The most comprehensive conference for retail and FMCG marketers

David Rumbens is a macroeconomist and regular commentator on the Australian economy. He leads Deloitte Access Economics’ macroeconomics and forecasting group, and has two decades of experience with Australia’s pre‑eminent economic consulting firm.

David is the author of the quarterly publication, Retail Forecasts, which provides a detailed analysis of the drivers of retail spending and trends likely to emerge. David also prepares a weekly economic briefing newsletter. The newsletter can be found at www.deloitte.com/au/weeklyeconomicbriefing

Jonathan founded FITCH HK (then StartJG HK) in 2009. It quickly became one of the most respected consultancies in Asia, winning Agency of the Year awards in 2014,15 and 16. In 2016, WPP acquired a majority stake and StartJG HK became part of FITCH, the world’s leading brand and retail consultancy, with Jonathan remaining a significant shareholder.

Currently the Head of China Digital eCommerce for AB InBev, based in Shanghai.

As a serial technology start-up guy, working for the world’s largest beverage company in this role is not intuitive at first glance. More used to raising venture capital, building high-growth businesses and sitting on the sell-side during M&A discussions, I have “start-up DNA”, but AB InBev offered the best of all worlds – the chance to work in a newly created group, ABI’s ZX Ventures organization, with the mandate to launch and build an eCommerce business in China with ABI as a single strategic investor. Treating the business as a high-growth start-up is a key part of the ZXV culture, with innovation, velocity and agility as key pillars.

Having started my career in Beijing in 1989, I have come full circle in this, my second tour of China. In between China stints, I have had front row seats at several technology inflection points, spending the mid-90’s in Silicon Valley involved in the early Internet, SaaS and Cloud (before they were branded as such), the late-90’s in Redmond, deeply embedded in Microsoft as it transitioned from a work group to enterprise player, laid the groundwork for “du”, a telecommunications company in Dubai, spent 10 years at the forefront of mobile broadband, rode the front edge of the enterprise social media wave and am now launching an eCommerce business in China, helping to bring people together for a Better World.

Bronwyn currently leads strategy, content and programming across brand experience for the Westfield portfolio in Australia and New Zealand.

Leading a team of 20 strategy, content, and marketing professionals, Bronwyn and her team seek to close the loop from strategy to execution to results, focused firmly on an enhanced customer experience.

With a background in media and communications strategy, research and data analytics, Bronwyn is passionate about unlocking actionable insights that connect customers with brands, and retailers, to create memorable experiences.

She is involved with the Property Council of Australia’s female mentoring program, the Australia-Israeli Chamber of Commerce young leaders program, and the Australian Direct Marketing Association.

Dr. Sonika Singh is a PhD in Management Science from the University of Texas at Dallas, and her research has been published in top journals such as the Journal of Retailing and the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. Her research is in the domains of digital marketing and retailing. She focuses on econometric modeling of consumer information search, consumer choice, and retail pricing and promotions.

Sonika’s current projects focus on retail pricing in EDLP stores, website purchase and post-purchase behavior, and consumer response to category pricing and promotions over time. She has presented her research at leading marketing conferences in the U.S., in Europe at Cambridge University, and IIM-Ahmedabad in India.  She has prior industry experience in market research and has worked in Sandvik Asia and Kirloskar Oil Engines Ltd.

Suzanne Harman has a passion for growing iconic Australian food brands while engaging and developing talent at all levels.

In 2017 and 2018, Suzanne was recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 CMO’s by CMO Magazine. Today she is the General Manager-­Marketing at Simplot Australia, leading marketing for the business across all multi channels and brands for Australia and New Zealand.

Suzanne leads a large team of dedicated marketing individuals while also championing and coaching Australia’s newest marketing talent as part of Monash University’s Marketing Honours program.

