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Dare to Disrupt: Mumbrella360
Welcome to Mumbrella360, where the most brilliant minds and daring innovators in the realm of media and marketing converge. It's the epicenter of inspiration, the gathering place for industry trailblazers, and the crucible in which the future of our field is forged.
Join us in this immersive three-day event, where you'll gain expert knowledge, network with industry leaders, and experience the future of media and marketing taking flight.
Meet the 2024 firepower...
Julie Bishop
Julie Bishop
The Hon Julie Bishop is Chancellor of the Australian National University appointed in 2020.
Julie served as Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 until 2018. She was the first female to hold the role as well as the first female Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, serving for 11 years.
In a political career spanning over 20 years, Julie also served as Minister for Education, Science and Training, Minister for Women’s Issues and Minister for Ageing.
Prior to entering politics, she was Managing Partner of the National law firm Clayton Utz in Perth.
Julie is Chair of the Board of Prince’s Trust Australia, and Trustee of Prince’s Trust Group Company (becoming The King’s Trust), Chair of the Board of Telethon Kids Institute, Member of the International Advisory Board of Council on Foreign Relations.
She has also established a boutique consultancy, Julie Bishop and Partners, offering strategic advisory services.
Julie is a globally recognised and highly sought-after public speaker with a unique perspective on many issues that comes from her broad professional and personal experiences.
She is a highly engaging and entertaining speaker, sharing insights and lessons from her time in the inner circles of the international political and corporate worlds.
Greg Hoffman
Greg Hoffman is a global brand leader, former NIKE Chief Marketing Officer, and founder and principal of the brand advisory group Modern Arena. Greg brought all of his brand experience to the world this year through his best-selling book Emotion by Design: Creative Leadership Lessons From a Life at Nike.
For 28 years, Greg held marketing, design, and innovation leadership roles at NIKE. During that time, he was a major strategic and creative influence for the brand during every major global sporting event, for the launches of NIKE’s signature innovations, and for the building of the brands of its athletes.
Greg oversaw NIKE’s brand communications and experiences as NIKE was solidifying its position as one of the preeminent brand storytellers of the modern era and the leading innovator in digital and physical brand experiences. His role in the rise of marketing and design through that period was recognized in 2015 when Fast Company named him one of the Most Creative People in Business. He’s also been recognized for his transformative leadership in the industry through Business Insider’s 50 Most Innovative CMOs and AdAge’s Power Players annual lists.
Through his leadership, Nike drove themes of equality, sustainability, and empowerment through sport in some of its most significant brand communications. That work was, in part, driven by his role on the Advisory Board of the NIKE Black Employee Network and as a member of the NIKE Foundation Board of Directors.
Today as founder and principal of Modern Arena, Greg advises Fortune 500 brands, startups, and nonprofits on creating brand strength, business growth, and social impact. He delivers keynotes to teams at brands ranging from Apple, Google, and Netflix, to Lego, Target, and Meta, on how to build stronger emotional bonds through branding and creativity.
In addition, He is a board member for Summit Impact, the philanthropic arm of Summit Series, the Branding instructor at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business, and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Pip Edwards
Pip's fusion of creative prowess, business acumen, and profound understanding of the arts inevitably steered her away from a Bachelor of Commerce & Law and a corporate initiation with PwC, propelling her into the realm of the fashion industry where she became indispensable to the success of some of Australia's most iconic brands. As the driving force behind P.E Nation, Pip not only oversees but permeates every facet of the brand. Her ability to seamlessly blend finely honed commercial insight encompassing marketing intuition and brand-building expertise with creative direction, styling, and design proficiency has played a pivotal role in every milestone, award, and accolade attained by P.E Nation as the label has seamlessly transformed from start-up into an established global player.
Dylan Alcott AO
2022 Australian of the Year, Dylan Alcott AO, is one of world’s most successful and well recognised Paralympians, media personalities and disability advocates. In 2021 he became the only male in any form of tennis to win the 'Golden Slam', winning the Australian, French, Wimbledon and US Open Championships and the Paralympic Gold Medal, and he is a Paralympic Gold Medallist in two different sports, wheelchair tennis and wheelchair basketball. He is a 23-time Grand Slam champion in Quad Wheelchair Tennis.
Born with a tumour wrapped around his spinal cord, Dylan survived a 3.5 year battle to live and has been achieving ever since. In 2017, Dylan launched the Dylan Alcott Foundation, providing grants, scholarships and mentoring to young Australians with disability to eliminate the barriers of entry to get involved in sports, study, training, employment and business ownership. In 2023, the Dylan Alcott Foundation launched the Shift 20 Initiative with the objective of significantly increasing inclusion and participation for people with disability in mainstream advertising.
Tara Ford
Tara Ford is the Chief Creative Officer of Accenture Song APAC and LATAM and Chief Creative Officer of The Monkeys. She sits on the Board of the Advertising Council of Australia and the D&AD Advisory Board.
Tara has just been named ‘Creative Leader of the Year 2023’ (Australia/New Zealand) by Campaign Asia. She was named ‘Creative Captain 2022’ in the Women Leading Change Awards by Campaign Asia Pacific. The year before, ‘Global Creative Leader of the Year 2021’ by Creativepool.
In 2020 she was named ‘Creative Person of the Year’ (Australia/New Zealand) by Campaign Asia.
She was also on ‘The Global Creative Influencer of the Year’ top 100 list according to Creativepool 2020. This year she has been was ranked #5 on B&T’s Women in Media Power list and #9 on Mediaweek’s prestigious list of the 50 most influential and powerful creative agency executives. She is ranked #1 CCO in APAC by One Show.
Under her creative leadership The Monkeys has taken out the coveted Campaign Brief Agency of the Year title 2021 and Mumbrella Creative Agency of the Year 2022 and AWARD Creative Agency of the Year 2022. In 2023 Spikes Australian Agency of the Year and Spikes Strategy and Effectiveness Agency of the Year. Globally, Cannes, D&AD and One Show Agency of the Year, Australia. And Effies Effective Agency of the Year, Australia.
Tara’s work has been consistently recognised throughout her career, at the highest level of every major international award show across an expansive range of clients and disciplines. This includes most recently the coveted Dan Wieden Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes with the ‘The First Digital Nation’ for the Government of Tuvalu.
Ford has judged and chaired at every major global award show. And with her work as a board member of the Advertising Council of Australia, the AWARD Council and the D&AD Advisory Board, she helps guide the future direction, reputation and values of the industry.
Sara Shams
Sara is a model, speaker, creator, actor, and disability activist. As a bilateral above knee amputee, her mission is to raise awareness on what it takes to be truly and authentically inclusive within the fashion and media industry, and beyond.
Using her lived experience and an intersectional approach, Sara aims to challenge the negative implications that surround disability, to normalise and recognise people with disability as valuable members of society. Sara is passionate about body acceptance, authentic representation, and creating age, size and ability inclusive spaces.
Saras’ creative career is complemented by a background in healthcare, and having recently commenced in board director roles, Sara is also advocating for inclusive representation in leadership positions.
As a proud disabled woman of colour, Sara’s presence in brand campaigns, events, runways, and screens, creates space for people from various walks of life, and is committed to breaking barriers and redefining perceptions of beauty and disability.
Jamila Rizvi
Jamila is a diversity, equity and inclusion expert, as well as a best-selling author and broadcaster. She is the Deputy Managing Director at FW, a company that champions gender equity in Australian workplaces through professional development, community and advocacy.
A best-selling author for adults and children, Jamila is also a columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Previously, she advised the Rudd and Gillard Governments on gender, early childhood education, media and employment participation.
Jamila was named in Culture Amp’s 25 Emerging Global Culture Creators 2024, Women and Leadership Australia’s Victorian award winner 2020 and included in the AFR’s 100 Women of Influence.
She is a board member of the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas, and an ambassador for PLAN International and the Royal Melbourne Hospital Neuroscience Foundation.
Lara Thom
Lara Thom is currently Global Chief Marketing Officer at Guzman y Gomez. GYG is Australia’s fastest-growing fast food company. , serving real, made-to-order Mexican food using real, fresh produce and authentic ingredients. With speed, technology and innovation at the core of the business, Guzman y Gomez is reinventing fast food by showing it’s possible to serve good food, fast, without compromising on nutrition or quality.
Lara joined Guzman y Gomez in 2016 after a period as General Manager of Digital and Marketing for Vittoria Food & Beverage. Lara is an entrepreneur at heart and thrives within founder led businesses. Having launched several successful ventures, including digital agency Be.Interactive which was sold to Salmat in 2010, babywear brand “L'il Fraser Collection” and the “Junior MasterChef” range of children’s cookware and aprons. Lara began her career as a journalist at the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph. Lara was also named in the 2022 CMO50 list.
She currently sits on the Board of Directors at Loreto Normanhurst, has served on the Local Organising Committee for the FIBA Women's World Cup in Sydney 2022 and she is the proud Mum to 5 children between the ages of 19 and 11. Lara spends her weekends driving children to sports and answering questions like “are you completely mad?”
Professor Jenni Romaniuk
Professor Jenni Romaniuk is a Research Professor of Marketing and Associate Director (International) at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute - the world’s largest centre for research into marketing.
As the key architect behind the Ehrenberg-Bass approaches to Distinctive Asset, Category Entry Point and Mental Availability measurement, Jenni has worked with companies all over the world to help them build stronger brands. She has written three books: Building Distinctive Brand Assets, which helps marketers to future-proof their brand’s identity, How Brands Grow Part 2 which builds on the knowledge revolution started in How Brands Grow and her new book, Better Brand Health provides a valuable resource for those looking to get the most out of their brand health tracking.
Jenni’s expertise spans mental and physical availability, brand equity, brand health tracking, word-of-mouth and advertising effectiveness. She was editor of the Journal of Advertising Research from 2014-2016, and now sits on the Journal’s Senior Advisory Board.
Tim Ross
Tim Ross has had a career spanning decades in the entertainment industry. Starting with his parody band, Black Rose, Tim with his comedic partner Merrick Watts hosted radio shows on Triple J before taking the coveted breakfast slot on newly formed Nova 96.9.
During the 8 successful years at Nova, Merrick and Rosso created numerous TV shows including a late night talk show, won an Aria for Best Comedy Release and Tim was even awarded GQ Man of the Year.
And whilst he may be best known for his work on TV and radio (at different times hosting both the number one breakfast and drive shows in Sydney) comedian Tim Ross has also always had a passion for architecture and design.
Over more recent years, he has performed his live Man About the House show in architecturally-significant buildings and homes all over the world.
Tim also passionately supports important issues in Australian architecture and design and has been awarded an honorary member of the Australian Institute of Architects.
Tim’s first two-part series on Australian architecture, Streets of Your Town, premiered on ABC TV in November 2016 to rave reviews, and quickly became the most watched arts program on the ABC for the year.
Tim’s latest TV series about why architecture matters, Designing A Legacy, featuring Australian families whose lives have been shaped within the walls of modern masterpieces and poses the question of what will happen to these legacy homes, went to air in February 2021, to rave reviews. A second series of Designing A Legacy, with a broader look at Australian architecture aired on ABC in June 2023.
Tim has written a number of books including his memoir, Mum had a Kingswood. The Rumpus Room and Scorcher embraces Australian life with a collection of short stories. Whilst Motel – Images of Australia on Holidays and recent release Chuck a U-ey – Images of Australians and their cars, explore our past through the National Archives.
A testament to his great interview and presenting skills, Tim has hosted a number of podcasts including Constant for the National Art Gallery, Built with Brickworks film series, Cars that Made Australia with Nine podcasts and his personal favourite, Summer Breeze with his best friend Kit Warhurst.
Tim hosted Kevin McCloud In Conversation to a sold out audience at the Sydney Opera House, celebrated for their rapport and humour.
Jenny Melhuish
Jenny Melhuish is the Marketing Director of ALDI, leading all things Marketing for the retailer.
Previously, Jenny spent 14 years at the Westpac Group in various Marketing roles, looking after a portfolio of brands, including Westpac, St.George, Bank of Melb, Bank of SA and RAMS.
Joanna Robinson
With over 26 years of commercial experience across marketing, sales, and leadership, Joanna is Chief Marketing Officer at THE ICONIC, Australia's leading online fashion and lifestyle destination. Holding a Bachelor or Arts degree and Masters of Strategic Marketing, she also has the privilege of teaching Marketing and Leadership subjects at Sydney University as a Sessional Lecturer.
Beginning her career in FMCG, Joanna has worked with the likes of Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and Colgate Palmolive. She has also worked in senior roles in Beauty with Estee Lauder and L’Occitane, as well as “entertainment” categories such as Bubble Tea and Wine with Chatime Group and Tyrrell's Wines respectively. She has a particular expertise in marketing to Gen Y and Z, and utilising data and insights to optimise customer experience to drive commercial outcomes.
Joanna’s international experience has spanned Australia, Asia, North Africa, Middle East, and Turkey.
She is an advocate for women's empowerment, diversity and gender equality in the workplace, and is passionate about developing and mentoring the next generation of female leaders.
Andy Morley
Andy Morley is the Director of Marketing for Uber in Asia Pacific, leading teams across the region on high impact marketing activities for Uber’s Mobility and Delivery businesses, unlocking creative and locally relevant ways to engage with consumers, partners and merchants.
As a member of Uber’s APAC leadership team, Andy brings more than 15 years worth of experience on leading brands like Johnnie Walker and Campbell Arnotts, and seven years’ experience at Uber from the early start-up days to the now established mega-brands.
As a witness to the rapid expansion of the Uber & Uber Eats businesses from start-up to mass consumer brands, Andy has been instrumental in building a celebrated function that was named Australia’s Marketing Team of the Year by Mumbrella (2022).
Andy is a father of two who enjoys surfing and AFL.
Annabel Fribence
Annabel (Belle) embarked on her journey as Westpac’s Chief Brand & Marketing Officer in November 2021, taking the helm of the brand, creative, and marketing direction for the Group’s diverse portfolio of brands, including Westpac, BT, St.George, Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, and RAMS.
Armed with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia, Belle made waves as the memorable KFC CMO who famously exclaimed, "shut up and take my money."
