The playwright, PR creative, Muay Thai fighter, and Cannes Gold Young Lion winner is building a career defined by grit, humour and a refusal to stay down. As she steps into her new role as associate creative director at Golin New York, she reflects on the industry’s cultural shifts, her love of creative tension, and why showing up – even bloodied – is half the battle.
Gigi Rice isn’t one for neat narratives. She’s a playwright with a background in PR, a boxer who won Cannes Gold in her first year out of ad school, and a Brit finding her voice in North America’s ever-shifting agency landscape. Perhaps most impressively, she’s someone who’s not afraid to admit when she’s failed.
“The win didn’t just shape my career – it changed my entire life,” she says, remembering the moment she and creative partner Elle Bellwood became the first UK team to win Gold in the PR Young Lions category at Cannes. “It was the first time I’d felt that I might actually be semi-decent at this creative malarkey, and to swing at every opportunity life threw at me, regardless of whether I won or not.”
That risk-taking mindset has stuck with her, and so has the sense of self-belief it sparked. At the time, they were two unemployed freelancers scraping together the entry fee themselves – a gesture of faith in their idea that ended up opening doors to international work, creative panels, and eventually, a move to New York.
Now, Gigi is about to take up a new role as associate creative director at Golin, but she arrives battle-tested. In the past year, she’s been laid off twice, lost her visa, her home, and experienced a full-life implosion that could’ve sent anyone into retreat. Instead, she kept showing up.
“If you keep relentlessly showing up, the needle will move,” she says. “I know it feels exhausting and soul-destroying to keep going again and again when it feels like nothing is happening… but by showing up constantly, you keep a small space alive in your life for the right people who get you to arrive.”
That same blend of resilience and irreverence runs through her creative work. Whether writing for the stage or the screen, she’s drawn to tension. The kind of tension that doesn’t resolve easily, but instead invites you to sit with discomfort, possibility, and humour.
“Tension is two different (but not always opposing) ideas or thoughts that rub against one another and live outside the grain of the status quo,” she says. “The presence of this conflict creates space for something far more entertaining and unpredictable.”
It’s an insight honed through countless rounds of client feedback, last-minute campaign tweaks, and the discipline of knowing when to fight for an idea or let it go. Advertising has taught her craft and collaboration, theatre has taught her guts, and from both she’s found a shared fascination: people, in all their messy contradictions.
“My artistic vision boils down to a belief that darkness is where the light hides, and I must bring it out,” she says. Her plays, which have sold out in London and been shown at the Edinburgh Fringe, explore thorny topics with humour and heart – everything from abortion to terminal illness and sex work.
That willingness to wade into the murky middle is something she’s carried into agency life, too. “I don’t believe in good versus evil. The hero or the villain. My fascination lies in the gaps between,” she adds. “Particularly in divisive current events and topics of a controversial nature. I reign this love for controversy back in when I’m working in Adland, haha.”
Still, Gigi doesn’t shy away from creative mischief. She gravitates towards briefs that get the room laughing or that tap into real emotion. Healthcare is one area she’s keen to explore next. “People already care, I don’t have to make them – I just have to weave a damn good story.”
With her new role at Golin, she’s hoping to channel all this energy and experience into building a more empowering creative culture. One that welcomes unexpected ideas, encourages experimentation, and makes room for people to grow.
“I’d like to be an engine,” she says. “Someone who is entirely reliable on constantly spitting out ideas and keeping the enthusiasm and passion for them alive throughout the process.”
More than that, she also wants to create space for others to bring their own ideas to life. “If a creative wants to design Christmas wrapping paper for the agency, yes, you can. If an account person wants to bring forth proactive ideas to the table, yes, you can.”
There’s a no-nonsense generosity to Gigi’s leadership style, shaped by working across the UK, Canada, and the US. She’s had to learn the nuances of each culture and each office, from Montreal lingo to Miami rituals, Californian warmth to New York bluntness.
“You become a cultural chameleon,” she says. “From the way you greet people in the morning, to whether there’s an agency champagne trolley at 5pm on a Thursday.”
That doesn’t mean diluting who you are. It means adapting, listening, and learning. Gigi credits the British and Australian markets with teaching her the value of dark humour and creative directness, but she’s softened those edges when needed to build better intercompany relationships.
In the end, whether she’s pitching a campaign, fighting in a Muay Thai ring, or crafting dialogue for the stage, Gigi’s common thread is momentum.
“The ring is the one place where my mind shuts off,” she says. “Because if I don’t pay attention to what happens in front of me, I’m going to get hit. It is a blissful relief from constant overthinking.”
Her advice to other creatives is to embrace the chaos. “Think of the highs and lows as crafting a (sometimes super painful to go through) narrative that is only yours. Everyone loves an underdog.”
And when the story takes a turn? “Think where you want this story to go next, and start to be practical about how you can get it there.”
Looking to the future, Gigi hopes to build a creative legacy that gives others permission to try, fail, laugh, and try again. “Dare to compete,” she says, quoting a story Hillary Clinton once told about a high school student who challenged her to run for Senate. “Daring to do it and fuck up. Daring to do it and then win.”
And, of course, she adds: “Have fun like your life depends on it –’cause it does.”
