Thinkerbell issues honorary rebrand as first employee departs for hotel industry

May 16, 2025 10:38

Emma O'Leary

Thinkerbell’s Emma O’Leary — the agency’s first-ever employee — is leaving the business to check into QT Hotels as its head of people. To wish her farewell, the agency claimed to be rebranding for a day.

O’Leary joined Thinkerbell in May 2017, heading up its culture, operations and people initiatives. Overall, her time at the advertising agency lasted just over eight years.

The agency’s chief executive officer, Margie Reid, confirmed O’Leary’s departure in a media release shared on Friday morning.

“Yes it’s true, Emma has been with the agency since day 1 and has been in large part the secret to the agency’s success. Our Scattered Sunshine is leaving,” Reid said in the release.

Emma O’Leary

Thinkerbell’s co-founder Ben Couzens credited O’Leary with developing the agency’s culture, while saying that her presence will be missed.

“Emma was the original Thinkerbell COP – head of culture, operations and people (before we even had any culture, or operations, or people),” Couzens said in the release.

“She led the building of the agency culture and helped us fill the agency with rituals, festivals and behaviours (and the same songs on repeat) that have helped us create 432 magic hours, 1 incredible Fyre Festival, 21 pots of gold, 62 mind expansion weeks, 432 measured Mondays, 863 throws at the dart board…and a bucket load of other things. She’ll be missed to be sure.”

In announcing the departure, co-founder Adam Ferrier, said that Thinkerbell would be renamed “O’Learybell” for the day. Meanwhile, the bar at the agency’s Melbourne office will henceforth go by the name O’Leary’s.

O’Leary’s at Thinkerbell South

“The thing we will miss most about Emma is her laugh which is why we have dedicated the bar at Thinkerbell South to be forever named in her honour,” Ferrier said in the release.

“As well as changing the name of the agency, ok we’re only changing the name of the agency for a day, we’re actually going to name our bar ‘O’Leary’s’ and keep that name forever.”

Ferrier and O’Leary previously worked together at Cummins and Partners, where she was his executive assistant. According to O’Leary’s Linkedin, she also spent three years with him at Naked Communications as an experience manager from December 2010 to November 2013.