Global Keynote

Claire Grinton

Claire began her career in the US working at creative agencies (FCB, Goodby Silverstein and Partners, Mekanism, Crispin Porter + Bogusky) solving creative and brand strategy for such global brands as Electronic Arts, Pepsi, Nike, Burger King, American Express, Jim Beam, VW and more. She then moved to EssenceMediacom (then Essence Digital) as Director of Strategic Communications, where she leveraged data and technology to develop their dynamic creative capabilities alongside more bespoke partnerships and integrations for their roster of clients, including Google, Airbnb, HP, Intuit, and NBC Universal. This work then brought her to London, where she led global experience strategy for core Google business lines (Pixel, Google Home, YouTube, Google Assistant, and Google Cloud), and in 2019 took on EMEA leadership of the Creative and Content arm of Essence. With this breadth of experience in brand building, media expertise, creative strategy and leadership, Claire joined Wise in 2021 as Director of Brand and Creative. There she tackled the challenge of building a brand while maintaining excellence in performance marketing, delivering creative solutions at scale for global audiences, implementing new channels and tactics for growth, and doing it all with a dedicated in-house team.

James Bilaver

James is the Head of Creative and Production at Youi, taking over the role earlier this year after six years leading the Optus account at Big Red. With almost two decades of experience in advertising agencies across Australia, he now leads a mature in-house creative agency which has put marketing at the heart of the business since day one. James leads a group of passionate people across creative, content and production, united in their goal to deliver deeper and more meaningful communications to Youi’s customers. His career has included some of Australia’s most loved brands and has spanned a broad range of industries, including telco, finance, FMCG, retail and government.

Yiming Pan

Yiming Pan has extensive experience in financial services delivering for key brands such as HSBC, Citi, Woolworths Financial Services, Royal Bank of Scotland, Insurance Australia Group and QBE Insurance. His career spans marketing, digital banking, digital transformation, web content management, user experience testing, lead generation, conversion rate and customer journey optimisation.

He is currently the Head of Marketing for Personal Banking at HSBC responsible for customer acquisition and retention.

Bronwyn Galvin

Bronwyn Galvin is Unloan’s chief marketing officer (CMO) and comes with over 20 years of experience across brand and marketing communications. With both in-house and agency marketing experience, Bronwyn uses her unique insights to guide how Unloan engages with customers, stakeholders and the broader community. She specialises in brand planning and communication strategies as well as user and customer experience.

Prior to joining Unloan, Bronwyn guided communication strategies for banks including Bankwest, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ to name a few. As a CMO, Bronwyn is always passionate about finding a simple solutions to ensure that Unloan is able to provide the most value to its customers and the community at large.

Tony Radosevic

Tony Radosevic is the Digital Lead for personal accounts and Product Owner of the website at UniSuper. He is responsible for increasing online conversion and delivering a great user experience on the website.

Prior to taking this role in 2020, Tony was Strategy Director at Hardhat, leading digital and marketing strategy for five years. During his tenure, he consulted Simply Energy, Melbourne Airport, Victoria Government, Vision Australia and Bupa on how they can optimise their digital platforms to deliver better experiences and more business value.

Tony's many accomplishments include the transformation of Simply Energy into an e-commerce business from primarily relying on door-to-door sales. More recently, he successfully refocused the strategy and investment around the website at UniSuper, resulting in a significant increase in revenue and funds under management in less than two years.

Tony has spent the last 15 years in digital and strategy roles, specialising in designing solutions lead by user insight and delivering commercial value for some of Australia's largest companies, including Telstra, NAB, Medibank, and La Trobe University.

Naysla Edwards

For over 20 years, Naysla has been creating meaningful connections that unite brands with their customers, partners and communities to create long-term advocacy. 

She is passionate about fostering innovation and building loyalty through customer insights and data, developing strategic partnerships and continuously challenging the status quo.

Naysla and her team have successfully created some of the most recognised and memorable partnership events for American Express in Australia. These include American Express principal partnership of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Sydney WorldPride in 2023, American Express delicious. Month Out, American Express Vogue Fashion Night In/Out, American Express Open Air Cinemas and the American Express Vivid Lounge to name a few.