“In the ever changing marketing environment we work in, developing a culture of continuous improvement, inspiration and motivation is key to consistently creating high quality work that matters”

With over 17 years of marketing and commercial experience in the FMCG industry with leading companies in Australia including Fonterra, L’Oreal and Simplot Australia; Suzanne brings a deep understanding of the importance of innovative thinking, cultural insight and the ability to connect with customers and consumers on a physical, social and mental level.

Driven by a desire to make a genuine difference in the shopping and eating habits of customers and consumers; Suzanne has a strong track record of developing impactful consumer focused, winning growth strategies for some of Australia’s iconic brands such as John West, Birds Eye, Leggo’s, Bega, Mainland and Perfect Italiano.

“For brands to stay relevant innovation remains a key driver to achieve growth.”

As managing Director of Isobar Australia, Erik manages the business across the four offices.

Erik has been part of the Isobar team for nine years, and helped grow both the team from 60 to 300, establish industry-leading capabilities in technology and innovation as well as represent Isobar externally through thought leadership in the industry.

Erik joined as a developer, after a period of time working both in Europe and in America. At Isobar, Erik has worked with a broad range of clients as well as a spectrum of roles across technology and innovation.

Infamously no-bullshit and immune to stress, Erik is currently tasked with driving the Isobar vision and evolving its business offering to keep Isobar at the forefront of technology, design, creative, strategy and delivery.

Personally, avid gamer (and ex-eSport professional), father of two and a relentless passion for good digital products.

Infamously no-bullshit and immune to stress, Erik is currently tasked with driving the Isobar vision and evolving its business offering to keep Isobar at the forefront of technology, design, creative, strategy and delivery.

Linda O’Grady is a leading specialist in customer centric transformation and multi-brand CX strategy working across brands and sometimes across companies and cultures to create great CX. She has been Head of Strategy for SE Asia for a large networked agency and Head of Marketing Planning & Performance (Transformation) for a major multi-brand retailer. She also lead the customer relationship integration during a company acquisition and IPO, drawing heavily on her post-graduate qualifications in Change Management. Now as a Business Partner and the Data Strategy Partner at CX Lavender she leads a large multi-disciplinary team designing customer experiences and solving problems for many large corporates. This includes Westpac Group where CX Lavender has nearly 40 CX specialists partnering in strategy, innovation, lean design and Agile. Linda is particularly interested in how brand values come to life in customer experience and evaluating where and when to leverage different types of strategy, technology, creativity and change management to move from conceptual to successful, future-proof CX.

Peter has spent the past 20 years working across digital, from ecommerce to experiential marketing. Throughout his career, whether it be banking digital services or a real-world digital activation for a Tourism body, his focus has consistently been on delivering exceptional Customer Experiences.

Peter joined Cotton On Group in 2016 and is responsible for the group’s digital experience, customer insight, photographic studio and loyalty program. The group’s digital presence spans 8 brands, 8 countries and 10 websites.

Most recently, Cotton On was awarded ‘Best Website User Experience’ by the Power Retail All Star awards which are the most comprehensive ranking of the top performers in the Australian retail industry.

Before joining Cotton On, Peter spent a decade in various roles across Australia’s leading Digital and Integrated Ad Agencies. Last stop on this leg of his career was Digital Experience Director at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne where he played a key role in the digital leadership team transforming the agency to think and execute in digital. Recognition of this came when the much revered GUNN report placed Clemenger BBDO globally as the 3rd most awarded digital agency.

James began as a Strategist in creative and media agencies at WPP Group for a decade prior to becoming the Marketer instrumental in transforming an American Whiskey maker into an international spirits conglomerate acquired by ‘Suntory Japan’ for 21x EBITDA in 2015. He has deep skills in brand and product marketing, business strategy, and in leading diverse and distributed teams. James is a generalist with a breadth of experience enabling him to join up all the dots across Brands, Marketing, Innovation and Design. He’s a founding director of CleanThinking a media, marketing and innovation firm.

James Greet is one of Australia’s most experienced agency change leaders. During the course of his career he has worked with some of the world’s most progressive agencies across both media and creative, where strategic and creative thinking has been the definer and driver of their success.