Prior to her tenure at Westpac, Belle honed her expertise as the Chief Marketing Officer for Yum foods, stationed in the vibrant city of Singapore. Throughout her career, she has seamlessly transitioned through various roles in Strategy, Brand, and Marketing for renowned entities such as KFC, Pernod Ricard, McDonald’s, and Foster’s Group.
Rose Herceg
Rose Herceg leads WPP’s business in Australia, supporting the agency leaders, promoting WPP’s collective capabilities and bringing together people and resources on behalf of clients. Rose was previously Chief Strategy Officer of WPP AUNZ, which became a wholly owned part of WPP in 2021. In this role, she led client-facing activity at the WPP level, helping to deliver the company’s integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce and technology across its network of agencies. Earlier in her career, Rose founded Pophouse, one of Australia’s leading agencies for innovation, social trends and business strategy. She sold this to STW Group in 2007 and joined as a strategic consultant. She became Chief Strategy Officer of WPP AUNZ following the WPP merger with STW in 2016. Rose is the author of three books on business leadership and innovation and is one of Australia’s leading social forecasters and futurists.
Kim Anderson
Kim Anderson has built a reputation on crafting bold ideas into tangible outcomes. From a winning World Cup bidding campaign, to propelling the FIFA Women’s World Cup beyond greatness, Kim has been a creative and strategic force behind some of Australasia's most iconic recent sporting and cultural memories. With a 20-year career spanning Australia, New York, London, and New Zealand, Kim has spearheaded marketing, brand and experiential strategy for a diverse set of international brands at the forefront of sport, design, events, purpose and technology.
At Mumbrella360 we’ll hear more about Kim's role as the strategic marketing executive behind the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023, where she delivered a transformational tournament alongside a lasting legacy for women's sport.
Declan Lee
Declan Lee is the co-founder, brand custodian and self described ‘facilitator of stuff’ at Gelato Messina. His shift into gelato maven is an interesting one - a physiotherapist by trade, Declan then moved into the music world as a DJ. Today, he’s one of four founders at the household name Messina has become, leading the brand to its enormous rise as one of Australia’s most prolific food businesses with an incredible social community and following, along with expansion from their OG store in Darlinghurst, to nearly 30 across the country and international outposts in Hong Kong.
Dr Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones, a former voiceover artist for Paramount (Nickelodeon, MTV, Network 10) is now an emotion researcher and the director of the Mood Institute. With a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Adelaide, he specialises in boosting creativity and emotional intelligence through coaching, training, and speaking engagements. Nathan has taken the stage at TEDx, SXSW Austin, and the World Congress on Positive Psychology, sharing strategies to enhance wellbeing in the workplace and beyond. Nathan's contributions to the field have been recognised in major media outlets (The Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Telegraph, ABC Radio), while earning him the 2019 Australian eChallenge Social Entrepreneurship Award and 1st prize in the 2022 Visualise Your Thesis competition. Through the Mood Institute, Nathan is committed to helping individuals and teams tap into their best selves and feel better at work.
Gus Worland
With over 15 years' experience, Gus Worland is an Australian television and radio personality and director and founder of mental health foundation, Gotcha4Life. He is well known for his series of reality television programs for Foxtel (An Aussie Goes Barmy, An Aussie Goes Bolly and An Aussie Goes Calypso) and A&E (Marathon Man). He has also covered the Commonwealth and Olympic Games for Foxtel. Gus is a sporting tragic and continues to use his passion to entertain audiences.
Gus spent 10 years in breakfast radio on Triple M, starting on The Grill Team in 2009. Within two years they doubled their ratings for this time slot, and Gus was awarded ‘Best On Air Newcomer’ at the 2010 Australian Commercial Radio Awards. In 2020, Gus moved to The Deadset Legends, a live sports chat show every Saturday Morning with Wendell Sailor and Jude Bolton.
Hosting the 2016 ABC series Man Up was pivotal for Gus. The series was an exploration of modern masculinity and men’s mental health issues – challenging masculine stereotypes and getting men better connected and breaking the silence around suicide. Following the enormous impact of Man Up, Gus founded Gotcha4Life with the mission to target Men’s Mental Health – and the goal to save lives and make a significant impact in raising the mental state of boys, men and their families.
Gotcha4Life today drives real change and funds educational workshops and innovative training programs throughout Australia that build mental fitness in all individuals, organisations and communities to activate strong, open and binding relationships.
Gretchen Fox
After working in energy and health insurance, Gretchen joined Aware Super in May 2022. Since then, Gretchen has brought to life their latest campaign, Super Helpful. It’s showed that we’ve heard what Australians are saying about super funds.
Like Gretchen, it lets people know that we’re switched on, gaining insight and responding; hand-in-hand with members. As a believer in industry-leading technology, Gretchen has helped transform the fund to what it is now.
And what is Aware Super now? Well, it’s Money magazine’s Best Super Fund 2023.
It’s also a great example of what Gretchen values as a marketer. That strong support and helping people can get the very best performance and outcomes. And this doesn’t stop with members.
Gretchen supports our people to grow, develop and make a real impact at work, calling it “a great privilege.” But it’s not just us saying that. The Australian Financial Review named us one of the Best Places to Work. It’s because of leaders like Gretchen.
Jemma Downey
Jemma Downey is an accomplished marketing and commercial leader with a 20-year career spanning Europe, the US, and APAC, working for renowned companies such as Bacardi, Live Nation and VICE Media.
Currently the Group General Manager of Commercial Excellence at Asahi Beverages, she drives transformative strategies at the intersection of technology, digital, data, and creativity. Jemma excels in cultivating high-performing, motivated teams, advocates for DE&I in global initiatives, and is dedicated to facilitating personal growth and holistic well-being. She is a certified Energetics practitioner and actively pursuing registration as a psychologist, expanding her expertise in human behaviour and well-being.
Aimie Rigas
Aimie is an audience engagement and growth expert. She is the Director of Audience Growth for Nine Publishing, which includes The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Brisbane Times and all associated brands such as Good Food. In this role, Aimie is responsible for audience engagement, consumer subscription revenue and marketing. She is a board member of the Fairfax Foundation, which provides financial support to advance the health, education and welfare of people who work in, or have previously worked in, the media industry in Australia and their families.
Casey Kudrenko
With over 10 years' experience, Casey has been involved with some of Australia's and Asia Pacific’s largest brands and organisations, helping them design, explore, implement and apply unique neuroscience-based insights. Specialising and publishing in the realm of cognitive drivers of consumer behaviour and decision making, Casey combines her knowledge and passion of neuroscience, human insights and consumer psychology to understand the various impacts of media, creative, category, and the consumer.
Carolyn Baveystock
Carolyn Baveystock is Head of Media, Digital & Tech at PepsiCo ANZ. She has been with the PepsiCo business since 2006, previously holding a number of roles across the FMCG giant’s portfolio, including Brand Manager for Gatorade and Marketing Manager for Health & Wellness innovation. Skilled in marketing management, customer insight, trade marketing and marketing strategy, Carolyn has spearheaded some of the brand’s most high-profile consumer engagement campaigns including the return of the Pepsi Max taste test.
Rebecca Darley
Bec describes herself as "CMO-plus" - the culmination of a 20+ year marketing career across global and local brands plus C-suite experience spanning Business Strategy, P&L ownership, Board Directorship and Chairperson responsibilities.
Bec is currently Chief Marketing Officer and Managing Director, Consumer Division at Domain, leading a diverse portfolio including the Group's Marketing and Sustainability teams as well as P&L responsibility for the growing Consumer Division and Domain Media business. Previously as General Manager, Business Strategy & Marketing at CommSec, Bec was instrumental in cementing CommSec's market-leading position, developing the three-year business strategy and delivering exponential customer growth.
Bec has held senior marketing roles including Head of Marketing for St George Bank, Head of Marketing for Westpac Group's mortgages portfolio, Marketing Director at IKEA and Head of Consumer Communications at Vodafone.
With a passion for industry talent and a desire to give back, Bec is Co-Chair of UnLtd – the marketing, media and advertising industry’s charitable foundation supporting disadvantaged youth. Bec is a Director of Australia’s Internet Advisory Board (IAB), a member of Meta’s Client Council in Australia, and a member of The Marketing Academy APAC Fellowship.
Bec is actively involved in the industry as a guest speaker, panellist, mentor and awards judge. Whilst her career is incredibly fulfilling, Bec is a proud mum to three delicious humans - Max,7, Indy, 6 and Poppy, 5.
Lindene Cleary
Lindene Cleary is an award-winning marketer with over 20 years’ experience working with some of the world’s most respected brands including Coca-Cola, Diageo, and Tourism Tasmania, across brand, communications, digital, and within creative agencies.
Currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Tasmania, Lindene leads all aspects of the strategic marketing for the Tasmanian tourism brand, both within Australia and internationally, including brand communications, PR, content, digital marketing, and partnerships.
Prior to her role as Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Tasmania, Lindene spent five years at the organisation’s Head of Brand Marketing. Throughout her globally esteemed career, Lindene has been based domestically in Sydney, Canberra, and Hobart, as well as internationally in Singapore, London, and Seoul.
Lindene is a passionate Tasmania and has an inherent understanding of the importance of the tourism industry to Tasmania’s economy and community, and she is proud to tell the island state’s unique story to the world.
Dee Madigan
Dee is an award winning creative director who has worked on some of Australia’s largest brands in almost every category (including FMCG, banking and finance, health and education).
She got sick of selling people shit they didn't need and started Campaign Edge in 2014 to work primarily in the progressive space.
She works for a range of unions and has been Creative Director for the Labor Party on 24 election campaigns, including the 2015, 2017 and 2020 QLD campaigns and the 2022 Federal election.
She is one of Australia’s leading campaign strategists and effectively uses creativity as a tool to persuade an audience.
She is a panellist on Gruen (ABC TV) and appears on The Latest and Sunrise (CH7). She is also the author of The Hard Sell (MUP 2014), as well as a contributing author on Mothermorphosis (MUP 2015), Perspectives on Change (ANU 2015) and Unbreakable (UQP 2017).
She is on the board of Per Capita and Australians for Mental Health.
Her attention to detail is woeful. She can't remember faces. And she has the attention span of a 3 year old.
But apart from that, she's quite good at what she does.
Simon Cheng
Bio coming soon...
Bryan Smith
Bryan Smith is the global Chief Strategy Officer for 72andsunny. Based in Los Angeles, Bryan oversees much of the strategic output for the agency’s North American and global clients and has provided thought leadership for tech giants like Google, unicorns like Dropbox, entertainment icons like Activision, and blue chip marketers like Unilever.
In his time at 72andSunny, the company has been named Adweek and Ad Age’s Agency of the Year twice; made the list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies twice; and brought home the most awards for US marketing effectiveness twice; as well as winning in Australia, Campaign Brief’s Agency Of The Year and Mumbrella’s Ad Campaign Of The Year.
Allison Yorston
Allison Yorston is the Chief Marketing Officer for Suntory Oceania, a leading beverages company and the market leader in energy drinks across Australia and New Zealand.
Suntory Oceania distributes a diverse range of beverages, including fruit juices, energy drinks, waters, and soft drinks. Some of its renowned brands include V Energy, Suntory BOSS Coffee, Maximus, Just Juice, The Real McCoy, and Fresh Up.
Allison leads the ANZ marketing team and operates with a ‘Gemba’ centric approach; inspiring her team to embrace innovative strategic platforms that resonate with consumers and drive business growth with agility.
Under her leadership, the Energy and Transformation portfolio soared to new heights, reigniting consumer passion for V Energy with a refresh to all elements of the marketing mix, tailoring the range to evolving consumer preferences. Allison has also played a pivotal role in the remarkable success of Suntory BOSS Coffee, firmly establishing it as the most favoured ready-to-drink coffee beverage across Australia and New Zealand.
Boasting over two decades of experience, Allison possesses a rich history within the FMCG industry, having made significant contributions to several blue-chip companies, including Unilever, Arnotts, Fonterra, and Sanitarium.
Lindsey Evans
Lindsey co-founded Special in Australia in 2014 and is a global partner in the business that has since gone on to open its doors in Los Angeles, New York, London and Tokyo.
During her tenure Special has attracted an enviable wealth of talent, built an extraordinary culture, and partners with a diverse group of ambitious local and who’s who of client partners including Uber Eats, ANZ, Bonds, Pepsico and Virgin Australia. In the past five years Special Australia has won a staggering 39 Agency of the Year awards locally and internationally.
Lindsey consistently features in the top ten lists of agency leaders including being ranked #4 in Mediaweek’s Creative Agency Power List, Executive Leader of the Year in the 2022 Best of the Best Awards and B&T’s Women in Media Executive Leader of the Year 2021.
She contributes significantly to the industry and the next generation, including as a Board Director of Advertising Council Australia and a Board Director of mental health charity Waves of Wellness (WOW).
Lindsey doesn’t have any hobbies. Instead, she has three teenagers, a Labrador and two moggies. She started Special to help her relax.
Ruben Ahmed
Ruben Ahmed is the Director of Marketing for HP Australia & New Zealand and is responsible for all areas of HP’s Consumer and Commercial marketing across both PC & Printing divisions. With a passion for new and emerging technologies he has had the privilege of building his career with some of the world’s most iconic technology brands including HP, Telstra, IBM and Sony.
Alexandra Sloane
Alexandra has over 20 years of marketing leadership experience in tech companies and creative agencies.
Prior to joining Optus in 2023 to lead Enterprise & Business Marketing, she spent 10 years scaling for exponential growth at Meta, in Sydney and Singapore. Alex led customer marketing for Meta's family of apps and services including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.
Prior to Meta, Alexandra managed domestic and global brand and advertising strategy for Toyota, Lexus, Telstra, LG Mobile and Dell in her time at Sydney and New York advertising agencies including Y&R and George Patterson.
A B2C and B2B marketing leader with expertise across digital & performance right through to brand and partnerships, Alex is also very passionate about environmental sustainability and DE&I, serving as a director on the NSW Parks and Wildlife Trust board, and as an advisory board member to Australian tech startups.
