Women to Watch 2023: Justine Leong, WhiteGrey

Justine Leong

General manager
WhiteGrey Sydney
Australia

Justine Leong boasts a dynamic professional background that spans from production management at BBC to leading the account for Qatar Airways at Grey Singapore. Leong’s intrepid leap into the agency world started with Grey Singapore, where she demonstrated her assertiveness, strong work ethic and creative prowess. This led to her ongoing decade-long career with the Grey Group, assuming her current role as general manager of WhiteGrey, the group’s Australian arm, since 2014.

In the past 12 months, Leong has implemented the WhiteGrey pitch approach that led to eight new clients, including Chery, Newcastle Airport, Varian, Amaysim, Pringles, Gloria Jeans, Quest, and Blooms the Chemist. Her remit currently covers 90% of  WhiteGrey business, attributing to 14% of the agency’s organic growth in FY22.

In addition, she has set an onboarding strategy and implemented a new team structure involving 15 new hires across account management, creative, strategy and operations as part of a five-year business plan for the agency’s largest client, Westfield. 

Among her wide breadth of diverse clients, she manages Volvo, a decade-long relationship she had established during her first year at  WhiteGrey. Leong has contributed to numerous accolades for the client, lapping awards such as WARC Creative Innovation Grand Prix, Cannes Lions and London Design Museum, to name a few. It is the agency’s most awarded client in recent history.

As a leader, whether she is guiding business meetings or agency-wide gatherings, Leong leads by action, demonstrating incredible work ethic and setting the tone for the rest of her teams. 

A strong advocate for working mothers, Leong nurtures talent within the company and works closely with the HR teams to deliver a robust learning and development (L&D) plan across the agency. This has delivered 531 hours of L&D opportunities in the first half of 2023 alone, including professional development programs, prestigious publications and institutions, including WPP Academy, The Economist, CISL, Imposter Syndrome Training, and more. 

This year, seven women from her account management team were shortlisted for the B&T Women in Media Awards 2023, four were finalists. A clear testament to the nurturing work culture is also reflected in a 95.5% retention rate to date.