We’re pleased to welcome Laurel Cook as Strategy Director for our Australian business. Laurel’s role is to ensure that every experience we create starts with sharp insight, finds the story worth telling, and ends with proof that it mattered.
The appointment follows a strong 2025 for the studio, in which the team grew by 30% and was awarded Agency of the Year at both Campaign and the Australian Event Awards. Laurel’s appointment reflects a deeper ambition: to craft ideas with such sharp insight and compelling narrative that they travel far beyond the moment they’re experienced.
“There’s a lot of talk about whether human creativity is under threat. We think it’s the opposite; human creativity has never been more valuable. But great creativity doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from insight, from crafting the story, from proof that it worked. Laurel brings all three. Because when you buy Imagination, you get imagination,” said Alistair Wilson, Managing Director at Imagination Australia.
Laurel brings a career that spans management consulting, agency leadership, and technology across the US, UK, and Australia. She spent four years as Chief Customer Officer at immersive tech platform Curiious and has a track record of cutting through organisational complexity to find the story that actually moves people to act.
At Imagination, Laurel will lead the agency’s insight and strategy capability and sit on the Senior Leadership Team. Beyond core client work, she’ll also develop our standalone strategy offer, providing direct commercial value to clients independent of project delivery.
“Communication, when it’s done right, is the most powerful catalyst for change a business has. That’s always been my belief. What drew me to Imagination is that this isn’t an agency where strategists brief creatives from a distance. Storytellers, designers, content creators, production and strategists work as one team. That’s how you deliver strategic insight and measurable business influence alongside executional excellence. I’m here to make sure every idea starts with a truth that gives the creative work an edge people can’t walk past,” said Laurel.
Laurel joins a team operating under the creative leadership of Dan Simon, working alongside Creative Director Vanessa Tucker and Global Creative Innovation Director Stephen Van Elst, adding further breadth to Imagination Australia’s creative bench.
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