Building an agency that works for women's lives

It's 6:30 PM on a weekday, and a crisis has just erupted for one of the clients. In the old days, one might have had until the next morning's newspapers to craft a response. Today? Within minutes, the story is viral, spreading across social platforms like wildfire. Welcome to the unforgiving world of integrated marketing communications, where brilliant women often carry the heaviest loads: managing impossible deadlines while leading the household, caring for ageing parents, or nurturing young families. It's a reality that Rekha Rao witnessed repeatedly throughout her career, watching talented women either burn out from the pressure or step away from the industry entirely, only to find themselves professionally displaced when they tried to return.

Rao recognised that when these experienced women left traditional agencies, they didn't disappear; they turned into independent consultants and freelancers, carrying with them decades of expertise, emotional intelligence, and the kind of seasoned judgment that's rare. Yet they remained scattered, working in isolation, often undervalued despite their profound capabilities. What if, Rao wondered, there was a way to harness this collective wisdom and create something that honoured both their expertise and their need for flexibility?

Enter OON, the women's collective in Integrated Marketing Communications. OON aims to reimagine how the communications industry can work when it stops fighting against women's realities and starts building around them. In this conversation, Rao, the founder and CEO of OON, shares the journey of building an all-women-led collective in an industry that’s still predominantly male at the top, and why the industry's most pressing gap might just be its greatest opportunity.

Download The Pulse’s Superwomen edition to read the full article.