Brent Smart

Brent Smart is CMO of Telstra, where he has been leading Australia’s second most valuable brand since September 2022.

Previously, Brent spent five years as CMO at IAG, the Australian insurance giant. He led the transformation of the NRMA brand, taking it from 36^th strongest brand in Australia to fifth, creating over $400m of brand value and winning the coveted Grand Effie in 2021. Mark Ritson wrote in The Australian that “NRMA is not just a fantastic Australian case study, it could be taught at Harvard or Stanford and positions Brent Smart as the most accomplished CMO in Australia and one of the best in the world”. 

Brent grew up in the advertising business with a 20-year agency career that included leading New Zealand Agency of the Decade Colenso BBDO and becoming CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi New York.

Brent lives in Bondi with his wife and three boys, but originally hails from Melbourne, which explains his love of Carlton Football Club and coffee.

Dr Kerstin Oberprieler

Dr Kerstin is a gamification and behavioural designer, blending academic research with design and innovation to tackle behaviour and engagement challenges. She works with governments, private organisations, educational institutions and not-for-profits to apply psychology to deliver impact.

Dr Kerstin has a PhD in behaviour change and gamification and is described as one of the World’s Leading Figures in Behavioural Science by Insights Success Magazine. Dr Kerstin is an Adjunct Fellow with the University of Western Sydney and an academic tutor for University of Canberra.

Dr Kerstin is a sought after keynote speaker, having presented in Australia, USA, Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong. Kerstin has also delivered a TED talk on the power of gamification.

Dr Juliette Tobias-Webb

Dr Juliette Tobias-Webb is a Professor of Practice in Behavioural Science and one of Australia's leading behavioural scientists. She has a PhD in Experimental Psychology from Cambridge University and has since worked for a range of leading government and corporate organisations to explore human decision-making and behaviour change, helping teams and companies leverage behavioural insight to drive positive transformation at scale. As a founder of a behavioural science consultancy, she collaborates with industry leaders such as Mastercard, Citibank, Insurance Australia Group, Atlassian, and Deloitte. She is also an award-winning lecturer for business and executive leaders. She has held significant roles, including a Senior Manager in Behavioural Science for Commonwealth Bank and the Behaviour Change Lead for Ogilvy Australia. Her contributions extend to publications in leading neuroscience and psychology journals, and she has been featured in various media outlets, including Triple J Hack, ABC, and the Australian Financial Review. Dr Juliette has been recognised for her exceptional contributions to the field being one of 60 women in Australia nominated as a Superstar of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths), and being selected as one of 100 women in STEM to explore Antarctica.

Will Mailer

William Mailer leads the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Behavioural Science Centre of Excellence. This multi-disciplinary unit of economists, psychologists and data scientists works across CBA’s business lines to improve financial wellbeing and climate action outcomes for millions of Australians. The CBA team partners with leading research groups and practitioners around the world to produce impactful research and develop new innovations in partnerships, products and services. Prior to joining CBA, Will established and led the PwC Behavioural Economics team. Will has over 20 years of consulting experience, and a MSc in Behavioural Economics from the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics (CeDEx) in Nottingham, UK. Originally from Wagga Wagga, NSW, Will now lives in Sydney’s inner west with his wife and two young boys.

Sally McMullen

Sally is one half of the dynamic podcasting duo "Two Broke Chicks." She brings a unique and refreshing blend of candid life lessons, financial tips, and a healthy dose of humour to listeners twice weekly. Sally is also a freelance music journalist and writer, who happens to be an absolute gun at building and engaging online audiences.

Robert Brittain

Robert Brittain is an independent marketing consultant and strategic advisor to CMOs. A published writer and speaker in his field, Robert is co-author of the “Advertising Effectiveness Rules” series of reports from the ACA Effectiveness Database with the globally renowned Peter Field. These include “To ESOV and Beyond” and “Attention and Effectiveness”. Prior to becoming an independent marketing consultant Robert spent 20 years in client-side commercial roles including leading Marketing Effectiveness at ANZ Bank Banking Group and Marketing Analytics at Mondelez International across the Asia-Pacific region.

Matt Plant

Matt is Thinkerbell’s Head of Behavioural Sciences and it’s fortunate he has this title and a general obsession with how humans work, because in isolation, the feedback: ‘Matt knows a lot about people but talks about them like he’s not one of them’ would seem particularly odd.

