A Career in Media: Lessons in Leadership and Innovation
With a laptop in one hand and a baby in the other. That’s how award-winning global marketer and entrepreneur Wendy Thompson started her first company ‘Socialites’ – a social media agency.
It was the first of many companies that Wendy would go on to found or acquire over the next 16 years.
Last month, AUT Business School invited Wendy back to where it all began for a fireside chat with Professor of Macromarketing, Ben Wooliscroft.
It was the AUT city campus and the year 2000. Wendy had graduated with a Bachelor of Business in Marketing and International Business. Armed with a passion and talent for advertising, she secured various roles in PR companies and ad agencies at the height of the dot-com era.
Quickly becoming the go-to person for social media marketing, Wendy took a leap and created her own social media agency from scratch. Socialites was born in 2010 and would go on to become NZ’s largest independent ‘social media for business’ agency with the largest influencer database in Australasia.
The company provides services including media planning, content production, influencer campaigns and community management to businesses.
Fast forward thirteen years and after acquiring a number of businesses including a production company, a media agency and a talent agency, Wendy founded Thompson Spencer with her business partner Melanie Spencer.
Thompson Spencer is a full-service creative and media agency. In a few short years, the company has won multiple industry accolades including Campaign Asia’s Independent Agency of the Year, Social Media Agency of the Year and Influencer Agency of the Year.
At the event, Wendy reflected on key moments of her career and explored the evolving role of media agencies in Aotearoa in 2026, as they navigate the growing influence of AI and the changing media landscape.
“Everyone is saying it’s the end of agencies and I honestly don’t believe that. We’ve never had so much work - and work that can’t be done by a machine,” she said.
“People don’t want to buy efficiency. People want to buy memorable experiences. So, our job as marketers is to create memorable experiences, not to make everything efficient.
People want connection. At the end of the day, creative agencies will always have their place in the world as they’re about connecting brand with people.”