For Lorraine Woods, the path to the top of Australia’s independent media agency world started with a coffee run.
Not her own. Someone else’s.
Early in her career, Woods found herself tasked with couriering coffee to Barry O’Brien OAM, one of the industry’s most formidable agency leaders.
It is, she told Mediaweek, a small, almost forgettable moment that, in hindsight, now reads like the opening scene of a much longer story.
“Sometimes we forget the place we started because of the pressure of this industry,” Woods said.
“You can get so caught up in the now that you forget that there was once this girl who used to go and fetch coffee for one of the most renowned media agency owners that existed and dreamed that one day she would be up there working alongside him.”
Today, Woods sits firmly in the leadership ranks, having been recently promoted to chief investment and operations officer at independent agency Atomic 212° – a newly created role that expands her responsibilities across the national business.
The promotion marks a structural shift for the agency as it continues to scale its operations, invest in technology, and tighten the integration between its trading, operational, and people strategies.
But for Woods, the milestone is also deeply personal.
Barry O’Brien OAM
A decade building Atomic
If the early years of her career were about learning the craft of media investment, the past decade has been about building something from the ground up.
Woods joined Atomic in 2016 as national group trading director and quickly became a central figure in shaping the agency’s trading and investment capabilities. Over time, she progressed through roles including national head of trading and chief investment and trading officer.
Those years, she says, were relentless.
“For so long we were in the build phase of Atomic,” Woods reflected. “It was just about that next win and then you win, and you’ve got to go win again.
“It was that growth period, and it went on for a decade of how do we get to the point that we’re at now.”
That pace left little time for reflection.
“I constantly remind myself now of what you did.”
Learning to trust her own instincts
Leadership, Woods said, is often less about the big strategic calls and more about overcoming the quiet voice of doubt that creeps in during periods of change.
“You’re always reminded of your place of privilege,” she said. “I don’t want to have that whole toxic positivity kind of mentality.
“But sometimes we forget the pressure and the self-doubt that comes with growing in your career.”
When she steps back from that noise, the perspective shifts.
“Where I came from to where I am now, I always feel this overwhelming sense of pride when I can get myself out of that mindset to be like, actually, look at where you are.
“I remind myself that I have earned the experience to trust my judgement,” she said.
Rory Heffernan
Expanding the remit
In practical terms, Woods’ new role significantly broadens her influence across the agency.
While she previously led trading and investment, the new position brings operations, systems, and national coordination under a single umbrella.
“The new role at Atomic is still leading trading,” Woods explained. “But it is now broadening out the leadership of not just trading and investment but also operations.”
The transition has already been underway for several months.
“And I guess what really excited me about this when Rory [Heffernan, Atomic’s managing director] first positioned it to me was that it brought together all of the things that I’m most passionate about,” she says.
That includes negotiation, something Woods has spent much of her career mastering.
“What I love about negotiations is working out, okay, I need to get this result, what does this other person need, and how am I going to get them what they need and me what I need?”
Her approach, she said, is grounded in transparency.
“The way I’ve always approached that is just through pure transparency, pure honesty.
“Rather than this tension period of ‘you’re here, you’re not good enough, this isn’t good enough’, it’s really this is where I need to be.”
For Woods, those moments reveal something deeper.
“I think the way you can see somebody’s character through a negotiation is really exciting.”
The next phase for Atomic
The promotion also comes during a broader period of change for Atomic as it continues to expand its national footprint and deepen its operational infrastructure.
General managers across Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin and Adelaide will now report into Woods, strengthening alignment across the agency’s offices.
Over the next 18 months, Woods said one of her key priorities will be giving staff greater clarity about career progression and organisational structure.
“The path that I’m taking over the next 18 months, and we’re already going through this now, is being able to provide that clarity for people,” she says.
That includes strategic workforce planning and helping employees understand what their next role might look like.
“So people can understand what’s expected of us in this current state and what’s going to be expected of us in the future state.”
The next chapter at Atomic is not just about building scale; it’s about building capability transformation.
The Publicis factor
Atomic’s place within the broader Publicis Groupe network also opens up a new layer of capability.
“It’s business as usual for Atomic, for sure,” Woods said. “But Publicis gives us what we’ve never had access to, which is that global capability, its technology, its scale, its resources.”
For someone who spent years building systems from scratch, that access changes the equation.
“I no longer have to, and as much as I love building as part of my role, I no longer just have to build this onto my already busy job,” she says.
“I can go upstairs, and there’s an army of people, there’s an army of opinions that I can stress test things with. So I love that part of it.”
Yet she insists the agency’s independent spirit remains intact.
“We have all of this available to us while still being able to maintain that entrepreneurship culture and agility that Atomic has always been known for.”
And if Woods occasionally needs reminding how far she has come, she knows exactly where to look.
Back to that younger version of herself – the one carrying coffee across the office floor, quietly imagining something bigger.