The March First Story
What we believe
Creativity is a responsibility
Creativity is not decoration. It shapes narratives, identities, and our future. Every creative act participates in and shapes the world we live in. Leadership begins when we recognise that influence carries responsibility.
Leadership shapes culture
Leadership is not a job title or a skillset.
It is a cultural practice that shapes meaning, holds power, and orients us toward what matters.
Marginalised voices are essential
Those excluded from power have always been shaping culture. They do not need permission to lead. They need access, recognition, and structural support.
We co-create the future
Leadership is not about control, it is about stewardship. We do not inherit the future, we co-create it.
Reflection is a form of action
Pausing, listening, and sensemaking are not luxuries, they are essential leadership practices in a complex world.
Meaning shapes impact
What we value determines what we build. Meaning creates belonging, gives direction and shows us what truly matters.
What does it mean to march first?
Since 2016, I have written a weekly essay about creativity, leadership, my personal and professional lived experiences. What began as an act of reflection, has now become something else entirely.
For me it has become a way to process difficult junctions in my career and life; and for the thousands of readers who engage each week, it has become a moment to reflect on their own leadership practice, and the role creativity has played in their working lives.
Each week, these essays are read by people across continents, industries, and life stages. Over time, a bridge has formed that has given me access to new ideas, new experiences, alternative views of the world and of course, friendships.
People wrote back each week. They challenged me. They shared their doubts, their failures, their small wins. In some cases they shared their most personal experiences; grief, love and hope.
In doing so, they showed me that we have the capacity to make meaning in the work we do. To now seek it from elsewhere, but to tap into our own innate creativity to make sense of the world, and step towards impact.
March First brings together leadership lessons from the professional lives of people with lived experience. People working in leadership and creativity every day. People who have challenged the status quo throughout their careers, forging their own path.
My role as the owner and Managing Director of one of Australia’s longest-running and most successful human-centred design consultancies, Tank. With over thirty years of developing brand and organisational strategy, community engagement across the Australian landscape, from board rooms through to remote communities, Tank is a business committed to cultivating cultures of inclusion and belonging. Our work focuses on ensuring people of all backgrounds and identities have equal opportunities to belong, contribute and thrive.
These lessons also come through my work as Director of The Centre of Multicultural Youth. An organisation that believes deeply in respect for everyone’s human rights as an essential part of a fair and equal society, and has worked for over thirty-five years to create a society where multicultural young people live a life where they are connected and can fully reach their potential.
I also work as a Director of The Design Kids, a global community that reaches thousands of creative professionals around the world in monthly meetups, online communities and provides them opportunities to thrive in their careers.
My work influences the way I see the world, and I in turn influence the way the work I do and the businesses I work alongside lead towards impact.
I believe the future of leadership doesn't look like the past. It’s not defined by titles or traditional paths, but by the courage to lead with creativity and integrity.
I believe in centre-ing voices that have long been at the margins—multicultural, gender-diverse, and those with lived experiences that defy the status quo.
March First is a centre for creative leadership; embracing perspectives, knowledge and wisdom from across all domains of lived experience with a belief that creative leadership is essential to rethinking the possibilties of what our leadership might be.
It is a learning space for those who lead with questions as much as answers. Building leadership capacity through lived experience, creativity, and a conscious community that values every story.
We are a global collective redefining what it means to lead with authenticity and cultural integrity.
A place where leadership exists as a shared journey, where everybody has an opportunity to march first.
Dimitri Antonopoulos
Founder, March First
One essay a week, since 2016
The Weekly Journal
of Creative Leadership
An exploration of purpose-driven, creative leadership by Dimitri Antonopoulos, Managing Director of strategy & transformation consultancy, Tank.
An ongoing practice supported by community.
Access a community that will help you develop your creative leadership practice.
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