Women to Watch 2024: Elle Bullen, Bullfrog

Elle Bullen

Partner and executive creative director
Bullfrog
Australia 

Elle Bullen’s incredible story of resilience and hope is one that inspires many. In 2019, as co-founder of an independent creative agency, SickDogWolfMan, she was thriving. She was one of Australia’s most-awarded women creatives and was six months pregnant with her second child. 

Then, cancer hit. Life took a turn as she underwent treatment and performed a double mastectomy. Justifiably, the juggle between work, treatment, and rehab took a toll and she made the tough decision to leave the company and industry. Then, upon recovery in 2022, she joined Bullfrog as ECD on her own terms by working a day a week and continues to work part-time for the agency. 

Regardless of her part-time arrangement, Bullen’s impact at Bullfrog runs deep. Her creative team managed to snag new clients—including Ecosa Sleep, OxFam, ANZ Worldline, Australian Grand Prix Corporation, and Dineamic—resulting in a 60% increase in new business wins. 

Bullen also led two major projects, the first being Fair Advantage, a pro-bono residency programme to offer women-owned start-ups a creative and strategic edge, motivated by the lack of funding among women start-ups. Bullen helped to create a space for women to share knowledge and skills to even the playing field for women in business. Secondly, she oversaw the relaunch of Kic, a wellness app, by rejecting diet culture and toxic misconceptions around women’s health. 

In an industry infamous for overwork and tight deadlines, Bullen’s part-time ECD position may have inadvertently paved the path for flexibility to allow women to uphold senior positions at the agency. In fact, at Bullfrog, 21% of the team works part-time, allowing the firm a rare luxury of having more women in the creative department at a ratio of 5:3.

Behind this advocacy for boundaries in the workplace is an unapologetic Bullen, who has spoken about the topic at public forums. While she’s understandably “pissed off it took two run-ins with cancer” to wake up to the lack of flexibility and gender discrepancies in the industry, her drive to make an impact is now being heard by many.