Six Media Professionals on Disability

An industry panel that brought six media professionals together to talk about what disability actually means across different agency roles — the day-to-day reality, not the policy language.

I took part as an autistic professional working in performance media. Speaking openly about neurodiversity at work is not something I have always done — earlier in my career I kept my diagnosis confidential after negative experiences — but disclosing at EssenceMediacom showed me how much visibility matters.

Why visibility matters

One in six Australians has a disability, and working-aged people with disability are employed at 48 per cent compared with 80 per cent for those without. A panel does not fix that gap, but it makes the gap harder to ignore — and it shows people earlier in their careers that disclosure does not have to be career-limiting.

This sits alongside the rest of my advocacy: the Amaze advisory board, the GroupM × Amaze partnership, and the message I keep returning to in print — ask, don't assume.