Jane Evans wraps ‘Gospel Of A Mad Woman’ Tour in Melbourne with Mavens, No Sunday Blues & The Producers
- 12 hours ago
- 3 min read
Together with industry recruiters No Sunday Blues, Mavens presented UK-based advertising legend Jane Evans in her bold Australian tour ‘The Gospel Of A Mad Woman’.
Last night wrapped the third and final chapter of the tour, which began with Cairns Crocodiles creative festival from May 12-14. The following week, Evans addressed a room full of bright minds at INNOCEAN in Darlinghurst, closing out last night at HERO in Prahran with additional support from The Producers.
In Sydney’s audience, cohorts came from Houston Group, Dec PR, Paper Moose, Dentsu, Lion, News, Who Gives a Crap, Example, Candid Films, Supermassive, MAAd Collective, First Step AI and of course our hosting agency INNOCEAN.
In Melbourne, guests hailed from TABOO, Illuminated Strategy, R/GA, Shabbadu, Noisy Beast, Wynne Digital, Omnicom and naturally, HERO. Both events also connected many freelancers craving connection with like-minded peers.
Photos by Kean Szcuzr. More media wall photos linked here.
All had come to learn from one of the advertising industry’s most prominent matriarchs globally. Indeed, Evan’s career has been a turbulent one – expertly piloted with gumption, resilience and bucketloads of talent.
She was twenty years old when she landed her first job as a junior art director at London hot shop Leagas Delaney. In 1987 she was headhunted out to Sydney. In the first ten years of her career she was the first girl in the creative department three times.
She was handcuffed and carted into the back of a Paddy Wagon saying, "But I'm wearing Zampatti darling, one simply can't be committed in Zampatti!"
She launched Microsoft Word v1, got Sydneysiders onside to host the Olympics and gave Cate Blanchett her first job granting her three wishes from the Tim Tam genie.
Jane Evans headed the team tasked with explaining how digital would affect Kodak (they didn’t listen).
She made the first ads to show a divorced couple, an unmarried couple living together, and men doing the laundry – which she she displayed to applause from both audiences.
She set up her own agency with clients like Revlon, Maserati and the Guide Dog Association. And she gave us James Squire beer (Australia’s first craft beer), a story she befittingly shared at Hemingway’s Brewery for Cairns Crocodiles.
When Evans ‘aged out’ of the advertising industry, she began campaigning fearlessly for midlife women. Through the Uninvisibility campaign, the Visible Start programme to get women back into the workforce, and her bestselling book Invisible to Invaluable: Unleashing the Power of Midlife Women, written with Carol Russell, she changed the narrative around age, value and visibility.
She’s now published another book which her Australian Tour is named for.
The reviews are coming in hot:
"Evans has written a gnostic feminist scripture for the age of AI and Gaza. She knows how mad that sounds. She doesn't care."
"This is Jane Evans' greatest work and that's saying something!"
Evan’s book will be available in Mavens’ e-store soon (for early access, email leah@themavens.com.au).
Freelance Creative Director and industry thought leader Jessica JT Thompson walked out of the Sydney event with ‘smudged mascara, new besties, and a powerful urge to throw a burning brick through a window.’
Posting on LinkedIn, JT wrote:
“Jane reminded us that one of the greatest weapons the patriarchy has is the manipulation of women to believe we are in competition with each other."
"Female agents of the patriarchy have started worming their way back to the surface, giving in to their internalised misogyny and pandering to the deeply flawed and harmful gender stereotypes that have kept women oppressed in workplaces and the world for so, so long.”
This rare and galvanising tour will have us fired up for the foreseeable future, and our audiences too.
Thank you to everybody who came along, and special thanks to everybody who volunteered their time to help coordinate and run the events: Jane Palin and Carly Pelham from INNOCEAN, Pania Preston, Kean Szcuzr, Roz Scrimshaw, Lauren Phillips and the HERO crew, Georgina Morris, Ruby Finegan, Alison Rentoul, Feryx Lim and Evelyn Tran. And to Jasmin Bedir at INNOCEAN and Ben Lilley of HERO for lending us their spaces with generosity, curiosity and care.
Connect with our cohort
Join or follow Jane Evans’ community The 7th Tribe:
Follow No Sunday Blues for recruitment advice and open roles, and to see insights from their brand new 2026 Talent & Salary Report:
Follow The Producers for industry-leading production and a stellar roster including women directors:
With special thanks to Doom Juice, Australia’s most smashable natural wine, for their support of this event. Their non-alc ZZVINO was a hit, as were their Weiss, Fizz and Rouge varieties.
Follow Mavens for more content and events like this one, and our podcast interview with Jane Evans coming soon:
