Tara McKenty

Chief Creative Officer, AKQA AU/NZ

Tara has spent over 20 years working in the creative industries across the APAC region, including at creative agencies TBWA, Saatchi & Saatchi, BMF, and spent a decade pretending to be a Tech-bro working as head of Creative for Google APAC, leading a lot of Google’s sport innovation. Tara now finds herself in the halls of AKQA, a creative home that feels tailored to their passions of technology, craft, creative excellence, and frontier thinking.  

Tara leads the creative offering for AKQA as Chief Creative Officer across Australia and New Zealand. Tara’s most notable achievement to date is founding Rare with Google, an initiative that provides equitable opportunities for underrepresented creatives to thrive at every stage of their career. Tara continues to disrupt the status quo, and consequently has won over two hundred awards (including D&AD pencils, Cannes lions, Grand Prix’s, LIAs, and Best in Shows) during her advertising rebellion