During his 14 years in Australia, James has held the CEO role at OMD, Mindshare (ANZ, Japan and Korea), and Ikon (ANZ) building a reputation as a pioneer, helping turn under performing companies into both market and global network leaders.

More recently he has worked as a Partner of Cummins&Partners, a successful Australian independent Advertising Agency who wanted to realise the ambition of offering both creative and media under one roof, across both their Melbourne and Sydney offices.

Today he is a Co-founder of CleanThinking, a ‘jedi council’ of comms strategists, designed to help businesses turn media complexity into clarity and advantage. CleanThinking works with a range of businesses including brand marketers, media and entertainment companies and creative agencies.

Felecia White has been studying how Australians eat and drink for over 20 years, the last 10 of them with PepsiCo. Felecia champions Australia as an innovation hub for food and sees us as a window into the future of snacking globally.

After early roles at Nestle Confectionery in Insights and Brand Management, Felecia has been building iconic brands such as Smiths, Doritos, Gatorade, Shapes, Tim Tam and Bundaberg Rum while at Arnott’s Campbells, PepsiCo and Diageo.  Felecia has also guided new brands, like Red Rock Deli, that have been exported globally.

Felecia believes in demand generation as the foundation for identifying opportunities and driving Category Growth. This has seen PepsiCo recognised by retailers as a leader in Marketing and Category Management.

Kate has over 20 years of marketing and advertising experience across Facebook, Microsoft Advertising UK, and for brands including Sensis, McDonald’s and Tabcorp. She has combined this extensive career into her ‘dream’ role as Head of Retail & QSR for Facebook ANZ. Kate works with top Facebook retail clients to develop strategies that will drive foot traffic and grow the basket in an era where consumers look at their mobile screens as they walk down the high street.

Jonathan Waecker is the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for The Warehouse Group. In this newly-created role he oversees all of the group’s marketing and communications activities, leading brand strategy and driving customer engagement for the group and its brands, including The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, Noel Leeming, Torpedo7.

Prior to joining The Warehouse Group, Jonathan was based in San Francisco as Vice President of Marketing Communications at Yahoo, the fourth largest online property in the world, reaching over one billion users every month. In that role Jonathan led the fully-integrated team responsible for delivering all marketing communications during a critical turnaround period for the company, winning numerous industry awards, while driving revenue and results for the business and brand.

Prior to Yahoo, Jonathan spent time in global marketing, brand strategy and business development roles at Zynga and The Walt Disney Company, two of the world’s most engaging and digitally innovative consumer brands. He has been named one of Brand Innovators 40 Under 40, received an MBA in Corporate Strategy from HEC Paris, a second MBA in Global Finance from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and graduated from San Diego State University.

Abigail is currently a reporter at the media and marketing publication Mumbrella covering both the creative and PR space. In 2016 she completed her Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) degree at RMIT University in Melbourne, majoring in politics, economies and businesses. During her three year degree Abigail completed multiple internships across different publications including Mamamia, Channel 10 and 3AW.

Matt Allison is the Managing Director of Ubiquity Lab.

Matt is renowned for pioneering a customer-led ecosystem that creates meaningful experiences, in a way organisations can monetise. He believes you must integrate all touchpoints across the customer journey to ‘win’ at marketing.

Matt was previously Bupa’s Head of Global Content Strategy, responsible for building and scaling a content-led ecosystem locally and globally – including Bupa’s award winning publishing hub the Blue Room and internationally acclaimed Bupa Blog Awards.

He drove the internal change management that enabled Bupa to connect brand, content, and performance marketing. This saw the Blue Room become Bupa’s most effective channel to drive brand love, as well as to increase customer acquisition and retention.

He advises top CMOs how to embed a content-led customer ecosystem.

Matt’s cutting-edge views and real life experience has seen him become a regular speaker and workshop host at numerour high profile events.