Adam Ferrier
Adam is one of Australia's leading creative strategists, and a consumer psychologist. Adam began work life as a criminal psychologist, before becoming a cool hunter (and completing his masters in psychology in ‘Identifying the Underlying Constructs of Cool People’) and then co-founding Naked Communications APAC. Naked was a wild trip and became one of Australia’s most audacious and successful agencies, embracing a strategically focused behavioural change model. Following that, Adam co-founded Thinkerbell - where they practices 'measured magic' - bringing together marketing science and hardcore creativity. After just 5 years Thinkerbell was officially recognised as Mumbrella’s 2021 Creative, Full Service, and PR Agency of the Year - the first time one agency has won all three awards, as well as 2023 Campaign Briefs Agency of The Year.
In other news Adam is also the author of two books “The Advertising Effect” (Oxford), and 'Stop Listening to the Customer' (Wiley). Adam co-hosts the potentially multi-awarding winning podcast ‘Black T-Shirts’, and has a weekly national TV segment on Sunrise, as well as being a regular on The Project and Gruen. Adam is married to Anna and has two sons Asterix and Arturo (like the Kardashians but with an ‘A’).
Sarah Heitkamp
Samara Kitchener is a multi-award winning strategic communications specialist who has a passion for health, technology and behaviour change. With 20 years senior marketing, communications and engagement experience working across government, food, defence and health sectors, Samara has deep expertise in integrated planning for significant campaigns and executing across multi-channel platforms.
Samara is an advanced practitioner of the Social Ecological Model and worked as an adviser to the World Health Organisation on risk communication strategies for pregnant women. She has led multi-stakeholder communication strategies for the Women in Sport Strategy; NSW Multicultural Strategy; NSW Physical Activity Strategy; and the Royal Australian Air Force Plan Jericho Behaviour Change Strategy.
Samara is the immediate past NSW President, Public Relations Institute of Australia, and is a guest lecturer at the University of NSW and University of Technology, Sydney.
Previous roles include Strategic Advisor Communications and Engagement with NSW Health where she led preventive health campaigns on overweight and obesity, HIV, STIs and hepatitis. Samara was also Director Communications with the NSW Food Authority where she led communication strategies, digital channels, crisis communications and education campaigns.
Samara has an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (UNSW) and an Honours Degree in Food Science and Technology.
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 and Sydney WorldPride, American Express delicious. Month Out, American Express Vogue Fashion Night In/Out, American Express Open Air Cinemas and the American Express Airport and Entertainment Lounges to name a few.
Naysla is a passionate advocate of Diversity and Inclusion, she is the Co-Executive sponsor of AX Pride ANZ, leads all efforts towards elevating marketing practices to remove stereotypes and showcase a realistic Australia and is an active member of the mental health and Women’s networks.
Naysla sits in the board of Redfern Legal Centre which is a valued Amex community partner, where she shares her expertise to support Redfern Legal centre’s vision to enhance access to justice and uphold human rights through the provision of holistic and accessible legal support to disadvantaged communities.
Naysla was born in Colombia but has lived across the world; her family takes top priority and Naysla ensures she has time to be with her husband Jon and her young daughter Isabella.
Guillaume Papillon
Guillaume (G) is the Head of Marketing & Communications at Mable, the online platform where people connect to provide and receive disability and aged care support their way. More than 18 million hours of support have been delivered through Mable over the last ten years, enabling hundreds of thousands of people across Australia to live their kind of independence.
In his role, Guillaume is accountable for brand strategy, lifting brand metrics, overseeing customer marketing & insights and developing an exceptional - and accessible - digital experience… as well as disrupting the traditional care & support category through data-led PR & communications initiatives.
Guillaume has a wealth of experience in disrupting categories and building brands for online platforms, having previously worked as hipages’ Head of Brand & Communications and having led CRM & Lifecycle efforts for global food-delivery platform Delivery Hero. Guillaume’s experience also spans across international category-leading brands, such as Pernod Ricard’s global wine brand portfolio and beauty retailer Sephora in the USA.
Originally from France, Guillaume settled in Sydney in 2011 after completing his Master’s Degree in Strategic PR from the University of Sydney. Guillaume is also a qualified wine expert, having successfully completed his WSET Diploma last year, an expert wine qualification only held by a few thousands people globally. He has since founded his wine-tasting side business, The Wine Apothecary.
Jason Ross
Jason is a co-founder of Time Under Tension, Australia’s first generative AI experience agency. Time Under Tension works with brands and agencies to elevate customer and employee experiences with generative AI. Prior to founding Time Under Tension, Jason amassed vast experience in digital product & service design. He has held roles as CEO and General Manager of leading digital agencies in the UK and Australia, served as Managing Director at Accenture Song, and VP at frog, part of the Capgemini group. Jason believes that generative AI is driving an "experience reboot," which, when navigated correctly, enables amazing new conversational experiences, utility, and value for humans.
About Time Under Tension
We find ourselves amidst one of the most exciting times of recent decades, witnessing a paradigm shift in the Human x Computer relationship, powered by generative AI technology. Time Under Tension was launched to help our clients be at the fore of this communication revolution. We’re 100% focussed on generative AI technology and leveraging these new capabilities to create new, immersive and meaningful experiences.
Lahnee White
Lahnee is Chief Marketing Officer at G’day Group, Australia’s largest regional accommodation provider with more than 300 properties around the country.
With more 20 years of consumer marketing experience, Lahnee has a breadth of expertise in shaping strategy within multi-brand organisations to deliver a more seamless and personalised customer experience.
Lahnee joined G’day Group in 2022 during a period of rapid organisational growth and diversification to oversee the company’s customer growth and experience, digital marketing, owned content and brand marketing strategies. Her expansive remit also includes PR and corporate communications, customer service, data science and analytics and digital product development.
Since joining the Group, she has accelerated the company’s personalisation agenda, aligning the Group’s marketing and digital functions to drive more effective and data informed marketing decision making, which has helped deliver record Group digital revenue in the 2022-23 financial year.
She has also overseen the delivery of new architecture for G’day Group’s brand portfolio, providing clearer distinction of the customer experience across the Group’s consumer brands, which were brought to life through large national brand campaigns for G’day Parks and Discovery Parks.
Prior to joining G’day Group, Lahnee was the General Manager of Customer Engagement at Sportsbet, responsible for organisational strategy in personalised marketing, value proposition, martech and marketing analytics. She also previously worked at Westpac across a variety of senior marketing roles.
Lahnee has a personal passion for travel and in her spare time enjoys hitting the road with her family in their caravan, exploring the best of regional Australia.
Sophie Price
Sophie is the Chief Strategy Officer of Essencemediacom Australia and is one of the country’s most experienced and awarded strategists. She is the only individual in the country to have led strategy in both creative agencies and various media agencies including UM (2015 - 2018) and M&C Saatchi from 2018 - 2021.
Sophie’s unique communications planning capabilities has resulted in some of Australia’s most famous and effective campaigns in recent years. She is the winner of multiple Cannes Lions, Australia Effies, MFAs and has been awarded Australian Woman in Media in 2016, 2018 and 2021.
Julie Dormand
Julie Dormand is a renowned industry leader in the advertising and marketing field, with a passion for helping others advance in their careers. As Managing Director at The Works, part of Capgemini, and armed with over 30 years of experience, Julie has established herself as a distinguished figure by adhering to a simple philosophy: supporting individuals in their professional journeys. She firmly believes in leveraging her expertise to elevate clients' brands and foster meaningful connections that have a positive impact on people's careers – and lives. Julie currently works with Mentor Walks, an initiative designed to provide women with unparalleled career advice via female leaders. As a recognised and awarded leader, Julie has received multiple accolades for her business and people leadership skills in numerous industry shows including Mumbrella, ADMA, Campaign Asia, and most recently a Finalist in Executive Leader and ‘Glass Ceiling’ categories at B&T Women in Media.
Jade Lloyd
With a successful career in media and advertising, Jade has held titles such as Executive Producer, Head of Digital Integration and Strategy Director for some of Australia’s largest media companies. That said, and without a doubt, her favourite title is Founder and Confidence Coach.
Launching her career in the radio industry, she developed a passion for bringing joy to the listener through captivating content, producing award winning local and national radio shows across Australia.
Moving into the commercial side of media, collaborating with some of the world’s best-known brands, Jade recognised the power of language and communication in being able to make active positive change to the consumer experience.
This bore an obsession with consumer and human behaviour, which evolved into the launch of JELC, a personal and corporate confidence coaching business. JELC now works with companies and individuals around Australia empowering them to find confidence in their leadership capabilities, communication skills and performance at work.
With a core belief that anyone is capable of making the world a better place, Jade enables her clients to become positive change makers in the world. Her focus is on growing leaders who approach business from a place of curiosity, compassion and open mindedness.
She is a huge believer in purpose led business, and an advocate for equality, diversity and the positive change that comes from empowering those less advantaged.
Anna Bollinger
With 20 years’ experience in the Advertising industry as an integrated, brand-driven strategic planner Anna has deep experience in QSR, FMCG, service and retail industries. Throughout her established career Anna has worked with several blue-chip clients such as ALDI, McDonald's, Mondelez, Qantas, CBA, KPMG, Uber Eats, Alinta Energy.
Before the age of 30, Anna was awarded the APG Planning Idol for top Account Planer and has gone on to have her work lauded at creative and effectiveness award shows across the globe, including Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia, and the Australian Effie Awards.
As a former dancer and theatre sports enthusiast, Anna lives for moments of vulnerability and unexpected candour which she finds daily as mum to four young boys.
Louise Cummins
Louise is the Chief Marketing Officer for World Vision Australia and has over 25 years of award-winning experience in marketing, management, and organisational change. She has also been recognised and is part of the alumni of CMO50 (top 50 CMOs in Australia list). With governance training from the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Louise has served on several not-for-profit boards. She is a coach, mentor and trainer and her passion projects have led her to write two globally successful children’s books and produce an award-winning short film. For more information visit - https://www.louisecummins.com.au/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiseemmacummins/
Vandita Pandey
Vandita Pandey is PepsiCo’s first ever Australian CMO, charged with unifying and innovating the global snack and beverage producer’s strategies for iconic brands including Pepsi Max, Smith’s, Red Rock Deli, Doritos, Gatorade, Bluebird and Copper Kettle potato chips. Since taking on the leadership role within PepsiCo’s Australian operations in 2021, Vandita has overseen the complete redevelopment of PepsiCo’s consumer engagement strategy at a national scale, unifying disparate consumer brand marketing activities into a centralised program focused on enhancing consumer centrality and technological innovation. Vandita has recently been profiled in The Australian and The Australian Financial Review discussing PepsiCo’s innovative approach to consumer marketing.
Dena Vassallo
Dena is the Founder and CEO of SOCIETY, an independent, female-founded, owned and led agency with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Chicago, USA. We support brands and organisations that are positively advancing society. SOCIETY was founded in Australia in 2017 and was named Best Places to Work in Asia-Pacific by PRWeek/Campaign Asia in 2023. Dena has over 20 years of international PR, marketing and communications experience in the US, Asia and Australia, and prior to launching SOCIETY, held roles at Edelman and WPP. SOCIETY works with Woolworths, Optus, Unilever and many more. Recognised as a global PR leader in the industry, Dena also serves on multiple boards, aiming to advance society and equality in a positive way.
Troy Taylor
Troy Taylor is the Vice President & General Manager for LEGO® Australia & New Zealand, which are divisions of the LEGO® Group, a privately held toy company based in Billund, Denmark. The LEGO Group is engaged in the development of children's creativity by learning through play. Based on the world-famous LEGO® brick, the company today provides toys, experiences and teaching materials for children in more than 180 countries.
In his role, Troy is accountable for growing the LEGO brand in the Pacific region to deliver on the companies’ ambition to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. Troy is a key member of the Asia Pacific Leadership Team playing a pivotal role in strategy development and execution across the APAC region.
Troy has been with the LEGO Group for 21 years and has a proven track record of success in a wide range of senior roles across the LEGO Group’s largest and most developed markets in the United States, Australia, New Zealand & most recently Greater China.
Troy is also a non-executive Director of the board for the Australian Toy Association, a non-for-profit trade association representing all businesses that design, produce, license, and deliver toys and youth entertainment products to advance the interests of our members in areas of product safety, government affairs, trade shows & events.
Jess Manihera
Jessica Manihera is the Head of Marketing for Sanitarium The Health Food Company ANZ. With over two decades of experience in marketing leadership, Jessica is a dynamic leader who is passionate about promoting health and wellness through nutritious and sustainable food choices with iconic grocery brands such as Weet-Bix, UP&GO, and So Good.
After studying a Conjoint Bachelor's degree in Law and Commerce, Jessica's journey in marketing began with a passion for creatively solving consumer problems. Her leadership at Sanitarium is marked by a deep understanding of the power of data and insights to drive consumer-centred innovation, communication, and marketing initiatives that yield tangible commercial outcomes.
Before her role at Sanitarium, Jessica held marketing leadership roles at Campbell Arnott’s, where she had the chance to oversee and contribute to an extensive portfolio of renowned Australian brands. Today, at the helm of Sanitarium's marketing endeavours, she not only fosters a culture of innovation and collaboration but also actively contributes to the cultivation of a new generation of leaders who share her passion for making a positive impact. Jessica appreciates her team’s inspiring high-performance culture, expertise, and diversity of thinking. Together, they collectively work to grow ideas into meaningful connections and impactful experiences for consumers, inspired by a shared commitment to promoting health and wellness.
Jessica Manihera's passion extends beyond marketing; it is defined by her commitment to nurturing talent, fostering diversity, and empowering the next generation of marketers and female leaders to shape the future of the industry.
April Siler
April Siler, the founder and CEO of Champagne brand Rêveuse, has 20 years of experience in the Global food and beverage industry. April has expertise in driving exponential growth for disruptor brands in traditional categories.
April was the CEO for high growth supplements brand 8Greens and the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Global Development for the plant-based milk brand Califia Farms. During Califia’s most intensive 3-year growth period April spearheaded all USA marketing and led the brand’s internationalization. April previously led marketing and sales for Aussie brand The Chia Co. From the brand’s creative inception through to development of a world first innovation - Chia Pod, where April partnered with world champion surfer Kelly Slater for brand communications.