Raelene Metlitzky

Raelene Metlitzky is an award-winning Television and Film producer, writer, and director. With experience both locally and internationally across genres and digital platforms, she has created and developed content from pilot to execution for commercial networks, including multiple prime time shows, and award-winning content for Social and Digital campaigns. In her capacity as Head of Content development and former integration lead for morning Television, her unique skillset enables her to straddle both commercial and creative outputs, across multiple platforms. In her current role as Manager of Content and Editorial for NRMA Insurance (IAG)– her secondment as Development Executive Producer on ‘A Fire Inside’ - a multi award winning feature length brand funded documentary, this year, took her to the Sundance sanctioned 2023 Brand Storytelling awards in Utah, where the film was shortlisted as a finalist from over 140 films worldwide. The compelling film and accompanying bestseller book speak to how brands can get into culture and the significance of the longtail of brand building through purpose led content, ultimately creating business impact and growth.

Brian Hartzer

Brian Hartzer is an experienced executive, leadership mentor, and investor who served as CEO of the Westpac Banking Group from 2015 to 2019.

Brian is currently Chairman of 2Be, a Sydney-based startup home equity lender for over 55s, as well as Beforepay, a fintech startup, and Reejig (an HR technology startup). 

He is also a senior advisor to Quantium, a Sydney-based data science company and an angel investor in and advisor to several Fintech and technology start-ups.

Prior to his time as Westpac’s CEO, Brian spent 15 years in senior executive roles at major banks in Australia and the UK. These roles included divisional chief executive roles at Westpac, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, and ANZ Banking Group.

Outside of commercial life, Brian serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the Australian Museum.

Jarrod Baker

Jarrod has nearly 15 years’ experience leading Marketing at some of the world’s biggest companies. After a long stint in Australia, working on brands like Commonwealth Bank, Toyota, Telstra and Coca-Cola, Jarrod spent the last 5+ years in Silicon Valley. He spent 3 years as PayPal’s Global Head of Social Marketing and then 2+ years at Facebook Financial as the Global Head of Media, Web & Community. His remit saw him bring millions of merchants and consumers together around the world through connected commerce and payments.

Kylie Merritt

Kylie has more than 25 years of experience in the Australian media industry. She began her career as a reporter in regional television and has since held roles in editorial, production, digital, operations and commercial.

In 2019, Kylie raised capital and co-founded ausbiz, a platform streaming live and on demand business and finance video. After three years, the business has more than 80,000 subscribers and is expanding into new markets and verticals.

Prior to ausbiz, Kylie was the CEO of Your Money, a joint venture between Sky News and Nine. She has held senior positions News Corp Australia and was the Commercial Director of Sky News.

Kylie holds a BA (Broadcast Journalism) from Charles Sturt University, an MBA (Exec) from the Australian Graduate School of Management and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Alison Tilling

With 20 years’ experience in advertising and marketing, Ali is a firm believer in building Connected Brands to create growth. Ali encourages finding human truths from beyond the laptop screen, and combining that with quantitative insight for stronger, fresher strategic thinking. Connected Brands are born of strategies that link Brand, Customer, Employee and Citizen Experience, especially for events and occasions that have global and societal importance.

Ali leads the 25+ strong strategy team across Australia and NZ, including data, brand, experience and business-focused strategists, all of whom are united by a curious, generous and rigorous approach to their work. She has previous experience in brand, comms and CX strategy on retail, government, tourism, sports and beyond.

Ali is one of Australia’s most Effie award-winning strategists. She contributes to the industry through the APG Committee, mentoring, a regular Mumbrella column, and is an occasional panellist on ABC’s Gruen TV show.

Matthew Wong

Matthew Wong heads the brand, marketing, communications and digital engagement for Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC). He is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in brand, marketing and digital. He has led multiple projects, including collaborations with major financial institutions such as Citibank, HSBC and Bank of America in the USA and has a track record of driving business growth and expanding brand visibility across multiple industries.

