Dynamic Duos: Sydney’s favourite Canadian and Frenchman
This week in Dynamic Duos, co-founders of Bread Agency, Amaury Treguer and Mary Proulx, tell Mumbrella about their time working together in the Havas village before starting their own agency - including all the challenges, random WhatsApp conversations and the hustle of being in "start up mode".
In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two colleagues with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.
Amaury Treguer:
Inheriting a new team at a new agency is always a bit of a nerve racking moment. You hope for the best, but you’re never sure what you’re getting yourself into. I had just been appointed as executive director social at Red Havas and was eager to get in there and meet the team.
Enter Mary.
She had been working in the agency for the past three years and was the type of 2IC that you dream of having on your side. She knew what was going on, was easy to work with and had a good sense of humour. We gelled quickly as she helped me navigate the ins and outs of the agency, the team and the clients. From then on out, we worked seamlessly together. I focused on driving the business growth and Mary ensured the strategy and creative work was top notch. It worked well. And with a fantastic team around us, we did well. We were winning business, doing great work and building an exceptional team of social experts.
But great talent gets snapped up, as we know. And this time, that was Mary. Thankfully, she wasn’t leaving the network, but she was leaving my team. Heading over to One Green Bean to lead their social and influencer division. Gutted? Most definitely. But I was pumped for Mary to take on the new role – she deserved it. I was also certain that it wouldn’t be the last time that we would work together…
I had always wanted to start my own agency and losing Mary was the extra push I needed to get my ducks in a row and make it happen. So ‘Project Convince Mary to Join’ began. Thankfully, it didn’t take that much convincing. After a series of chats, discussing what we’d like to do and what we felt was missing in the industry, we decided to give it a shot.
We started Bread Agency to fill a gap in the market, creating a social agency that was driven by strategy, led by creativity and had commerce at the core. It’s been an epic 18 months with some incredible client wins. We are building an exceptional team and have just signed the lease on our first office. Life is good and I’m honestly so pleased to be working with Mary again.
Our relationship feels effortless. In one quick WhatsApp conversation we make decisions that keep things pushing ahead. No red tape or mulling over things for too long. We hate BS so we make sure that honesty is at the heart of everything we do.
Most importantly, we have a lot of fun working together. Because what’s the point if you’re not enjoying the day to day?
Mary Proulx:
Amaury (Amo), was brought on to replace the then executive director of social at Red Havas when she moved overseas. I was the social media director looking after the Sydney team at that time, so the replacement for this role would have a huge impact on my day to day.
“You’ll really like him!” I was told.
“I bloody hope so”, I thought.
Thankfully, they were right. But really, how could you not? He’s switched on, truly cares and is super personable. From day dot, we had an easy and complementary working relationship. We both liked to work hard and have a laugh while doing so. We were both passionate about the team, the work and the clients. Maybe most importantly, we both enjoyed a Friday beer at the pub to chat and decompress from the week that was.
If that’s not the making of a good professional pairing, I don’t know what is. It definitely made three years working closely together, through great weeks and really hard days, memorable and fun.
But as they say, all good things must come to an end. I was promoted to head up the social and influencer team at One Green Bean, which meant packing up my desk and heading to a new floor within the agency village. So although Amo and I were still in the same network, we weren’t working together on a day to day basis. And while that meant not having to put up with so many mediocre dad-jokes… work just wasn’t the same without the talkative, energetic, French counterpart by my side.
So after I took a bit of a work break and spent some time at home in Canada, Amo and I started chatting about getting the mighty gang of two back together to do our own thing to see what it would be like to create the type of social agency that we’d always wanted to work for. And Bread was born!
Fast forward to a year and a half later, the dad jokes are back, along with non-stop WhatsApp messages to bounce ‘a crazy idea’ off one another, a steady stream of constructive feedback on how we could do things better and continually pushing each other, and the team, to do work that we’re really proud of.
The best bit about how we work? We trust and respect each other enough to have tough conversations. To call each other up on things when we need to and work through disagreements right then and there. Amo’s entrepreneurial spirit is like no other. He’s strategic, driven, straight-talking and gets shit done… really well. His energy never seems to waver (which truly is astounding – the guy never misses a sunrise!), and he energises you just by being around him.
Amaury on Mary:
Most memorable moment with Mary: Too many to count but I would say officially launching Bread back in November 2022 was pretty damn special.
Best word to describe her: Weapon (Mary is an absolute gun with all things strategy and creative).
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour she has: Too kind (it’s the Canadian in her). And while I sometime go a bit too far with #nofilter, she’s more refined in the way she approaches hard conversations. I learn a lot from her!
Mary on Amaury:
Most memorable moment with Amaury: The early planning stages of Bread, when we had both left our FT roles and were fully focused on launching this thing. Amo would pick me up on his scooter and we’d ride into the local library to work on our business plan and launch strategy. We were in full startup mode.
That period was filled with so much energy and excitement for what we were building. We were hustling hard and we were enjoying every moment. That was pretty special.
Best word to describe him: Connector. Amo is the king of knowing someone you should talk to, who can help you on this, or would be perfect for that. Which makes him great at what he does… but the absolute worst person to walk down the street with.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour he has: The guy can talk. And talk and talk and talk he does. Most always about work – even when you’re just trying to enjoy a little break at lunch…
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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