Marilla Akkermans has created what sounds like corporate nirvana. Her agency, Equality Media + Marketing, has a four-day work week and flexible hybrid policy – it also embraces women of all ages and backgrounds, and actually sees part-time working mums as an asset.

Marilla even has the awards to prove it. This year, Equality topped the Australian Financial Review BOSS Best Places to Work list in the media and marketing category – for the second time.

In 2018, Marilla returned from mat leave to find her perceived value had plummeted. That’s when Equality was born. The agency’s four-day week began in 2022 and the bold move has paid off, with a drop in sick leave, better productivity and stellar staff morale. Not only that, business for the past two years has been the best ever, which just goes to show that doing things differently is not only possible but profitable. (Read the AFR's story here.)

Register for this free event and make meaningful connections as we wrap up the year

Join Women in Media Victoria for our end of year event, and settle in with a drink for an intimate (and free) chat with Marilla downstairs at Bard’s Apothecary in Melbourne’s CBD.

Journalist Susan Horsburgh (The Age, Good Weekend, Women's Weekly), will ask Marilla how she brought in the four-day week, why diversity is smart business, and how much untapped potential there is in working mothers.

As Marilla says, “A woman’s brain doesn’t die the day she becomes a mother, and her career aspirations don’t just fly out the window. We can be more than one thing.”