Most recently, he spearheaded the successful rebranding of the CSC, which involved a comprehensive overhaul of the company's branding strategy, design and messaging. His leadership and strategic vision resulted in a significant increase in brand awareness, a positive impact on customer engagement and an uplifted purpose of the internal culture. 

Jamie Chambers

Jamie is responsible for advertising & commercial partnerships across BBC Studio’s commercial media portfolio including BBC News, BBC.com,TopGear.com and BBC World Service.

After a career spent working for major print publishers in the UK, Jamie moved to Australia to join BBC Advertising in 2011. During this time, the pace of change and innovation in the media & advertising world has continued unabated, and Jamie has overseen the successful launch of the BBC’s branded content studio, BBC StoryWorks in Australia, and the launch of BBC Studio’s programmatic capabilities. These launches and a continued focus on insight-led strategic marketing solutions have ensured BBC’s commercial services remain at the forefront of the industry and offer finance brands a powerful and trusted partner for advertising campaigns in Australia.

Maria Loyez

Maria is the Chief Customer Officer at Australian Ethical, Australia’s leading pure-play ethical investment manager. She’s responsible for sales, marketing and customer experience to help drive business growth, which in turn increases positive impact on society.

Maria has more than 20 years strategic marketing, CX and leadership experience having previously held senior roles at neo-bank Volt, SocietyOne, OFX, AMP, Optus, and Virgin.  

In her free time, Maria plays in several community orchestras, competes in a local tennis comp, and can be found all-year early morning swimming in the ocean at Manly and enjoying a coffee to warm up. She has been awarded Marketing Executive of the Year by Women in Finance, and is in the CMO Top 50.   

Lyndon Maher

Lyndon is the Senior Director of Product at Livewire Markets, where he works across the Livewire Markets and Market Index brands to develop and execute innovative product strategies to help both Australian investors and Livewire’s business partners achieve greater success. Lyndon has over 20 years of experience building digital products that have reached millions of people worldwide.

Will Thorne

Far from a traditional marketer, Will has spent most of his career in financial services working in institutional credit risk management.  Having seen first-hand the power of data in the world of risk management, Will’s now passionate about driving the intersection of the science of data, with the art of marketing to drive profitable, sustainable business outcomes.  He currently leads American Express’ customer acquisition function for Australia and New Zealand, with responsibility for driving the growth of both consumer and commercial portfolios.  Prior to his current role, a passion for problem solving has seen Will work across an eclectic mix of industries and roles encompassing academic research, health and human services advisory, risk management, partnerships and loyalty.

Jennifer Snell

Jen Snell is the Head of Growth at Australia’s most visited comparison site, Finder. She oversees all areas of the customer journey across marketing, publishing and editorial. She specialises in digital acquisition and CRM, having worked in client-side roles across verticals including fintech, telco and not-for-profit. Finder, one of Australia's largest digital advertisers, buys all digital media in-house, giving Jen a unique perspective on building in-house teams and marketing tech stacks.

Kirsty Muddle

Kirsty Muddle is CEO of Dentsu Creative, Australia & New Zealand. Dentsu Creative is a global network that transforms businesses and brands through the power of creativity. 

With a focus on bringing modern creativity to life, Kirsty finds innovative ways to help clients grow their brand and form deeper, more meaningful connections with their customers. She leads a team of passionate people across creative, strategy, production, earned attention, digital experience, entertainment, public relations, content, social media, indigenous affairs, and government relations.

Kirsty started her career in Econometrics at a WPP agency in London and still maintains her love for the interplay between humans and data. She was one of the Founding Partners and CEO of a globally awarded independent agency before joining dentsu. Kirsty has been awarded Women of the Year and Executive of the Year twice, sat on the Advertising Standards Board of Australia and appears on ABC’s Gruen. 

James Lees

James has over 15 years experience leading the advertising and thought leadership offering for world renowned business and finance media brands. After 10 years in Australia, working on brands such as the Financial Review, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, James spent 5 years in Hong Kong where he led the expansion of the thought leadership content offering for the Financial Times across the APAC region. James' passion lies in working with brands to create and distribute authentic, insight-led thought leadership that engages B2B audiences and drives business outcomes.

