MBA Zoë Mabie's rise from Cannes Lions winner to Google leader

Zoë Mabie, a graduate of Warwick Business School, has built a global career spanning advertising, Meta, and Google.

“I’ve always had this drive to be undeniable", says Zoë.

She says it quietly, but the phrase carries the weight of a career built across advertising and global tech. By the time she began her Global Online MBA at WBS, Zoë had already won prestigious advertising awards: a Cannes Lions and multiple Loerie Awards. From Cadbury’s to Corona, she had helped shape the creative direction of some of South Africa’s most recognisable brands before moving into a senior role at Meta.

Yet in the global offices she now found herself in - alongside colleagues from the world’s leading universities - Zoë noticed a gap.

It wasn’t a lack of experience. She was already operating across policy, infrastructure and revenue growth inside a global tech organisation.

It was a gap in structure.

“I was getting MBA-level experience, but I couldn’t put that on my CV,” she says. “I needed to match my experience with the credibility the world requires.”

Zoë’s path into business was never linear. As a child in South Africa, she was deeply creative - directing plays, painting, writing and performing. But when it came to choosing a degree, her parents encouraged a more sustainable path.

“They wanted me to choose something with longevity,” she says.

She chose clinical psychology, a decision that would later become a quiet advantage. It gave her a deep understanding of human behaviour, an insight that would underpin her success in marketing.

“I was looking for something that bridged business and creativity,” she explains. “Advertising became that space.”

She began her career at Ogilvy & Mather, later moving to the South African ad agency King James, where her work earned international recognition, including a Cannes Lion.

“It was a team effort,” she says. “But one thing I learned is that half the job is submitting the work. A lot of people miss opportunities because they simply don’t put themselves forward.”

From advertising to Meta: the moment that changed everything

Her move into tech came through relationships, leading her to Meta, where she rose to Business Lead for Sub-Saharan Africa. But it was a moment at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, that reframed her ambitions.

“I was sitting in a room with colleagues from all over the world,” she recalls. “And I heard people talking about marginalisation - micro and macro aggressions. They were having completely different experiences to what we were having in Africa.”

It was a moment of clarity, not just about culture, but about the realities of operating in a global business environment.

“I realised that if I wanted to operate at that level globally, I needed to position myself as undeniable.”

Around her, peers in similar roles held MBAs from leading international schools. She had the experience, but not the formal recognition.

Encouraged by a colleague, Zoë chose the MBA at WBS for its balance of academic rigour and real-world application.

What followed was one of the most demanding periods of her career, balancing a senior role at Meta with her MBA. Her routine was relentless:

“I was flying from South Africa to London, travelling to Coventry for residentials, working from Meta’s London office, and then flying straight out from the office to Johannesburg and straight to work on Tuesday after I landed.” Zoë reflects.

“I had to be incredibly intentional, you commit to the moment.”

But she was equally intentional about being present. One evening at the Radcliffe bar on campus, Zoë found herself effortlessly bridging the gap between her high-stakes career and her cohort.

“One of my peers called me the stand-up comedian,” she says with a laugh. “I was just spinning jokes. You learn to shut down what’s in the back of your mind, be present for an hour or two and then go back to your room and open your laptop.”

Even in that intensity, she found moments of clarity.

“I used to go for runs around campus. I wanted to experience that period of my life fully, so I could come back and share those memories and tell those stories.”

There were highlights too. She timed an international module alongside a break from work, studying at SDA Bocconi in Milan.

“Experiences I want my children and my children’s children to have,” she says. “Nobody can take that away from me.”

This resilience was tested further during Meta’s global restructuring.

“Facebook was transitioning to Meta, it was traumatic. Navigating an MBA through that was the biggest challenge.”

She made peace with the trade-offs.

“I had to accept I wouldn’t graduate with distinction,” she says. “I had to perform with distinction at work.”

If the MBA demanded resilience, it also delivered something more fundamental: a shift in how Zoë thinks.

“The biggest change was my perspective,” she says. “The MBA helped me organise everything I’d learned into a strategic framework.”

Where she had once relied on instinct, she now saw how everything connected.

“I understand how decisions link back to the business - the bottom line, the strategy,” she says. “Even something like layoffs in tech, I can now see the drivers behind them, from capex to labour costs.”

Just as importantly, the MBA gave her the language to express what she already knew.

“The MBA gave me the ability to explain it clearly and communicate it with confidence. It codified my lived experience.”

While completing her MBA, Zoë made another bold move - transitioning from Meta to Google.

“It was the right move. I'm a year into Google and enjoying the ride.”

The MBA helped her position herself differently, bringing together creativity, strategy and commercial understanding.

“It wasn’t about changing who I was,” she says. “It was about expanding it.”

At graduation, surrounded by class-mates who had navigated similar challenges, the sense of achievement was shared.

“Finally, we’re here. We did it,” she says. “Everyone had their own challenges along the way - so getting to this moment felt like a real achievement.”

Looking back, Zoë sees her journey not as reinvention, but as integration.

“The MBA was worth it,” she says, “because it matched my experience with the credibility the world requires.”

She didn’t change who she was.

She became exactly what she set out to be: undeniable.

Discover more Change Makers who realised their potential with Warwick Business School.