April who has lived in New York, Los Angeles and London - began her career in Melbourne, Australia in the Treasury department of Visy. April has a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing and Economics, from Monash University in Melbourne. April played professional basketball in Australia and Spain and has a passion for grower Champagne and nutritious foods.
“Rêveuse is the French word for a woman who dreams. I’ve been called a dreamer by men in the business world, and it was considered an insult. I’ve always been proud to be able to dream up new worlds and possibilities for others, and I wanted to claim that feeling for Rêveuse. For me, it’s about being able to create something that, by its distinctive taste and ability to make any occasion feel a bit fancy, brings friends and family together to create memorable moments. That, to me, is true luxury — and a worthy dream.” April Siler.
Chris Colter
Chris is the Chief Strategy & Product Officer of Initiative AUNZ, an agency that harnesses Fame & Flow to grow brands and was ranked the number one media agency in the world by Campaign. Responsible for developing the agency product, strategic output and leading new business efforts Chris helped lead the transformation of the agency in Australia and the launch of its newest market in New Zealand.
Underpinning this is his commitment to the work. Throughout his career Chris has delivered some of the most revered and effective media campaigns, recognised in Cannes Lions, Effies, Festival of Media, MFA and more. At an individual level this has seen Chris become one of the most awarded strategists in market, from taking home the Global Cannes Young Lions Competition,
MediaWeek 100 and Next of the Best, to Campaign Asia’s 40under40 and Strategic Brand Planner of the Year.
Chris is also the co-chair of the Media Federation of Australia conference and award committee, responsible for setting the vision and benchmark for best-in-class media planning in the Australian market. Alongside this Chris was also hand selected as an industry advisor for SXSW Sydney, helping curate the content for the inaugural event.
Outside of work, Chris is a big kid at heart and you’ll find Chris either playing LEGO with his kid or at a racetrack.
Dom Hind
Dom has been working in the digital marketing and eComm industry since 1998. With a strong belief in collaboration and continuous improvement, she has extensive experience in setting up digital and CRM departments at major advertising agencies within Australia.
In 2010, Dom started her own successful digital agency, WiTH Collective, with her husband, Justin Hind, prioritising their team’s personal growth and hands-on development through a people-centric approach. Dom is dedicated to empowering individuals, unlocking their potential and fostering team synergy. She’s on a mission to drive forward REUNION’s success. She is not only focused on maximising efficiencies but is also deeply passionate about environmental sustainability, actively recycling and advocating against resource and plastic waste.
Jen Sharpe
Jen is a formidable communicator, driven by her values and her passion for her team. She is the sole founder and managing director of Think HQ-a Positive Change agency with over 90 people. Previously Jen has been awarded the B&T Entrepreneur of the Year, PRIA Industry Leader of the Year, and CommsCon PR Leader of the Year, Women Leading Change Award, Swinburne Social Impact Awards and Victorian Multicultural Awards for Excellence (business award).
She has over 20 years’ experience in managing significant national campaigns. In addition to her communications experience, she is a politics and policy nerd, and understands the very important intersect between social policy and communications in any effective behaviour change campaign. She is also a businesswoman who thrives on growing the Think HQ business.
Jen launched her business in 2010 from the kitchen table. Using no external equity, she has worked with an ever-growing team of talented and passionate people to build the business one project at a time. She has been unrelenting in solely committing the business to only working on projects that lead to positive social impact. She was told countless times by many people that the business model would never work, and fortunately they were all wrong! It is possible to do good and run a robust, profitable business.
In 2019, Jen acquired CultureVerse, a multicultural communications agency, helping organisations reach and influence diverse audience groups across Australia. That acquisition, and the appointment of a Head, First Nations Engagement, means that the vision of becoming a creative powerhouse underpinned by inclusion, is slowly and finally being recognised.
Jen holds a 1st class Honours Degree in Politics from Monash and a Graduate Diploma in Business (Entrepreneurialism) from Swinburne. In 2013, she was the recipient of a scholarship to study an Executive Certificate in Business at Berkeley, California.
Christina Aventi
A young-at-heart veteran with 24 years’ experience, Christina started her career as a ‘grad’, client side at Unilever. After getting that solid grounding in marketing and category management, she jumped ship and found a permanent home as a brand and communications strategist where comms theory crashed into sociology with a little side of pop psychology for good measure. It was the goldilocks of roles for her, understanding people and even herself a little better by being the consumer whisperer, representing the voice of the punter on the street. Since then has contributed to award-winning, effective campaigns across an array of clients (ALDI, Government, FMCG) and is most proud of the behaviour change work she has been part of in both the commercial and social marketing sector.
An industry commentator and regular panellist on Gruen (ABC), Christina has led BMF to be the most effective agency in Australia, in 2017 and in 2019, and number 3 in the world in the WARC Creative Effectiveness ratings. Whilst she’s driven to deliver creativity that’s effective, it’s superseded by being mum to her two kids, the mini schnauzer, Ziggy and doing ‘life’ as best she can alongside her partner Mark.
Sarah Walsh
A values-led sports executive, Sarah has been instrumental in Australia securing the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. As part of this, Sarah is spearheading football’s national Legacy'23 plan, an inclusive strategy aimed at leveraging the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.
In her role at Football Australia, Sarah leads a team that is squarely focused on driving long lasting social and economic change for football, working with key stakeholders, in football, all levels of government, and the private sector to achieve this.
As an athlete for 20 years, and former CommBank Matilda, Sarah represented Australia at football’s top tier, including at the 2004 Olympic Games, the 2006 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2007.
Beyond her professional playing career, Sarah transferred the skills she developed as an athlete, to transition into leadership roles in football, accumulating extensive experience in driving gender equity in governance. Qualified in driving high performing teams, and building frameworks that create more inclusive environments for grassroots and elite level sport.
As a legacy builder, she brings unique and progressive insights, adopting a results driven approach to business, with people at the centre of all decisions.
Lisa Dent
Lisa Dent is a marketing executive and leader with over 25 years marketing and sales experience in large manufacturing businesses. She has spent many years developing and implementing marketing strategy within the home improvement, building and construction industry. During her career she has also applied her skills across a wide range of industries including FMCG specifically food and veterinary pharmaceutical, retail, building and construction. She is currently the Vice President of Global Marketing at BlueScope, a leader in metal coating and painted steel products headquartered in Australia, with operations spread across North America, Australia, New Zealand, China and throughout Asia and well known for brands such as COLORBOND® steel. Lisa is passionate about learning, supporting diversity and creating the right environment for marketers to be the best versions of themselves for the benefit of the business, marketing teams and individual growth.
Leisa Bacon
With over 25 years’ of blue chip strategy, digital and marketing experience, Leisa is passionate about great Australian content and having a positive impact through the work she leads.
Leisa works for the ABC, Australia’s largest creative organisation and the most trusted media player in the country. As Director of Audiences for the ABC, where the team work closely with content makers to implement the ABC strategy and help audiences discover great Australian content. The ABC Audiences division, is made up of the following teams - marketing, internal creative and media, social strategy, enterprise design, audience planning & support and audience data & insights.
Leisa is a brand and experience (Cx) evangelist, who prides herself on always putting customers at the heart of key decisions. Leisa has previously worked for large, generally global organisations at a Director level, from P&G to the Coca-Cola Company, and has led some of Australia’s largest new product launches and marketing campaigns. She was ranked #1 CMO in Australia in 2020.
Zannie Abbott
Zannie Abbott is Head of Campaigns and Communications at eBay Australia. Her experience spans over two decades of marketing, driven by a passion for storytelling. Previous to eBay she worked across brands such as Kellogg’s, Blackmores, and Sony, honing her expertise in digital marketing, sponsorship, events and communications. Zannie's diverse experience in agencies, entrepreneurship, and client - side roles provides her with a comprehensive understanding of the marketing industry, enabling her to craft narratives that resonate with audiences and foster meaningful connections with communities.
Samara Kitchener
Samara Kitchener is a multi-award winning strategic communications specialist who has a passion for health, technology and behaviour change. With 20 years senior marketing, communications and engagement experience working across government, food, defence and health sectors, Samara has deep expertise in integrated planning for significant campaigns and executing across multi-channel platforms.
Samara is an advanced practitioner of the Social Ecological Model and worked as an adviser to the World Health Organisation on risk communication strategies for pregnant women. She has led multi-stakeholder communication strategies for the Women in Sport Strategy; NSW Multicultural Strategy; NSW Physical Activity Strategy; and the Royal Australian Air Force Plan Jericho Behaviour Change Strategy.
Samara is the immediate past NSW President, Public Relations Institute of Australia, and is a guest lecturer at the University of NSW and University of Technology, Sydney.
Previous roles include Strategic Advisor Communications and Engagement with NSW Health where she led preventive health campaigns on overweight and obesity, HIV, STIs and hepatitis. Samara was also Director Communications with the NSW Food Authority where she led communication strategies, digital channels, crisis communications and education campaigns.
Samara has an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (UNSW) and an Honours Degree in Food Science and Technology
Gregory Cohen
Gregory Cohen is an Associate Professor in neuromorphic systems and the Deputy Director of the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at Western Sydney University. He leads the neuromorphic algorithms and space applications for ICNS.
Prior to returning to research from industry, he worked in several start-ups and established engineering and consulting firms including working a consulting engineer in the field of large-scale HVAC from 2007 to 2009, as an electronic design engineer from 2009 to 2011, and as an expert consultant for Kaiser Economic Development Practice in 2012.
He is a pioneer of neuromorphic engineering, biology-inspired sensors, event-based sensing, space imaging, space situational awareness, space domain awareness, spiking neural networks, and neuromorphic computing.
Dr William Crowe
Dr. William (Will) Crowe is Co-Founder and CEO of HEO, a Sydney-based company that provides in-orbit satellite inspection and monitoring services through proprietary software by acquiring satellite imagery from space-based sensors. Will founded HEO in 2016, while completing his PhD in astrodynamics from the University of New South Wales, Australia. His research focused on the dynamics of spacecraft swarms around asteroids and included a prize-winning paper on satellite missions to asteroids passing through Earth orbit. After earning his PhD in 2018, Will began applying the principles developed during his research to his business. He quickly found that there were urgent applications to space debris and inspecting damaged satellites. Today, Will leads a team to help satellite operators and governments monitor their assets to help them prevent accidents and optimise their satellite life.
Simone Gupta
It took Simone Gupta 25 years of successfully running agencies for inspiring founders, and heading up network agencies across UK, US and Australia before she took the leap to set up new independent creative studio Supermassive.
Simone has been active in the gender equality discussion for many years, she has been key to setting up the founding committee of the Australian chapter of Global Women in PR, a worldwide mentoring and activist body. Simone was the founding chairman of UK girl's rights charity One Woman at a Time.
Alex Derwin
In the last 20 years he’s worked at agencies in Europe, the US, and Australia. He’s raised voodoo spirits in Louisiana graveyards, written and directed two documentary shorts for charities in Portland, and created an 8ft tall anatomically correct heart from rejected layouts that bled when arrows were fired into it.
Since joining BMF he’s he has led ALDI to become the most creative account in Australia – with 76 creative and effectiveness awards, including Cannes, One Show, AWARD Awards, LIA, Spikes, and Effies.
Alex has also played a key role in the agency’s new business success, leading business wins on Tourism Tasmania, Sydney Morning Herald, Audi, TAL, Dulux, The Federal Govt, NSW Govt, Agoda, Bari sta Bros, Sharsies, hipages, and PetBarn.
In the last 3 years Alex helped guide the agency to its most successful financial results in a decade, and the best award showing in its history, including nine national agency of the awards.
Julia Vargiu
New business is a science for Julia Vargiu, Founder & MD of New Business Methodology and Australian Director of SI Partners, a global M&A consultancy advising creative and technology businesses to achieve maximum value for shareholders.
A no-nonsense New Yorker now residing in Sydney, Julia is an international business growth consultant, masterclass facilitator, keynote speaker, mentor and awards judge. Over her 25-year career she has advised thousands of agency CEOs around the world on how to get ‘fit for scale so they are fit for sale’ and to win more business from current and future clients – without relying on pitching.
She is a regular keynote speaker and moderator at Mumbrella360 and is often asked to deliver conference keynotes that focus on improving commercial rigour, innovative methods to fill your pipeline while driving business growth, diversification, and profitability.
Kim Muridge
Kim is an experienced marketer with a concentration on media. Kim is currently the National Marketing Manager at Lite n’ Easy and has over 30 years of industry experience.
Prior to joining Lite n’ Easy, Kim worked media agency side, including 10 years at Zenith in Brisbane.
Kim has spent the last 13 years at Lite n’ Easy. Her responsibilities are diverse, but she remains focused on the media investment and effectiveness with her agency team at Zenith.
Leo Hadden
Leo is global Head of Strategy, accountable for all strategic outputs of the agency. A naturally critical thinker, Leo is driven by an understated fascination for the relationship between people, brands and design – and has channelled that into commercially-effective and creatively-fruitful partnerships with the likes of McCain, Twinings, Saputo, McCormick, and Molson Coors. He operates at the intersection of business and creativity, fusing logic with imagination to develop strategies that change the way people feel about brands, instinctively and irresistibly. The result is work that really works, in the moments that matter most.
Andrew Baxter
Andrew "Billy" Baxter is one of Australia’s most trusted business, marketing and communications advisors. He is passionate about helping companies unlock topline growth through sharp strategy and executional excellence. Billy has worked with many of Australia's largest companies, brands and government bodies, from his time as the CEO of two of the country's biggest communications agencies, Publicis, and Ogilvy, and as a Senior Advisor at KPMG. He now sits on a number of boards, including as Chair of Australian Pork and the Deputy Chair of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, is a Senior Advisor to Australia's largest private equity firm, BGH Capital, and the Founder of the 24HR Business Plan.
Tim Baggott
Tim Baggott leads creative at Amplify for the APAC region. For over a decade he’s applied a multidisciplinary approach to strategy, campaigns and brand experiences for some of the world's most respected brands, organisations and personalities, with clients including Google, Nike, PlayStation and Elton John. Tim is a lifelong fan of science fiction and fact and is particularly motivated by opportunities to unite innovation and culture.
