Lynette Phillips

REPRESENTING BEAUTY’S BIGGEST INFLUENCERS AND A LEGION OF BLUE-CHIP BRANDS, THIS PR POWERHOUSE IS THE ULTIMATE CONVERSATION STARTER

- Tamara Davis

After 20 years in the publishing industry, the New Zealand native left her high-flying sales job in Sydney to launch luxury agency MaxMediaLab in 2011. Despite securing a portfolio of high-end clients including Hermès, Audi and La Prairie, Phillips has never been one to rest on her Jimmy Choos. In 2014, she capitalised on the burgeoning beauty influencer space and founded talent platform MaxConnectors—which last year signed 50 new faces alone. Her HQ is soon expanding to include YouTube rooms for content creators, and Phillips even had a day spa set up in the office so her 40-plus staff can get prepped and primed for events. When it comes to finding work-life balance, those deskside beauty appointments come in handy—as do restorative weekends spent in her “gingerbread cottage” of a home in Sydney’s Mosman with her partner and four children. In a rare moment of downtime, the entrepreneur shares how she makes it all work.

INSTYLE: What motivated you to start your own business?

LYNETTE PHILLIPS: When I decided to leave [publishing], I really didn’t want to work for anyone else. I was like, “I’ve worked for some one for 20 years—you know what? I’m just going to do it on my own.” There was a gap in the market that I identified for a new luxury agency that understood the Australian woman. The benefit was that we were able to do media buying, publicity and create content, because that was my background. I was really fortunate in 2011 that the luxury market was buoyant…we picked up some of the top luxury brands in the world within the first year.

Did you face any challenges when you first launched?