Draft:Dee Madigan

Dee Madigan is creative advertising director, campaigner, author and TV personality.

Early life and education
Madigan was born in Melbourne, the second of four children born to Irish emigrants Thomas Madigan, a former Catholic priest, and Olivia Madigan.

She was educated at Loreto, Mandeville Hall Toorak and Swifts Creek High School.

Her parents died while she was still a teenager, leaving her homeless and broke, and she attended university on the Austudy Homeless allowance.

She graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor in Secondary Education (English and History).

Career
After teaching high school for a year and managing pubs, Madigan became a copywriter in an ad agency.

In 2014 she was one of the founding partners of Campaign Edge, an ad agency with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Darwin, specialising in progressive, political and behavioural change campaigns.

She is considered one of Australia’s leading campaign strategists and has been Creative Director for the Labor Party on 20 election campaigns, including the 2015, 2017 and 2020 Qld campaigns and the 2022 Federal election.

One of her union campaigns was described by Christian Porter as ‘the most disgusting piece of advertising he's even seen’. She reportedly joked about getting that printed on her business cards.

She is on the board of Per Capita (one of Australia’s leading progressive economic Think Tanks ), and Australians for Mental Health.

Television and media
Madigan appears regularly on ABC’s Gruen and The Drum, as well as Channel 7’s Sunrise and The Latest, and Channel 10’s The Project.

She was also featured on ABC’s One plus One and The Conversation Hour (ABC Radio)

Author
Madigan has written numerous articles for most major Australian newspapers. She is also the author of The Hard Sell (MUP 2014).

As well as a contributing author on Mothermorphosis (MUP 2015), Perspectives on Change (ANU 2015) and Unbreakable (UQP 2017).

Personal life
Dee is married with 3 children.

Awards and recognition
Dee is a highly awarded creative, and has been a finalist at Cannes as well as a multiple gold Winner at New York Advertising Festival and a finalist at the 2018 Mumbrella ad of the year awards.

She was also the winner of the 2022 B&T Glass Ceiling Award.