Lucinda O’Brien
As the APAC Strategy Lead for Amplify, Lucinda O’Brien helps businesses strategically connect with audiences through culture–including for Google, Netflix and Levi’s. In her eight-year career in strategy, she has worked across brand development, campaigns, and experiences in both Los Angeles and Sydney. Lucinda believes in the power that brands have to drive cultural narratives forward and space is no exception. Her interest in space began when a school visit to a planetarium first illuminated just how vast the universe was beyond her Queensland hometown.
Keegan Buzza
Keegan Buzza is the Director of Communications at the Australian Space Agency, leading the Agency’s efforts across media, marketing, strategic communications and community outreach.
Since joining the Agency in 2021, Keegan has overseen a number of major projects including the G’Day Moon campaign, the Agency’s standalone website, Adelaide Fringe festival activation, large- scale Team Australia presences at international events and the competition to name Australia’s first Moon rover.
Before the Agency, Keegan was the senior media adviser to a cabinet Minister – working across the Industry, Science, Technology and Home Affairs portfolios.
Keegan’s career began in radio, working for around a decade as a journalist, newsreader and presenter – starting on the Gold Coast before a senior role at 2UE and then as a newsreader and presenter on Sydney’s top rating Jonesy and Amanda breakfast show on WSFM.
With appearances on TV as a social commentator, Keegan draws on his background in communicating with people every day to excite and educate Australians about space, and all the ways it improves our lives.
Keegan completed a Bachelor of Journalism at Griffith University on the Gold Coast, after growing up in country Queensland.
Laura Agricola
Laura Agricola is a Brand and Creative Strategy Director at Keep Left, an integrated creative and PR agency. She has 15+ years of working with the world’s top advertising agencies in Melbourne, Sydney, Colorado, and New York.
Her career includes pivotal leadership roles, such as establishing Verizon as one of America's top telecommunications giants, navigating American Express through the complexities of consumer sentiment during the Global Financial Crisis, rejuvenating Elizabeth Arden's image to resonate with a younger audience and spearheading social-change campaigns that transformed consumer behaviour for Guide Dogs Australia.
Laura's approach is deeply rooted in using psychographics and ethnographic to uncover the intrinsic human and cultural truths that drive behaviour, enabling brands to craft narratives and experiences that resonate on a profound level, challenge conventional norms, and pave the way for new ones.
Harris Galloway
Harris is a Behavioural Strategist at Keep Left, an integrated creative and PR agency.
Since joining the agency three years ago, Harris has played a pivotal role in setting Keep Left’s strategic vision and championing its audience-first approach. He has introduced a psychographic data-led audience development process for all Keep Left clients, and has crafted effective and strategic work for ANZ, Guide Dogs, Orthodontics Australia, PassportCard and others.
With a background in behavioural science and a Master of Applied Psychology from the University of Melbourne, Harris has developed a deep knowledge of consumer behaviour and a passion for understanding why we do what we do, and how it impacts those around us.
Nick Baker
Nick Baker is an experienced travel and technology CEO with a passion for nature and sustainability. He is the CEO of Reflections Holiday Parks, a leading nature-driven escapes organisation and the largest holiday park operator in New South Wales, welcoming 2 million visitors each year to its 39 coastal and inland parks, camping grounds and unique properties.
Prior to joining Reflections, Nick was CEO at Triptech/CamperMate and Red Balloon and Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Australia.
Nick’s global tourism expertise encompasses parks, hotels, restaurants and camps in the UK, USA, Asia and Australia.
His love of food, wine and nature is reflected in his Directorships: he was the Chair of Ultimate Wineries Australia and a past Director of Australian Regional Tourism and is currently on the Board of the Caravan and Camping Industry Association (CCIA) NSW.
Patrick Millington-Buck
Patrick is the Senior Marketing Manager, Commercial Partnerships at Virgin Australia. He has over 10 years international experience, across agency and brand side, creating award winning partnerships and activations for some of the world’s most iconic brands. At Virgin Australia, Patrick is part of the 2023 Mumbrella Marketing Team of the Year and manages all major brand partnerships across the VA group nationally, including it’s official airline partnership with the AFL, Starlight Children’s Charity, Adelaide Fringe and others. Patrick believes that successful brand partnerships are the outcome of data-led insights and creativity, which deliver tangible business results.
Linda McDonald
With a great track record of leading strategic direction of some of Australia’s well-known brands, Linda brings 20 years of experience in the marketing, eCommerce, and digital space. She also has diverse experience in the technology, digital, retail, consumer, healthcare, B2C and B2B spaces. Prior to her role at VistaPrint, Linda held roles such as Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer at Entertainment Group, Chief Marketing Officer at Best & Less and Head of Marketing at BIG W. Linda’s focus is connecting with customers to find the right balance between building brands and delivering strong commercial outcomes, through collaboration and leading high performance teams.
Rachel Edwardes
Aligning and energising brands to confidently act on consumer insight, Rachel leads the Forethought Advisory business. Employing facilitation processes and design thinking Rachel and team guide clients to achieve singular focus.
Having joined Forethought in 2010 as Head of Marketing, Rachel has built the marketing framework and contributed to the firm launching and establishing Forethought in the North American market and executing Forethought’s brand growth strategy. An experienced B2B marketer, prior to Forethought Rachel led marketing functions in Investment Banking, Funds Management, and running her own marketing consultancy specialising in financial and professional services.
Laura Mulcahy
Laura Mulcahy is the Director of Cultural Strategy at TRA. A keen futurist and forecaster she spent nearly a decade at Nike, USA, as part of the Global Culture & Societal Insights team, analysing the global trends and lifestyle shifts that drive sport and culture.
Colleen Ryan
Colleen Ryan, partner, TRA, is an insights industry thought leader, strategist, cultural sociologist and behavioural science practitioner, whose curious mindset is fuelled by 40 years' experience in Europe, North America and APAC.
Michael Ramsey
Michael has extensive experience across the fitness industry as an entrepreneur, personal trainer, and coach. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of STRONG Pilates, a training format that combines pilates with strength training to create a high-intensity low-impact workout for all fitness levels. With a Master's in Commerce and a background in Fitness Marketing, Michael has established several successful fitness businesses, including six F45 franchises, and since launching STRONG Pilates in 2019, has grown the unique fitness format to eight global territories. In 2022 and 2023, Michael was named the Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Fitness in Victoria and globally, is recognised as an innovator in fitness.
Imogen Hewitt
Imogen has spent 25 years in full service, media and creative agencies both in Australia and South East Asia. A career strategist she has parlayed her skills in insight, instinct and understanding people into agency leadership roles. In 2024, she was appointed Chief Media Officer for Publicis Groupe ANZ while retaining her role as CEO of Spark Foundry ANZ.
Since taking on the position of Spark Foundry Australia CEO four years ago, Imogen has accelerated the growth of the agency exponentially. Topping the new business lists in 2020 and 2022, Spark Foundry has more than doubled in size in the last three years while also becoming one of Australia’s happiest agencies. In 2022, Imogen expanded her remit to include Spark Foundry New Zealand.
Recently, she was named #3 in Mediaweek Australia’s 2023 Agency 50 Power List and has been recognised on the B&T Women In Media Power List every year since 2017. She has also previously been named as one of Campaign Asia’s ‘Women to Watch’ in 2017 and 2020.
Nick Garrett
Nick has 24 years industry experience leading some of the most creative companies in world, while also working globally and locally on some of the most dynamic brands in the world – Airbnb, Apple, Google, Adidas, The United Nations, Absolut Vodka, Heineken, BMW Mini, Levi’s and VW to name but a few.
Over his career Nick has worked in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia at agencies who operate at the business end of creativity. Nick is the only leader globally to have been the CEO across two agencies (Colenso BBDO & Clemenger BBDO) who between them have been named the most creative agency in the world three times.
His passion for commercial creativity and his entrepreneurial mind has helped launch some of the most innovative and transformative work to come out of this market in the last two decades, which is why he was named Australian Marketing Leader of the year in 2018.
Nick left the agency world behind two years ago to set up his own consultancy before joining Deloitte Digital Creative as a partner in September 2021. He sits on numerous advisory boards, has launched several companies in the past two years and in a pro-bono capacity is the senior global strategy and creative consultant for the United Nations Development Programme in New York.
Jason Daniel
From a high school nickname to a global sportswear brand, Jason's 20-year journey has been nothing short of inspiring. Always finding comfort in being uncomfortable, Jason has imprinted a love for pushing his own limits on LSKD's mission and purpose as a global brand. Growing up immersed in BMX and Motocross, Jason's fearlessness earned him the nickname "Loose Kid". Fast forward two decades, and Jason (37) is still that loose kid - in fact he ran with the nickname and made a global sportswear brand out of it. The journey commenced in 2002 when Jason, at the age of 16, began operating from his mother's bedroom to earn extra money for his bike. In 2007, Loose Kid Industries rebranded as LKI, later transitioning from wholesale to ecommerce in 2018, ultimately evolving into the globally recognised brand, LSKD, as we know it today. Embracing humble beginnings, from undertaking a carpentry apprenticeship to running a struggling business for many years, and making numerous business defining decisions along the way, Jason's journey exemplifies the ethos of perseverance and determination. Through a genuine commitment to personal growth and self-discovery, Jason's narrative is one of resilience, marked by a willingness to learn from mistakes, fail forward, inspiring people to be 1% better every day.
Chris Gartside
Chris Gartside, Director of Data & Analytics at PepsiCo ANZ has been with the business for three years, having held roles in both London and Sydney. He is highly experienced with customer, financial and transactional data across multiple geographies. His specialist areas include data science, commercial application of data science, analytical skills, data governance, statistical modelling and advanced analytics.
Nikki Dahlgren
Nikki works on the forefront of behavioural science and psychological theory to more deeply understand why people behave the way they do and develop creative, tailor-made strategies to ignite behaviour change. 20 years of experience consulting on a range of cultural, social and commercial challenges for top tier corporates, government and social agencies to drive growth and deliver effective, impactful change.
Jonny Hanratty
Jonny is a behaviour change strategy specialist. Currently working at the intersection of behavioural science and design, technology and culture. Over a decade of experience applying Behavioural Science to business & societal behavioural challenges. Working with fin-tech and transport technology start-ups, global market leaders, state and federal governments, retailers, airlines, pharmaceuticals, not-for-profits. Putting scientific process and behavioural design at the centre of strategy.
Ryan Fitzgerald
Ryan is the Executive Creative Director of Special, Melbourne. His career in creativity has been defined by culturally unignorable ideas. From TV shows, to packaging innovations, mobile games to documentaries, art installations to Super Bowl spots, Ryan has always enjoyed elevating communications above the expected.
Some of his most notable work includes selling Australia to the world under the guise of a Crocodile Dundee reboot for Tourism Australia, exploring sports performance in a documentary with Gotham Chopra and Seph Curry, helping the world to establish its own Black Box in aid of climate change, and of course, the Shift 20 Initiative.
Ryan’s work has been awarded at all major international shows, including Titanium at Cannes, yellow pencils at D&AD, One Show, AWARD and Webby Awards and golds at the Effies. Ryan was also the recipient of the first-ever Logie for Most Popular Television Commercial for Tourism Australia’s Dundee.
Chris Maxwell
Chris Maxwell is a senior marketer and business leader with 20 years’ experience across Australia, Asia Pacific and North American markets.
Chris is founder and CEO of -lution, Australia’s leading marketing transformation consultancy focused on in-house and hybrid agency models. Through -lution Chris and his team have built, run and optimised more in-house agencies than anyone in Australia. Chris is also Executive Chairman of the In-House Agency Council (IHAC), Asia’s leading industry body for in-house and hybrid agencies. Through IHAC Chris and his team share best practices, build capability and advocate for the in-house and hybrid agency industry.
Prior to this Chris spent 13 years on the client side in senior marketing roles for ABInbev, SAB Miller and Carlton & United Breweries, leading a multibillion-dollar portfolio of iconic Australian brands.
Mel Hopkins
Melissa Hopkins is the Chief Marketing and Audience Officer, responsible for driving audience numbers and growth across Seven West Media. Her portfolio includes brand strategy, consumer and trade marketing, audience research, promotions, publicity, social media and corporate communications.
One of Australia’s most successful and acclaimed marketers, Hopkins was previously Vice President Marketing CMO at Optus. In 2021, Optus was recognised as Australia’s strongest brand (Campaign Asia) and awarded ‘Marketing Team of the Year’ (Mumbrella).
With over 25 years’ global experience both agency and client side, Hopkins has deep consumer and enterprise experience across a wide range of sectors and high-profile brands, and in November 2022 was named #4 in CM050 2022, and in 2021 was awarded ‘APAC Marketer of the Year’ (Campaign Asia).
Hopkins is also a strategic advisor to the National Mental Health Commission and an advisory board member at ADMA.
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.
Gavin Watson
With over 20+ years of experience spanning the global creative and marketing software space, Gavin has worked with many of the world's leading Retailers and Brands. Spending time working within the Global Advertising group WPP and within startups and marketing software companies, his experience is leading the monday.com growth into the retail and marketing and creative space.
Jaimes Leggett
Jaimes Leggett founded full service creative agency Today The Brave in 2022 following an illustrious career spanning the UK and Australia. Prior to founding the Sydney-based agency, Jaimes held leadership roles at some of the world’s most iconic agencies; most recently as Group CEO of M&C Saatchi AU/NZ and preceding this, as Managing Director of Ogilvy & Mather in the UK.
Today the Brave was founded in response to an increased appetite for agile, independent agency partners. A little over 10 months since opening the doors, Today the Brave has attracted clients including True North, Carnival Cruise Line, MECCA, the University of Sydney, Zambrero, AMP North, News Corp and HOYTS, to name a few. This year, the agency has also made it onto MediaWeek’s ‘Hot’ list, as well as being nominated for B&T’s ‘Emerging Agency of the Year’.
Through a combination of big picture thinking, entrepreneurial pedigree and proven leadership, Jaimes is driving forward Today the Brave’s ambitious growth, using his superpower of making the complex simple.