Rich Curtis

I’m Rich Curtis, CEO of FutureBrand Australia, a global brand transformation company. We create and transform brands so businesses grow – for the better, as and when times change. I work with clients and companies to create brand strategies, identities and experiences to grow their business. Over the years, they have ranged from public companies and private enterprises to government agencies and even countries. I’m also the founder of Thirty:3, a social initiative dedicated to giving time to people who need brand and marketing help. And I have a Master’s degree from Oxford University, where I happened to play a lot of golf.

Paul Nagy

Paul has more than 20 years of experience leading international agencies and brands. He has been awarded gold at all major international award shows — including Cannes, Award and the Effies – and his work has been included in WARC’s 100 Smartest Marketing Campaigns In The World, the ‘Best of the Best’ award at AIMIA and B&T’s Campaign of the Year for Dolmio “Pepper Hacker”. In the last two years he has won gold at Cannes, Adstars, LIA and a Grand Prix at the Spikes for VMLY&R.

Thomas Tearle

Tom joined VMLY&R in May 2021, as our Chief Executive Officer across Australia & NZ, after a career which has taken him around the world.

Starting as a digital specialist in the UK, Tom moved to Australia a decade ago to head up the Coca-Cola account at Wunderman (now Wunderman Thompson). A highlight of that stint was leading the digital, social media, CRM and promotions work for the highly acclaimed ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, which scooped 50+ industry awards including 11 Cannes Lions.

Tom then shifted to Dentsu agency Isobar, where he rapidly rose to Managing Director across both Sydney and Canberra offices. He also led two successful mergers into Isobar - SOAP Creative and WiTH Collective. Tom has a wealth of world-class strategic and management experience working with clients large and small across the Education, Entertainment, FMCG, Travel (including Qantas), Government, QSR, Technology and Retail sectors to name a few.

Outside of work, he is a family man and a diehard football fan, and still straps the boots on each weekend for a kick with his mates.

Nick Thomas

Nick helps run -lution; a marketing transformation consultancy run by marketers for marketers.  Nick’s background as an international executive has seen him lead marketing, product and P&L functions for big blue-chip consumer brands in the UK and Australia.

His previous roles include CMO RACV, CMO Betfair, GM Consumer Telstra, and Head of Digital & Consumer O2 UK.  With practical experience leading growth and change for some of the biggest consumer brands in the world’s most competitive markets, Nick has also built and led in-house agency teams at Betfair, RACV, O2, and GE Money.

Nick Hunter

Nick is Paper Moose’s co-founder CEO and ECD. Nick began Paper Moose to produce his own work as a budding actor and director, but quickly fell in love with the world of advertising and branding and its potential to positively impact the planet.
Over the last twelve years he has successfully transitioned the company from a collective of artists to a hybrid creative agency, managing 30+ staff and working on some of Australia's most exciting businesses, leading projects and national campaigns for Australian Ethical, Felix mobile, Lion, BWS, Brighte, R U OK, Jimmy Brings, UTS and NSWGov.

Nick is passionate about the power of advertising and determined for Paper Moose to use its powers for good, with a focus on helping legacy clients transition to a kinder way of doing business and working with new businesses growing their brand around the triple bottom line of planet, people, profit.

Julian Peterson

Julian has been growing Dianomi in Australia and across APAC. Dianomi technology delivers native & video advertising for the financial services, business and lifestyle sectors, working only with premium brands and premium publications. Previously he led all aspects of Time Out Australia's early digital strategy.

Paul Swann

Paul is an international awarded Executive Creative Director with a career spanning multiple countries, clients, and categories. He has built and run industry leading creative departments over nearly two decades while maintaining an undiminished passion for fresh ideas and innovation.

James Daggar-Nickson

James Daggar-Nickson is the Editorial Director of AFR Insights. He was previously the Companies & Markets deputy editor and has over 20 years experience in media.