Pippa joined Unilever Graduate Training Program in Australia in 1984 and during the following 15 years she worked predominantly in marketing.

Pippa has held various senior marketing roles with cross category experience in Food, Personal Products and Detergents. Pippa’s last role in Australia was leading a major change project reviewing the Laundry Business. The project was complex and involved an intensive brand, consumer, competitor feasibility study reshaping the Laundry portfolio.

Pippa moved to London and joined Brand Learning (a marketing consultancy business) and was able to pursue her passion for learning by developing live action learning events for Diageo and Unilever including innovation, concept writing, experiential marketing and marketing awareness for non-marketers.

Pippa returned to Unilever in 2005 as the Marketing Excellence Director for Europe reporting to the Unilever Marketing Academy in London. This role involved implementing the Unilever Marketing Capability Programme for Brand Builders & Brand Developers in Europe, facilitating live action workshops for Innovation, Insight Activation, Brand Vision & Brand Architecture Development & Brand Marketing Planning. Pippa helped to build the category strategy program for Unilever and then launched it across Europe developing category strategy capability. Pippa also facilitated & coached individual Brand Teams across Europe with their specific category strategy or innovation Brand issues.

Pippa returned to Australia late 2007 with her family and joined the GALKAL team working with Companies in Australia & Asia across a broad range of Marketing Strategy & Innovation Streams.

Pippa graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor or Arts degree. Pippa’s passions include spending time with her family and friends and she also enjoys the theatre, netball, swimming, reading and travel.

Over 20 years’ experience championing many of Australia’s iconic brands across the finance, tourism, FMCG, government and retail sectors. From ANZ to Amnesty, BMW to Barbie, Kodak to Kmart.

Career spent crossing from Marketing to Agency and back again. Working with global agencies JWT, Ogilvy, M&C Saatchi as well as more recently helping transform the Kmart brand and marketing communications at BWM before joining the team at Target.

Nicole’s experience working across both agency and marketing has giving her a deep understanding of brand and fostered a true champion of customer. Her strengths lie in using data to gain a thorough understanding of customer to help inform brand strategy, experience, as well as marketing communications. Importantly, Nicole is really good at making the complex easy – an important skill when unifying and galvanising teams into action.

Danny has 20 years of experience developing his skills and knowledge within the retail marketing, services and sales sector. He has worked with retailers and brands all over the world, having lived and worked in London, Singapore and Sydney for global and local brands across several marketing disciplines.

For the last three and a half years, Danny has led the retail experience offering for Y&R. Both as Managing Director of the IdeaWorks business and Regional Head of Retail, VMLY&R across Australia and New Zealand working with retail brands like Best & Less, Breville, Coca-Cola, Myer, Petbarn, rebel, Samsung, Telstra, and Woolworths to name a few.

Danny is passionate about creating memorable and impactful retail consumer and shopper experiences – both in store, online and essentially anywhere brands can be engaged and transactions can be influenced or made.

Julie Mathers is the CEO and Founder of Flora & Fauna, an ethical lifestyle and beauty retailer focused on driving change and empowering customers. Julie is passionate about using her skills and platform for purpose. Julie was named Business Person of the Year this Year at the Gala Awards and was named Number 4 in the “Top 50 People in Australian eCommerce”.

This year Flora & Fauna was named Online Retailer of the Year at the GALA Awards, Best Small Online Retailer at the ORIAs and won Telstra Small Business of the Year for NSW.

Prior to founding Flora & Fauna, Julie has worked in the UK, Europe, Asia and now Australia for the last ten years. She has worked in consulting, private equity and with many retailers, including senior leadership roles in Woolworths, Coles and APG & Co.

John is the owner of Save Our Soles which is engaged in recycling shoes and apparel in Australia.