Simon Robinson
Simon is Executive Editor at Reuters. He helps run the newsroom of 2,500 people; oversees all Reuters news publishing assets; and manages the news budget and operations team. Simon joined Reuters in 2010 and ran investigations and enterprise reporting in Europe, Middle East and Africa before taking on a series of management positions and projects to rethink the way a newswire works in the 2020s. Before Reuters, Simon was a correspondent and then editor at Time magazine, reporting from more than 50 countries in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Craig McCosker
Craig is the Group Product Manager for Future Focus in ABC Digital Product. Craig has been facing the challenges of digital transformation in media since the dawn of the World Wide Web in the 90s. For the past several years, Craig has focused on developing strategies and products around AI conversational technologies to further the ABC’s mission to inform, educate and entertain.
Bettina Brown
Bettina Brown is a seasoned marketing professional currently serving as the Director of Consumer Marketing at News Australia. With a decade of experience under her belt with the publisher Bettina spearheads consumer facing programs for renowned news brands like The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Courier Mail and news.com.au. Her purview extends beyond news, encompassing marketing for lifestyle staples such as Delicious, Vogue, Body & Soul, Escape, as well as Australia's premier fantasy sports brand, Supercoach.
Bettina's tenure at News has coincided with pivotal moments in Australian news, most recently the voracious news cycle of the pandemic. She's also been witness to the evolution of content consumption from print to digital, highlighting the growing significance of consumer subscriptions.
Before joining News, Bettina held senior marketing positions at David Jones and spent time in the sports arena working in Rugby League and as the Director of Marketing at the Australian Turf Club.
Vanessa Lyons
Vanessa Lyons is the CEO of ThinkNewsBrands. A three-time CMO Top 50 lister, she has held a range of executive positions at Wilson Parking, insurance business AUB Group, Telstra and Philips. Her influential career remains a driving force in shaping the trajectory of news media.
Lisa Davies
Lisa returned to AAP as CEO having started her media career at the national newswire in 2000 – first as an editorial assistant in the Brisbane bureau, then as cadet journalist in 2001. She became Sydney's police reporter and undertook a three-month exchange program with the UK’s Press Association.
Lisa then joined The Daily Telegraph in 2004, working there for seven years, primarily as Chief Court Reporter. In 2012, she was appointed to lead The Sydney Morning Herald’s crime and courts coverage as Crime Editor. She covered the Oscar Pistorius murder trial in South Africa for the masthead among other major news events, also serving as Deputy News Director, Investigations editor and Deputy Editor.
Lisa was appointed editor of The Sydney Morning Herald in February 2017. She resigned in November 2021.
The NIDA Corporate Training Team
Anssi Rusi
Anssi is the CEO of Supermetrics. Before joining Supermetrics, Anssi was the COO of Smartly.io, a global marketing and advertising tech company. He has a proven track record of driving profitability and revenue growth.
Phil Hwang
Philip Hwang is APAC Head of Strategy at SGK, a global brand content agency. For almost 20 years, he has helped brands invent new ways to show up, with insights rooted in human needs and commercial sense.
Equal parts brand/creative strategist and experience designer, he has led Accor’s global repositioning and group transformation, united Herbalife’s user experience across ASEAN, fast-tracked product innovation for General Mills and AB-InBev, and helped plan brand futures for SkyTeam.
A champion for APAC-led innovation and specialist in cross-cultural localisation and market entry, he leads strategy across SGK offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, and Sydney.
Jade Lish
Jade Lish, serving as Head of Marketing for v2food - Australia’s leading plant-protein company. She is responsible for evoking social change that will have a lasting impact on the planet – encouraging meat consumption reduction. 12 years’ experience working across various sectors in business strategy, marketing communications and innovation, she uses her data-driven approach for value creation; delivering growth and profit. Jade is also member of the advisory council for NFP - The Marketing Academy. Jade enjoys travelling abroad to explore different cultures. Passionate about nature, Jade loves ocean swimming and running her energetic kelpies. She contributes to the swimming community through volunteering.
My role will actually change in a few weeks, to be more focused on direct to consumer versus just retail – so its good timing. I can probably talk more to the learning journey we are on in how to use both channels to drive growth.
Mairead Jarrett
Mairead is a senior marketing & sales professional with 5+ years in the digital commerce channel.
Currently leading this for the licensed channel of CCEP her role covers the increasing cross shop between liquor and grocery in the omni chase for bigger baskets & the part retail media has to play.
Other areas covered include leading NPD in the alcohol space with the successful launch of Bombay RTD & managing the largest growth category of Spirits & RTD during lockdown for Australia’s number 1 pureplay liquor retailer. Described as futuristic, very focused on commercial outcome with an ability to maiximise and lead team performance – please welcome Mairead.
Abigail Dawson
Abigail is a former journalist turned media and communications professional. Cutting her teeth at leading industry publication Mumbrella, where she was promoted four times within three and a half years, Abigail was named the 12th Most Prolific Web Author in Australia. During her tenure she held titles including Senior Reporter, where she covered the entire AUNZ creative, media, PR, experiential, and digital landscape, and Senior Content Journalists where she was responsible for curating the largest PR and Communications conference in APAC, CommsCon, as well as the Health Marketing Summit, Sports Marketing Summit, B2B Marketing Summit and Mumbrella360.
In 2021 Abigail turned her passion for writing and married it with her communications skills, joining Special Australia as its inaugural Brand Director. During her tenure, Abigail oversaw Special’s narrative, business development, awards, and PR strategy and execution.
Currently, Abigail is the Group Communications Director at Enero Group – working with agencies BMF, Orchard, and Hotwire. In her current role, Abigail is responsible for leading both the global internal and external communications and brand marketing for multi award-winning creative agency BMF, digital creative agency Orchard as well as the Enero Group globally.
Terri Hall
Terri Hall is an insights leader passionate about putting people at the heart of decision making, driving better experiences and commercial success. She believes in using multi-disciplinary approaches to uncover deep, inspiring insights that foster transformative change.
Terri leads the Sydney arm of TRA, a trans-tasman agency that champions cultural insight, behavioural science, brand and creative effectiveness, and innovation.
With extensive experience leading consulting teams in Australia and New Zealand, Terri excels at understanding, representing, and advocating for the voice of people, and translating these insights into tangible directions for brand success.
Kat Warboys
Kat Warboys is the Senior Marketing Director APAC at HubSpot. Kat is responsible for growing HubSpot's business in APAC, leading a team in the region who look after everything from brand, PR and partnerships, to revenue marketing, sales enablement and customer advocacy.
Kat's personal mission is to help other marketers realise the importance of their role in the customer experience, by championing cross-team alignment to help organisations grow better, not just bigger. With over ten years’ experience with Marketing Automation and CRM platforms, Kat's experience spans across both B2B and B2C organisations.
Mark Brownie
Mark is the General Manager of Digital Revenue at News Corp Australia. With a proven track record of driving growth and innovation over the last 2 decades, Mark brings extensive experience in developing strategic initiatives to deliver solutions that drive client outcomes using News Corp Australia's digital network both locally and globally. Mark leads a dynamic team dedicated to driving digital revenue through innovative advertising solutions, strategic partnerships, and data. His leadership and deep understanding of digital trends empower him to navigate the evolving media landscape effectively, ensuring News Corp Australia remains at the forefront of digital innovation.
Lara Brownlow
Lara is a sales and marketing leader with 20+ years’ experience working for some of the largest tech companies in the world.
Currently as part of LinkedIn’s Global Channel Sales leadership team, Lara leads the Asia Pacific business where her team is focused on partnering with both growth and emerging plus enterprise level technology companies to develop innovative business plans and Integrations that drive mutual benefit for LinkedIn and our customers.
Lara has spent the last 12 years working in the Tech/Digital space working for both LinkedIn & Meta and prior to that she spent 7 years working in offline media sales, making her an allrounder in both online and offline advertising.
With over 14+ year’s experience managing teams, Lara is passionate about creating a positive sales culture and mentoring staff to reach their full potential. Lara is a big advocate and spokesperson for Diversity & Inclusion and the benefits to business but more importantly society. Currently she is an executive sponsor for LinkedIn’s employee resource group ‘Embrace’ where the mission is to amplify the experience of underrepresented groups including immigrants, refugees, expats and first-generation employees and more to promote cultural understanding, empathy and allyship.
Lara has been named on the B&T’s ‘Top Most Powerful Women in Media Australia’ short list for the last 2 years as well as many other accolades like Emerging Leaders by Adnews.
Nathan Thompson
Nathan Thompson is an entertainment marketing specialist with over 20 years' experience in the music and innovation industry. He has worked for major companies such as Universal Music, Kobalt Music Group, and Domino Records. Currently, he is Vice President of Marketing at Live Nation Australia where he works with agents and promoters in helping to connect fans to first-class experiences. Nathan is passionate about live music and entertainment, believing it to be a deeply personal and unforgettable experience when shared with like-minded individuals.Throughout his career, Nathan has had many amazing opportunities, such as project managing Australia’s first 3G full track music store, helping establish digital music as a new format with the launch of Apple’s iTunes and Spotify platforms, launching the world’s first virtual goods music merch store on Sony PlayStation, working with Spotify UK on their first ever live stream featuring Hot Chip, sharing an espresso martini with Nick Cave, and helping to deliver successful tours for the likes of Harry Styles, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Fleetwood Mac, and U2.
David Fraser
David has 20 years’ experience flogging everything from sensible German cars to decorative garden meerkats. After cutting his teeth at Ogilvy and DDB he’s spent the last 10 years at BMF working primarily on ALDI and Tourism Tasmania, helping launch the ‘Come down for air’ brand platform in 2019. His work has been recognised by most local and international award shows (and at least one Airbnb host). David likes work that works, and his ALDI campaigns have won over 20 Effies. He’s also helped BMF win Australia’s Most Effective Creative Agency title.
Trent McMillan
Meet Trent, the Chief Digital and Operating Officer at Kaimera, an independent media agency that has been making media and data simple for their clients over the past eight years. Trent's journey began in finance, where he spent four years at Macquarie Bank before pivoting into the world of digital marketing. With a comprehensive understanding of all things digital, Trent boasts a proven track record across various domains including Search Marketing, Programmatic, Email, Display, Social, CRO, Affiliate Marketing, Mobile, and Analytics.
As one of the founding members of Kaimera, Trent brings to the table his flexible multi-channel expertise, with a fervent passion to leverage technology to streamline processes and ensuring his clients' success in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
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See what's on the program
The brightest and most innovative APAC eCommerce players of tomorrow, are those currently accelerating their omnichannel commerce offering. Creating a more ‘unified’ approach builds that invaluable long-term customer love, whilst simultaneously delivering on those (just as important) shorter-term goals. So who are the brands uplifting commerce from transaction to discovery, with emotion and storytelling? This is your chance to find out.
During this deep dive panel discussion, delegates are invited to learn from inspiring examples from APAC, hear exclusive research insights on online shopper behaviour, and even hear from the eCom players changing the game most.
In this captivating and empowering talk, Greg shares invaluable lessons and stories that illustrate the transformative power of creativity, drawing from his extensive three-decade experience at Nike. Throughout his time there, Nike succeeded in infusing its brand with profound emotion, elevating the Swoosh beyond a logo, to become a symbol of human potential, while “Just Do It" transcended being only a slogan to become a mindset embraced by millions worldwide. In this keynote, Hoffman shows us how we can all practice "Emotion by Design," by crafting products, stories, and experiences that make people feel that even their most audacious dreams are possible to achieve.
Women have been smashing records recently - Barbie, the first female-directed film to gross more than a billion dollars (albeit the director snubbed at the Oscars), Taylor Swift’s eye-popping, money-making Eras Tour, and the Women’s World Cup - breaking ticket sales and TV viewership records.
Women are predominately running the world economy. Globally, women control about $20 trillion in annual consumer spending, and that figure could climb as high as $28 trillion in the next few years. Women represent a growth market bigger than China and India combined - more than twice as big.
Underestimate the female consumer? Well, that would be insanity. And yet, many do. And not many have a winning strategy when it comes to women. Dena Vassallo, CEO and founder of SOCIETY, will moderate a lively discussion with author and Future Women's deputy managing director Jamila Rizvi and Optus' senior director marketing Alexandra Sloane, for a deep dive on what the creative communications industry must do to push the boundaries of the Female Economy and make further inroads on gender equity.
Since ChatGPT launched in late 2022, AI’s rise has triggered major strategic rethinks in companies, industries and even countries around the world. The fundamental question: Is this an opportunity or a threat?
News media has had its moment of introspection, too. Generative AI has sparked concerns about job losses, misinformation and disintermediation.
At the same time, newsrooms have begun to examine how they produce news and information, how they get it to their readers and viewers, and how their audiences consume content. Can journalists use generative AI to build trust with audiences?
The first place to turn for answers: ChatGPT, naturally. It cited several benefits, including writing assistance, data analysis and visualisation However it also admits challenges too: training data bias, generating false information, transparency, and unintentional plagiarism.
During this session you'll hear from Reuters Global Executive Editor Simon Robinson, a London-based Australian, alongside a mix of panellists representing Australian newspapers, broadcasters and digital-first players.
- Why space exploration matters.
- The present and future state of space exploration.
- How brands and marketers can collaborate with the space industry.
More and more, Hollywood is seeing writers’ rooms and directors’ chairs being occupied by women. But in advertising creative departments, men still make the power moves. As Taylor Swift put it, if you’re a man ‘it's all good if you're bad, and it's okay if you're mad’. But not if you’re a woman.
When will it be our turn to see CCOs, ECDs and every level of creative be a she or a them? What's it going to take to get there? What do we need to change as an industry to make this real?
In a post-gender world, how can we have a conversation about team culture, diversity and creativity without reverting to stereotypes? Why is this still a question about female vs male, does it date us as an industry to still be asking this?
