Women to Watch 2020: Danni Wright, Carat

Danni Wright

National head of strategy and connections planning
Carat
Australia

It is becoming increasingly rare to find career loyalists in the modern world but Danni Wright is one of them, having spent her entire career with one media agency, Dentsu Aegis Network’s Carat. Wright was recruited into the Carat graduate program as a planner-buyer in the UK in 2009 and has remained with the network since. But that certainly doesn’t mean she has stood still—quite the opposite. Through her time in Carat UK, Wright gained experience across a plethora of roles covering account management, communications and strategy—the latter of which she found her passion in. While in the UK, Wright was selected to join Dentsu’s global leadership development program in its inaugural year, a program which identified the top 500 talent globally in the organisation.

Wright moved to Carat Australia in 2016 to help build the newly formed strategy team in Carat Sydney
and quickly rose through the ranks, taking leadership of the local team after two years and going on to build Carat’s first national strategy team one year later. Wright gained a scholarship from the Marketing Academy in 2018—winning one of 30 places on the programme. Clients provide glowing reviews of Wright’s work, calling her a “brilliant mind”, an “incredible talent” and “one of the most valuable partners to our business”. In the last 12 months, Wright has helped bring in approximately $50 million in revenue to the business by leading the strategic product for more than a dozen new business pitches, of which one in three have been successful. Plus, her team is the only one in Carat Australia that saw zero churn in the last 12 months. For her work, Wright was promoted in June to national head of  strategy and connections planning.

Wright is an “exceptional leader and mentor”, according to her boss. She mentors within the business and has led the annual ‘Young Lions’ competition within Carat for five years. During Covid-19, Wright has been hosting bi-weekly inspiration sessions to the business, and sends out a daily newsletter covering an important marketing principle. She is a member of the Dentsu Diversity & Inclusion council, and last year she initiated a project which rallied the Dentsu network to give back by donating resources and media placements to Australian charity MissingSchool for its first-ever advertising campaign—a project she continues to support. This Women to Watch commendation is not Wright’s first exposure to awards—she was also awarded the B&T Women in Media award for strategy in 2019.