AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND // Maria is Executive Creative Director at Colenso BBDO, recently named Cannes Lions agency of the decade for the Pacific Region. Having started her career at Colenso as a designer, she’s since worked both locally and internationally across a range of clients including Google, MARS Foods, MARS Pedigree, Air New Zealand, Bank of New Zealand. BMW/MINI, and McCain Foods.

She believes that if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Her passion for difficulty has seen her create Pedigree SelfieSTIX – the world’s first doggie Snapchat, light Auckland’s iconic harbor bridge with over 96,000 solar powered lights to demonstrate the city’s commitment to becoming 100% renewable, create a treehouse restaurant for Yellow Pages halfway up a redwood tree, an in-flight fashion show for Air New Zealand which took two years to receive civil aviation approval, an app for NZ Breast Cancer Foundation using haptic technology to teach your hands how to check for breast cancer, wrap a New York water tower in 50 kilometers of yarn for D&AD’s call for entries and spend four weeks in an RV roaming from New York to Los Angeles to document and share the music of America from a smartphone.

She was recently named in Adweek’s Creative 100 and is a passionate member of the Mentally Healthy Change Group in Australasia. She was awarded a Certificate of Excellence at Campaign Asia’s Women Leading Change Awards, and has collected over 100 international and local awards for her work at multiple shows including Clio, Cannes, D&AD, One Show, Spikes and Webby’s.