Let’s get into it from multiple perspectives from our industry titans:
- A female creative leader dominating the man’s world (Tara Ford, Chief Creative Officer Accenture Song APAC & LATAM | Chief Creative Officer of The Monkeys | Board Member of the D&AD Advisory Council | Board Member of The Advertising Council of Australia)
- A female creative leader who built her own award-winning agency and made the ABC’s “Gruen” what it is today (Dee Madigan, Co-founder & Executive Creative Director The Campaign Edge | Panellist on ABC’s “Gruen” | Board member Australians for Mental Health)
- The first female leader of WPP, Australia’s largest agency holding company group (Rose Herceg, President ANZ WPP | a serial entrepreneur and founder of many successful businesses)
- Moderated by a female M&A consultant treading her own path through the boy’s club (Julia Vargiu, Director Australia SI Partners | Founder & MD New Business Methodology | a keynote speaker, C-suite mentor and awards judge)
Join us for a raw, honest, transparent conversation with genuine candour of their life's journey, the obstacles they overcame, their tenacity and what can be done.
Let's face it, there are currently a lot of boring people leading companies at a time where understanding culture, understanding media and leading a brand's content calendar is critical for company growth. These strategic functions are best coming from the top vs being contained to the marketing department. From the personal experience of a professional athlete, turned marketer, turned CEO leading high growth companies in the USA, April Siler has formed the viewpoint that leading marketing and innovation serves as a natural transition into leading a whole company. That is, if the company wants to grow, compared to CEOs with more traditional operations and finance backgrounds, who in today's world, may struggle with growth. This session will showcase why CMO to CEO is a natural transition, teach us not to assume the CFO is the smartest person in the room (hint, it might be the CMO!), and encourage more marketers to aim for the top seat.
Our practical Masterclass session steps through how marketers can tackle the psychological inertia of the status quo bias that locks people into safe and familiar products and services.
In this session, our audience will gain an understanding of why consumers prefer things to stay the same and how this aversion to change adversely impacts new product adoption. We then reveal the psychological levers brands can pull to influence decision making and ignite action, utilizing a combination of behavioural insights and real-world case studies.
Jonny Hanratty and Nikki Dahlgren are experts in Behavioural Science, Consumer Psychology and Nudge Theory and will unlock the secrets to a suite of compelling and creative marketing tactics that effectively break people out of their routines to willingly trial or switch brands.
The audience will be taken on an engaging journey of guided exercises to unlock new thinking and leave armed with practical tools on how to craft compelling messages that challenge the gravitational force of the status quo and trigger consumer transformation.
There's more data than ever before and it's overwhelming, it's becoming increasingly harder for marketers to keep track of what data they have and how to use it. Marketing is no longer about driving short-term results but fostering long-term, sustainable growth. It's about creating a seamless and engaging customer experience across all touchpoints, from awareness to conversion. By leveraging data, technology, and creativity, it is important to empower marketers with the freedom to fuel growth, ensuring scalability and impactful outcomes. With the right tools and data, learn how to elevate marketing to be the growth engine in your organisation.
Journalists and editors have always tried to develop stories their readers will find engaging. More engaging stories lead to more readers which in turn lead to more advertising dollars for publishers.
But now, a new breed of newsperson is using audience-led insights to shake up how news is developed and presented, driving greater engagement with stories and the ads they house.
Hosted by ThinkNewsBrands CEO Vanessa Lyons, hear from audience insights leaders at Nine, Seven West Media and Newscorp Australia, on how publishers are using data to inform and tailor news stories, formats and platforms to better suit readers’ needs, interests and behaviours. And understand how this new data regime is being put to use for advertisers to drive better commercial returns for their brands.
Global movements flare up from disparate sparks, yet voter apathy is growing and community engagement dropping.
We've seen the visceral expression of fans connecting through individuals or teams, yet there's evidence that technology is causing people to disconnect from real life.
So, what’s going on? And why should we care?
In this session, you'll hear about the meaning of connection, where brands can play and whether brand communities are viable – and, if they are, who calls the shots.
Survey data from 2024 will draw the Australian connection ecosystem, highlighting the connection networks that brands can leverage. Plus, as business models change to reflect a sharing economy, how insights from the data describe a blueprint for brands to connect.
Messina is one of Australia’s most prolific food brands. Known for pushing creative boundaries, their enviable community following, reimagining brand collaborations, and arguably the best gelato in the country.
Join Messina’s co-founder, creative mastermind and visionary behind the brand, Declan Lee, and HubSpot’s Kat Warboys for a live episode of the Unconventional Business podcast.
Declan will share how he thinks about the customer experience - and what that means in the gelato world - and how getting this right has fuelled the brand’s growth from one store in Darlinghurst, to nearly 30 across Australia.
Looking for an insider's view on how Declan inspires innovation in his team, his frameworks for what separates the epic from the average ideas, and the down-low on some of the brand’s most successful collaborations - from Tim Tams and Peters, to Lanolips? You’re in the right place.
Running an agency or a marketing department can lead to premature wrinkles, grey hair and seriously mess with the grey matter. But all it takes is getting your workload organised and automated, give project teams full visibility, and keep all correspondence and documents relating to a project in one place.
Come to this masterclass to see how an agency sorted its life - and how easy it is to have everything humming in your workplace with a colourful user interface underpinned by templatised workflows to run your business on monday.com.
Guzman y Gomez has fast become one of Australia’s most loved brands. After opening Restaurant no 1 in Newtown in 2006, GYG now has a global footprint of 206 restaurants in Australia, Singapore, Japan and the US. The business now has a vision to become the biggest and best restaurant company in the world.
In a consumer market that is receiving brand messages every day across every channel and new generations being more influenced by word of mouth, social media and influencer marketing - how does GYG stay ahead of the trends and build a cult-like following?
Lara Thom, Global CMO will talk about how GYG is building a brand where their guests and crew have become passionate brand advocates.
In this session Lara will cover:
- Authentic brand storytelling
- Building community online and offline
- Data Driven marketing
- Staying true to GYG’s values and never looking sideways
What preoccupies us Aussies changes all the time. 12 months ago you thought that getting tickets to Harry Styles was the pinnacle, all while binging the latest content across your ever-increasing number of video subscription services.
Fast forward a year, and you are obsessed with trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift, and just want a phone network that works. We are reducing our number of screen subscriptions, and are trying to tackle cost-of-living pressures.
Given these massive changes in what we care about, why are we as an industry so often making decisions from outdated data? Why are we speaking to the Aussies of the past who thought getting Harry Styles tickets was the ultimate goal, when in fact they would now give their right lung for tickets to Taylor?
This session, exclusive to Mumbrella360, is a rally cry to the industry to shift gears and start making decisions based on real-time data. We’re not talking behavioural data but real-time insights into the feelings and attitudes of everyday Australians.
The trend towards in-house and hybrid agency models is one of the fundamental macro trends shaping our industry.
In Australia the trend is accelerating with 78% of marketers now working with an in-house agency, up from 63% in 2021 and now second only to the USA globally.
The implications are wide and far-reaching. Talent has more options for in-house roles, the way brands work with creative and production agencies is changing, and the way brands plan and buy media directly has implications for media agencies and vendors alike.
The In-House Agency Council (IHAC) partnered with Kantar to study the Australian marketing landscape and present insights into this fundamental trend. In this session, you'll hear from senior leaders and IHAC members including Mel Hopkins, Jemma Downey and Chris Maxwell (moderated by Nick Thomas) on the trends, the benefits, the challenges and what the industry can expect in the coming years.
According to Forbes (2022), less than 1% of creative agencies in the US and Australia are founded by women. A mere 3% hold the role of creative director across all agencies. Yet, women drive 60-70% of household purchases.
Cindy Gallop's words at SXSW Sydney resonate ‘Women as founders, CEOs, and Creative Directors are imperative. Advertising has long been shaped through the male lens. It's time for a paradigm shift’.
Contribute to the discussion led by industry thought leaders, Lindsey Evans, Partner and CEO at Special Australia, Dom Hind Co-founder and Managing Partner at Reunion, Jen Sharpe Founder and Managing Director at Think HQ and Simone Gupta Co-founder at Supermassive, as they dissect the obstacles hindering women from establishing creative and media agencies. Our panel of industry leaders will reveal their stories of overcoming barriers and carving their path to success.
Topics on the Table:
- Unveiling the obstacles to entrepreneurship: What holds women back from setting up shop
- Triumph over adversity: Insights from those who've broken down the barriers
- Watching The Glass Ceiling move upwards
- Redefining the norm: The power of diverse leadership in crafting impactful campaigns
Be part of the conversation that's redefining the landscape. Let's break the mould and pave the way for an industry that empowers women to take the leap.
As economic uncertainty persists and marketing budgets continue to shrink, aside from the obvious constraints, what additional business challenges does marketing during a cost-of-living crisis pose and how do brands best adapt? This is your chance to hear first-hand from an array of leading chief marketing officers as they share their foremost ideas, insights, and experiences on the matter.
Young audiences seem to speak a different language, play by different rules, engage in different ways. Building relevance with them, whilst not alienating the core customer, is one of the key challenges of mainstream brands to future proof their business. For twenty years, 72andSunny has been helping established brands become relevant with young consumers—and set them up for sustained business growth. This talk from Bryan Smith, global Chief Strategy Officer for 72andSunny, reveals the secrets of connecting with a youth audience, including case studies from the likes of the NFL, Google (and yes, at 26, Google is now older than its new growth audience), and adidas, with tangible takeaways for your brand.
Generative AI is fast transforming how marketing functions and teams work. G'Day Group is leading the way in driving AI adoption in their business, after embracing an generative AI ahead of the curve.
For G'Day Group, generative AI adoption has meant changes across a spectrum of areas. From how people and teams use generative AI in their day-to-day roles, through to new use cases which drive a range of new customer experiences from eCommerce to personalised marketing.
In this insightful session G'Day Group’s CMO Lahnee White and Time Under Tension co-founder Jason Ross, will bring to life how G'Day Group started on their generative AI journey and reveal the key performance outcomes it has driven.
Marketers are grappling with more tools, metrics and numbers than ever before. So, the big questions are: which ones actually matter? How can you demonstrate marketing's contribution to ROI in the boardroom while making a bold brand play that has a long-term impact?
In just two short years, Domain Group's CMO, Bec Darley, transformed the property marketplace's marketing approach through a blend of art and science, cementing marketing as a strategic driver of growth for the business.
In this session, Bec Darley wants more marketers to be bolder and braver by sharing the 'secret sauce' that unlocked this growth for Domain Group.
The way we work is changing, but the hidden dangers of stress, bullying, and job insecurity are more prevalent than ever. What’s more, these factors create a toxic work environment that suppress innovation and creativity. It’s a team dynamic that’s less about thriving, and more about surviving. Sound familiar? It's time for change.
Dr Nathan Jones will uncover the six critical signs of workplace toxicity that silently kill creativity and team spirit. He’ll then offer some actionable strategies to flip these toxic elements into six foundational pillars of creativity and innovation.
In this masterclass, you will:
- Uncover tips to foster motivation, inspiring you to create your best work
- Find ways to turn challenges into opportunities, seeing the bright side of adversity
- Understand the importance of recognising and celebrating your wins for sustained creative output
- Explore self-care techniques to maintain balance and avoid burnout
- Learn how to acknowledge and address challenges realistically, avoiding the pitfalls of toxic positivity
- Discover how to maximise collaboration, leveraging team strengths for creative success
Pip Edwards shares her remarkable journey at the helm of P.E Nation, transforming the business from Sydney-based start-up in 2016 to one of Australia’s most successful fashion and active lifestyle brands today. Edwards will take guests back to the beginning, sharing why she was inspired to start the label along with Co-Founder Claire Greaves, how they set the foundations for success, through to its evolution now with a team of 50+ in its head office steering its Australian and US operations, along with partners extending to the UK and EU.
After market stagnation, 2024 marks a year of re-creation for the brand, a culmination of almost two years in the making that has seen the business tackle growth plans, head on. Reassessing every element of the business – from product and pricing to brand, marketing, digital and communications, through to retail and supply chain, sustainability, and general business operations – the Co-Founders developed a plan to take their business and renowned brand to the next level.
Edwards will reveal the myriad of experiences, emotions, hurdles, and triumphs encountered. The pivotal lessons learned, significance of resilience, need for adaptability and strategic decision-making required in the dynamic landscape of entrepreneurship.
In today’s highly competitive market, how can you transform and revitalise your brand? Deep dive into the intricacies of managing big brand turnarounds for renowned companies and explore the art of building and sustaining successful brands. Insights will be drawn from real-world examples, illustrating how to navigate and thrive in challenging market landscapes to achieve significant share gains.
Panellists Allison Yorston, Chief Marketing Officer at Frucor Suntory, Ruben Ahmed, Director of Marketing for HP and Linda McDonald, Director Marketing, Sales & CX for Vista will share actionable strategies, empowering attendees to embrace new trends and platforms, navigate competitive markets and revitalize brands for enduring success.
Draw upon the techniques studied by luminaries such as Cate Blanchett, Sarah Snook, Sam Worthington, and Baz Luhrmann during their time at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA). Infuse marketing pitches with the same mastery and polish to showcase the finest version of yourself and get your ideas over the line.
Get a taste of the training NIDA Corporate Training has provided to hundreds of Australian companies over the last 30 years. Develop your physical and vocal presence along with the tools to customise your message, ensuring your marketing pitch resonates powerfully each and every time.
Comedian and self described design nerd Tim Ross, is mad for a bit or recent Australian history. In this compelling session he asks whether we have lost our optimism? - something we had in spades in the 80s.
To help us get our mojo back he’s going present six great ideas from Australia in the 1980s that still ring true today.
Julie Bishop will take the audience on a thought-provoking and entertaining journey from her early years growing up in the Adelaide Hills, building her career as a lawyer and her 20-year political career that culminated with 5 years as Foreign Minister.
Along the way, Julie has experienced the highs and lows that come from working at the highest levels of politics and human tragedy.
She used her platform as Foreign Minister to promote Australian fashion internationally - a risky move, but to acclaim.
Julie has worked with and observed some of the most iconic leaders of our generation, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, the late Shinzo Abe and Donald Trump.
There will be insights into leadership, advice to deal with unwavering scrutiny, and how to cope in those pressure cooker moments when there are no easy decisions.
