iProspect Sydney team
iProspect Australia has placed eighth on the 2025 AFR BOSS Best Places to Work List. It is the second consecutive year for the dentsu agency to be featured on the annual list, recognised for creating a motivating and productive workplace that consciously creates cultures, policies, structures and environments to enable iProspect to push boundaries by fusing brand-building with a performance mindset.
iProspect’s success focuses is demonstrated via its media-I results marking it as one of the happiest agencies in Australia and growing NPS and TRR scores.
iProspect Melbourne team
Marcelle Hoyek, iProspect national managing director, said: “It is a testament to the ongoing work by the iProspect team that we have been recognised as a Best Place to Work for the second consecutive year.
“Culture is incredibly important to the overall success of iProspect, we are an engaged team who love coming to work and pushing to do better work than the day before. Our vision for iProspect is underpinned by our culture, it is the fuel that has accelerated our growth and that of our clients.”
dentsu QLD
dentsu QLD team
Making its debut on the AFR and Boss Magazine list in ninth spot is dentsu QLD. The agency’s spot on the list comes after a year of double-digit revenue growth powered by their mission to inspire remarkable behaviours and an innovative approach to unlocking growth for its people that has driven internal engagement and NPS to record highs.
The agency’s managing director Chris Ernst said: “I am incredibly proud of the momentum we are experiencing as a team and am even more proud to say that every person in our agency has played a part in it.
“Our commitment to our purpose, values, and mission is unwavering and has helped to create an environment where our people give to each other, which has resulted in growth for our people, our partners, our business, and our community.”
In the past 12 months, dentsu QLD’s general manager Emily Cook won Mediaweek’s ‘Next of the Best’ Culture Award while the agency picked up new business including Good Drinks Australia.
The Media Store
Left: The Media Store’s Jacquie Alley and Stephen Leeds. Right: The Media Stores’s special award for Belonging
The Media Store was recognised on the AFR and Boss Magazine list as a finalist for the ‘Media and Marketing’ category and receiving the ‘Belonging’ award, one of five special awards, on the night which make up the BEING acronym to what makes a best place to work – Belonging, Energising, Integrating, Nurturing and Generating.
The agency was recognised as the standout organisation, across all industries, for facilitating a sense of Belonging within its culture, for its success in creating a workplace where employees feel accepted, included and valued.
“The Media Store has all the ingredients for a best place to work, from meaningful staff benefits, individual flexibility, extensive learning and development and true collaboration,” The Media Store, chief operating officer, Jacquie Alley, said.
“But what sets us apart is that we are values-led. We value our intergenerational team, and we go beyond inclusion to a true sense of belonging where everyone is seen and heard.
“We are honoured to be named in the special awards category, ‘Belonging’. As famous diversity speaker Verna Meyers once said, diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance. However, belonging is when they play your favourite song on the dancefloor.
“We truly want all of our people to shine and be known as themselves, to be asked to dance and have their song played, to feel they are part of something bigger than themselves. That there is a welcoming and important place for them at work at The Media Store. It’s been a big week for the agency, with a new client on the horizon and now acknowledgement that our team really do feel that they belong. We are so excited for what’s to come.”
Top image (left to right): Equality Media + Marketing, iProspect Sydney, dentsu Queensland, The Media Store’s Jacquie Alley and Stephen Leeds