Women to Watch 2020: Ekta Thomas, Zeno Group

Ekta Thomas

General manager
Zeno Group
Australia

If there was a category of leader who steps into their new roles and immediately affects change across all facets of the company, Ekta Thomas very much deserves to be in it. In 2018, she joined Zeno Group as director of client services and showed immense promise by strengthening the agency’s relationships and performance both internally and externally.

Since her promotion to general manager early last year, she oversaw revenue growth of 60% (the highest in five years) with the help of new accounts WorldPay by FiS, iLand and Criteo. For the former client, the press engine spurred by Zeno delivered both proactive and reactive media relations while thought leadership drove ecommerce conversation which resulted in seven new business leads for the company during launch day.

On top of that, the agency also recorded an impressive client retention rate of 90%—aided by an expanded remit by Motorola. Thomas is especially vigorous in developing new business on a regional scale, introducing a number of expanded client remits including new work for Align Technologies, Criteo and Veeam in the past year.

On the staff side, she led a 230% growth in talent and a 100% staff retention rate as well as introduced flexible working schemes and ‘Be Kind to Your Mind’ programmes to support her team’s mental wellbeing. This is all proof that a boost in morale is a gain for business results.

For context, at her joining Zeno, the Australia business had just experienced a sharp 35% decline in revenue over the previous 12 months, with only six employees and a retention rate of 64%. Talk about a swift turn-around.