Despite the wealth of evidence available on how brands grow, and how to grow brands, marketers often ‘shoot themselves in the foot’ by compromising their marketing objectives. In this presentation Professor Jenni Romaniuk will highlight areas where marketers have sold themselves (and their brand) short by setting poor or self-limiting objectives. She will explain how a re-evaluation of your KPIs can help better use your marketing resources; the sort of marketing objectives set your brand up for success; and how failing to achieve some objectives can still be a major win.
From airlines, music, gyms, wine, music, trains, radio and books - throughout history Virgin has ultised the power of ""daring partnerships & PR stunts"" to succeed.
And they've been daring in every sense of the word, often taking big, yet calculated, risks to achieve success. This session will do a deep dive on what makes a great and daring partnership & PR stunt (Virgin or otherwise) and also look at the ones that go wrong!
Lastly this session invites delegates to explore what the future holds for brand partnerships and what ""daring"" means today.
Join Michael Ramsey, co-founder of global fitness franchise, STRONG Pilates, Gus Worland, Media Personality & Founder of mental fitness charity, Gotcha4Life and Jason Daniel, Founder & Chief Executive Officer of sportswear brand, LSKD, as they discuss brand evolution and growth on a local and global scale.
From the seasoned wisdom of baby boomers to the tech-driven energy of Gen Z – there’s no denying a difference in the way we’re working these days. With rapid changes to workplace etiquette and constant evolution in technology, the social norms are evolving. How do you best engage with your colleagues anymore?
Gen Z have had a transformative power in reshaping the very fabric of corporate culture, join this session to discuss if their perspective the best perspective.
This interactive Masterclass delves into the evolution of modern communication, spotlighting the challenges and triumphs within current workplace culture, providing a simple framework for ensuring you’re building the best connection with your team mates.
Across the session we’ll be discussing the significance of clear company values, the impact that innovation has on team evolution, and the tools you need to be implementing in your office immediately to ensure you’re building the strongest and most collaborative relationships.
Whether you’re new to the corporate world, or you’ve spent decades experiencing the grind, this talk will review the situation through all lens’.
Dive into consumer neuroscience and sustainability messaging. Explore brain reactions to diverse brand campaigns, uncovering when the brain tunes out greenwashing. Learn from successful campaigns, dissect obstacles hindering brand-sustainability connections, and witness brain activity during ads. Gain neuro insight to elevate your message and brand equity. Join us for this dynamic exploration at the intersection of neuroscience and advertising.
Running an agency or a marketing department can lead to premature wrinkles, grey hair and seriously mess with the grey matter. But all it takes is getting your workload organised and automated, give project teams full visibility, and keep all correspondence and documents relating to a project in one place.
Come to this masterclass to see how an agency sorted its life - and how easy it is to have everything humming in your workplace with a colourful user interface underpinned by templatised workflows to run your business on monday.com.
In the wake of expanding digital possibilities, we are experiencing an evolution of marketing in Australia’s FMCG space, and the need for brands to create more direct connections with customers using technology to deliver one-to-one engagement between brands and their consumers has never been greater.
In this presentation, Carolyn Baveystock and Chris Gartside shares how the future of marketing is in becoming digitally nation from ad tech and digital spend, to personalisation at scale and getting the right media mix, the challenges and opportunities for brands, and why this can only be done with the right types and combination of data.
Attend this session for key insights on:
- Key learnings in using big data to drive personalisation at scale
- The need to drive consumer engagement with evolving digital landscape
- Winning with consumer loyalty
Memory structures. Triple attention economy. Mental availability. All this marketing science mumbo jumbo that is ironically… forgettable.
The secret to effective, enduring brands and their experiences is in evolutionary science. Because memories – particularly if you are a brand – are that prized mental real estate which ultimately drives longevity and memorability. But how do we crack the memory code to earn attention and turn it into brand capital?
This is a whistle stop tour of some great moments in the actual sciences that explains why and how brands form memory structures and memory muscle. It’s a little Nat Geo meets Gruen.
In a session, you’ll uncover the psychology and neuroscience behind memory, the role that System 1 and System 2 play in long-term memory structures, why memories aren’t fixed and actually get kimchi’d, and why the twin forces of neophilia and neophobia battle it out for memory to save your brand from being Marie Kondo’d.
Using examples from global brands, she will unpack the secrets to making your brand and its experiences stick while revealing a successful formula to encode and popularise, laying the foundations of effective brands. There might be a life lesson or two in it as well.
From unconscious bias and lack of representation at board level, to misogyny and motherhood penalties – there’s no denying women in media and marketing still face discrimination and sexism at every level. Join this powerhouse all-female CMO lineup for a deep dive panel discussion as they get candid about myriad challenges they’ve faced during their careers and share how they navigated them. Attendees will also walk away with first-class insights as to what the industry needs to do to drive genuine progress for the future female industry leaders of tomorrow.
Australians are grappling with the epicentre of financial strain as the Reserve Bank implements its 13th consecutive rate rise. Soaring living costs, inflation, and escalating mortgages have sent ripples through various market sectors, contributing to a 0.9% decline in retail spending during the calendar year 2023. Alarming data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that, on average, 1000 businesses are shutting down each day across the country.
Despite this pervasive cost-of-living crisis, certain brands are not merely surviving but thriving. In an exclusive interview, EssenceMediacom's Chief Strategy Officer, Sophie Price, engages in illuminating discussions with the APAC CMO of Uber Andy Morley, The Head Of Campaigns & Communications of eBay Australia Zannie Abbott and Guillaume Papillon Head of Marketing & Communications at Mable. We will uncover their successful strategies for achieving growth amid these challenging times.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 is renowned for achieving bankable success, including 2 billion eyeballs across broadcast, and almost 2 million fans in the stands. But it certainly wasn’t always destined to be that way.
Women’s sports have traditionally struggled for investment, visibility and credibility. So how do you challenge the status quo, and forge a new future that goes beyond greatness?
In this talk, the tournament’s head of marketing Kim Anderson will share insights into building a culture-driven campaign that broke new ground, transformed societal perceptions of women’s sport, and successfully navigated the pressures of a complex and rapidly evolving global landscape.
How do you write a differentiated business plan for growth in these economically challenging and highly competitive times?
In this informative and interactive masterclass, Andrew ‘Billy’ Baxter (former CEO of Publicis & Ogilvy and Founder of 24HR Business Plan) and Nick Baker (CEO of Reflections Holiday Parks and former CMO of Tourism Australia) will share their practical learnings from recently working together on the Reflections Holiday Parks 2030 Strategic Plan.
Andrew will also draw on his experience from writing over 100 business plans for companies in the last 2 years, to step you through some proven techniques for developing simple, powerful and actionable business plans for growth.
You will learn how to:
- Understand the four non negotiables when developing a business plan for growth
- Develop an elevator pitch of the key elements of a business plan to make it easy for your whole team to remember
- Storytell your strategy in a way that helps you stand out, and win new business
- Map your financial targets across the 5 proven ways to grow an agency
- Tie your long-term strategy into a 1-year executional plan
- Take on growth aspirations to unify the C-suite, and transform leaders into champions of the marketing agenda
LEGO is a cultural icon. The world’s most loved brand, played with by generations, and famous for inspiring and developing the builders of tomorrow.
With universal adoration and almost universal penetration, you’d forgive them for defaulting to safe, standard marketing. Yet the brand has conducted some of the most audacious marketing acts, both globally and in Australia, from partnerships with extreme stunt crews to hijacking family Christmas trees.
Learn from LEGO ANZ Vice President & General Manager Troy Taylor and Initiative’s Chief Strategy & Product Officer Chris Colter on why risk is critical to keeping brands on top of culture and how to identify and protect opportunities when the fear of doubt creeps in.
Attend this session for key learnings on:
- How experience-first marketing helps turn your customers into powerful marketing vehicles for your brand.
- How to identify new growth levers to diversify the marketing experience and unlock greater commercial success
- How to convince an organisation obsessed with brand and consumer safety to take calculated leaps of faith
"The people who are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do” – Steve Jobs.
Anyone that has worked in disruptive innovation knows that it feels like pushing shit up a hill most of the time. Why is innovation so hard, and how can we use the power of story to drive disruption? We will delve deeply into what it takes to operate at the pointy end of the innovation adoption curve, and decode some of the tips to drive change at all levels of creativity.
Expert panellists include former Matilda and now Football Australia's Head of Women's Football, Sarah Walsh; HEO Robotics' Founder & CEO, Dr William Crowe; International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems', Assoc Prof Gregory Cohen and House of Kitch's Founder and Managing Director, Samara Kitchener.
Delve into the heart of client-agency dynamics and glean exclusive insights from bespoke research, exposing solutions to the gnarly questions surrounding budgets, retainers, resource allocation, timings, and the intricate dance between marketing and the broader organisational landscape.
This thought-provoking session challenges the norms that often shroud these pivotal aspects and investigates the reasons behind our collective reluctance to address them head-on.
A transparent client/agency relationship is paramount for business success, client retention, and working harmony. However, pitfalls such as communication gaps, lack of transparency, failure to understand a client’s business, and inadequate feedback handling can strain this crucial partnership.
This session goes beyond mere acknowledgment, offering practical insights into navigating delicate waters and honing the art of asking the unaskable.
By 2021 the highly successful ‘Come Down for Air’ brand platform had started to position Tasmania as a response to a deeply ingrained cultural need: respite from the constraints of modern life. But how did Tasmania entice people to ‘Come Down for Air’ in winter when temperatures plummet, days get short, and Aussies flock to European Summers?
Lifting the lid on the highly acclaimed and gold Effie winning ‘Off Season’ campaign, Tourism Tasmania’s Chief Marketing Officer, Lindene Cleary, reveal how the tourism brand overcame the pandemic, economic headwinds, and bushfires to revitalise Tasmania; how they broke the conventions of tourism advertising; and the importance of using sensory immersion not seasonal distraction.
In this session, the duo will lift the lid on how they corralled an entire state to contribute to a marketing campaign and the secrets behind the campaigns long-term success.
- Branding in the age of disruption
- Design as a strategic business tool
- Maximising ROI
On 17 September 2023 the Shift 20 Initiative embarked on a mission to make the advertising industry truly representative of the one in five Australians with disability. The journey started with a mass inclusion moment and is looking to cement change by setting the standard of inclusion advertising - this session offers you a chance to be part of this change.
On May 23 you'll hear from the almighty Dylan Alcott himself as he's joined on stage by disability advocate, speaker, model and actor - Sara Shams and Special Melbourne's ECD, Ryan Fitzgerald. Don't miss it.
Program
Embark on an unparalleled journey and explore 60+ empowering sessions across diverse themes, access dedicated masterclasses, and return to the office with game-changing ideas.
SUBSCRIBE FOR UPDATESWho Will Be There?
Whether you're brand or agency-side, this is your chance to get a 360 degree perspective on where the industry is heading.
FIND OUT MORESpeakers
Experience a lineup of influential speakers at Mumbrella360, featuring 100+ industry leaders and global visionaries. With former Nike CMO Greg Hoffman confirmed and set for the Mumbrella360 spotlight, watch this space for more big names to be announced.
VIEW LINEUPTickets
Step into the heart of innovation at Mumbrella360, where the industry's sharpest minds unite to shape the future of media and marketing. Purchase your ticket for three days of inspiration, knowledge-sharing, and transformative experiences.
BUY TICKETSPartners
Participate in a one-of-a-kind experience filled with exceptional chances to spotlight your brand and expertise, engage with attendees and connect directly with industry leaders. To explore the possibilities further, reach out to us today.
GET IN TOUCHWhy Attend?
With 90+ speakers, including influential global keynotes, and a thriving community of senior marketers, this event is your gateway to unparalleled insights. You'll forge invaluable connections with industry leaders and discover what lies ahead.
BUY TICKETSConnect with the industry
Kicking off at 2pm on 21 May, the dedicated networking afternoon is for those who are keen to build new relationships, talk up their own capabilities and strengthen personal networks - and we've already locked in an array of senior marketers who are taking part.
The speed dating networking is the curtain raiser to the conference days, and is your chance to forge industry connections that could turn into big things down the line.
Note: if you want to attend the networking event on day 1 you'll have to hurry. There are only 30 networking passes left, not to mention the networking portal opens next Thursday (18 April). That means you could miss out on booking facetime with marketing VIPs.
Explore the group rates for a bigger saving
Bring your team and bag even further savings with our '5 for 4' or '10 for 7' ticket options.
All-Access Pass
$2799+GST
- 3-day event
- 2-day conference pass
- M360 1:1 networking event
- Welcome reception
- Intimate masterclasses
- M360 cocktail party
- 5 streams of content
BUY TICKET
5 tickets for 4
$2239+GST
- 3-day event
- 2-day conference pass
- M360 1:1 networking event
- Welcome reception
- Intimate masterclasses
- M360 cocktail party
- 5 streams of content
10 tickets for 7
$1959+GST
- 3-day event
- 2-day conference pass
- M360 1:1 networking event
- Welcome reception
- Intimate masterclasses
- M360 cocktail party
- 5 streams of content
90+ speakers
2000+ professionals
10 streams of content
15+ masterclasses
Who will be in the audience?
Marketers
Mumbrella360 will bring together CMOs and marketing leaders from Australia and New Zealand. Hear what some of the brands making the biggest waves in marketing believe their advantage is, plus their thoughts and ideas on the industry and their specific challenges.
Agencies
Hear from agency leaders across media, creative, digital, social and more. Learn about their market conditions and challenges, their ideation processes and the client opportunities they are seeing.
Media
Some of the biggest media brands in the world speak at Mumbrella360, providing a platform to discuss a wide array of industry topics when it comes to the global and local media industry.
Event details
Dates: 21-23 May 2024
Venue: Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf
21 May: Networking Event | 2:00pm - 5:00pm
22 May: Conference Day 1 | 8:00am - 6:00pm
23 May: Conference Day 2 | 8:30am - 4:45pm
Getting there
Level 3, 26-32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
View directions on how to get there here.
Volunteer with us
Mumbrella360 2023 would not be possible without the help and dedication of our amazing volunteers. This event is a fantastic opportunity to be part of Australia’s biggest media and marketing conference. Whether you’re passionate about media and marketing, event planning, or simply want to connect with like-minded people, we invite you to join our team.
Applications to volunteer for 2024 Mumbrella360 is now open.