Starting off as a musician Matt left to pursue the world of consumer psychology when he found himself more interested in changing how the crowds behaved and cross-checking it with bar sales.

Having worked across national and international brands from tech and insurance to FMCG and retail, Matt has a proven track record of unearthing the behavioural science behind any business problem. He is also known to feel uncomfortable writing bios about himself in third person pretending somebody else has said it.

Maura Halpin

Maura is a strategic, insights driven marketer who believes in the power of creativity to drive emotional connections with consumers and outsized commercial impact. She currently heads up marketing at Ideally, the consumer insights platform that allows you to quickly test and iterate on brand, product, campaign or innovation ideas - bringing the voice of the consumer in early to give ideas momentum.

Prior to Ideally, Maura spent 11 years at Google ANZ in sales strategy, creative innovation and B2C brand marketing roles. Most recently, she looked after consumer marketing for Google Search in Australia where she managed Google Australia’s brand health through a series of crises (Bushfires/Covid/ACCC News Media Bargaining Code) and developed a brand platform (Helping you, help others) that resulted in award winning creative work. (B&T TV Ad of the Year ‘22; Mumbrella Campaign of the Year ‘22; ARIA Award Best Use of Australian Recording in Advertising ‘23.)

Maura is an Aussie American who recently relocated to Auckland where she lives with her Kiwi husband and two daughters.

Rob Dougan

Rob spent most of his working life as a brand planner in advertising agencies across Sydney and London. He’s worked on a wide range of brands and won effies around the world. He made the move client side with Tourism Australia just before the Black Summer Fires and COVID-19. Two events which decimated the Australian tourism industry. Since then, Rob has written recovery strategies for both crises, developed TA’s Principles of Destination Marketing, written the brief for TA’s Come and Say G'day campaign, launched groundbreaking global demand research and redesigned strategic and planning processes across the organisation.

Dr Simon Longstaff

Simon Longstaff began his working life on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory of Australia. He is proud of his kinship ties to the Anindilyakwa people. After a period studying law in Sydney and teaching in Tasmania, he pursued postgraduate studies as a Member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Simon has been Executive Director of The Ethics Centre for 30 years. In 2013, he was made an officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the community through the promotion of ethical standards in governance and business, to improving corporate responsibility, and to philosophy.” Simon is an Adjunct Professor of the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW, a Fellow of CPA Australia, the Royal Society of NSW and the Australian Risk Policy Institute.

Alison Tilling

Ali is CSO at VML in Australia and Aotearoa NZ.

She partners with senior clients and team alike, to create a culture obsessed with finding disconnects and overcoming them to drive growth.

During her 22-year career, Ali’s worked across categories from tech and media to retail and financial services, and across brand, commerce, brand architcture and CX-based projects. Starting at TBWA\London, she’s worked at Wieden+Kennedy, client side at Apple Europe, at Australian independent BMF and now at VML.

Ali is a highly awarded strategy leader, particularly in Effies, D&AD, APG and Jay Chiat. She’s served on juries including NY Festivals and Cannes Lions, is an involved industry mentor and a columnist for Brandingmag and Mumbrella.

She’s the slightly frazzled parent of two young girls, so there’s a lot of LEGO involved.

Professor Ujwal Kayande

Ujwal Kayande, Professor at Melbourne Business School, founded and directed the school’s Centre for Business Analytics and was the Dean at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University from 2022-2024. He has taught Marketing and Business Analytics to thousands of senior executives and published extensively in top journals. His research has garnered numerous awards, including the Lehmann Award from the American Marketing Association. Currently, Ujwal advises companies like L'Oréal and tech startups on data and AI strategies, and is a Professor-in-Residence at Forethought.

Brent Vrdoljak

After 10 years in various marketing leadership roles, Brent jumped off the corporate ladder to explore consulting with clients, creating content and building new businesses in the FMCG marketing space. With a particular interest in the area of brand design and packaging artwork, Brent has grown an online presence to 3 million+ views in the last six months. And he's just getting started.

Pip Bingemann

Ex-agency nerd turned Springboards.ai co-founder. Pip has spent 15 years in creative, media and marketing roles. From Sydney to San Francisco and finally Noosa.