An influential leader, John is committed to finding great vehicles to align himself with to make the world a better place for the next generation. He is a founding board member of B Lab Australia and New Zealand that look after B Corporations who are leading a global movement to redefine success in business. John also sits on the Retail advisory board of Save the Children, Australia and the Advisory board of Looptworks, a US company who manufacture eco-friendly upcycled products with brands to create closed-loop and waste recycling solutions. He is also part of the Australia’s Post REVAMP Network who explore using business to drive better circular economy outcomes.

John was also the Managing Director of TOMS Australia & New Zealand, the One for One company who use their business to improve people’s lives. John was responsible for the brand’s significant business growth and awareness since TOMS launched in the Australian and New Zealand market in 2012.

When it comes to corporate social responsibility, John has years of insider experience and a realistic, pragmatic view on how companies can create real change. He has worked in the sporting industry for over 30 years with roles at Puma, And1 and Sportsco, discovering his passion for social responsibility and business when he chaired Nike’s environmental group for the region and joined its first Global Climate Change summit in Portland. During this time John was Vice President of Warrandyte CAN – A climate action group in Warrandyte.

John is a regular (enigmatic and inspirational) public speaker for B Corporations, DO! Lectures and Peppermint Magazine’s Pep Talk series.

Pippa is the Co-Director of RetailOasis, a business consultancy dedicated to creating the future of retail. She’s has a life long passion for understanding human behaviour. She’s worked with a raft of established retail businesses through to start-ups helping them understand how to appeal to their current and future customer. RetailOasis is a certified B-Corporation – a business that balances purpose with profit, and is legally required to consider the impact of it’s decisions in the broader community.

Adam has build a career making the complex simple and the simple compelling. He honed his craft with a range of local and international clients including Telstra, Microsoft, Verizon, Commonwealth Bank, General Motors, JP Morgan Chase, Allianz, SAP, News Corp & Optus.

During his time in the US he served as Executive Vice President, Strategy – a period where he developed a fascination for Customer Experience, the nuanced nature of international marketing and universality of brilliant creative.

A passionate supporter of continuous education and talent development, Adam is the current President of the International Advertising Association & member of the global IAA board. A father of three, he wouldn’t be without health cover and is a regular in ER.

Adam is President of the International Advertising Association, Australia.

Bio coming soon

Karen Matthews has over 25yrs experience in leading turnaround, change and growth across Retail, Wholesale and Franchising and summarises her career in 5 distinct but interconnected chapters….

• First stop was Myer, where Karen “cut her teeth” and learnt the art of retail, buying and marketing
• From there, Karen moved into brand management, licensing and product development with the FJ Benjamin Group, working with wonderful brand such as Guess, Ann Taylor and Gucci
• Chapter 3 comprised 10 wonderful years as CEO of skincare company Ella Bache, where she developed and launched Australia’s first skincare franchise and developed her passion and love of change, heart led leadership and the power of culture first
• Karen’s last corporate role was as Retail Director with Freedom Furniture, where she led their 50 stores and 1200 staff in all things retail – another massive change role.
• In 2016, Karen launched, “Karen Matthews – Inspiring Change” – Chapter 5 of her journey where she is now passionate about leveraging her experience and teaching and supporting other businesses and their teams to identify and implement the changes needed in their business to grow.

Karen is recognised in the market as a confident and innovative leader with strong operational and strategic experience and an unwavering commitment to vision, people and results, all delivered through the eyes of her own experience.

She has won a number of awards over her career including 2004 Telstra NSW Business Woman of Year, 2005 PWC NSW Franchise Woman Year and 2007 PWC National Franchise Woman of Year

Last but not least, Karen has 2 gorgeous teenagers, a patient, calm and understanding husband, a to die for beaglier called Maggie and is obsessed with Crossfit – which confirms she actually is also crazy!!!

Toby has 20 years’ experience in market leading consumer brands both client & agency side. An experienced marketer, Toby joined Starcom Sydney in 2013 as Client Services Director across the Samsung and Optus accounts and was promoted to MD Starcom Sydney in 2014 before rising to CEO of Starcom Australia in 2016.

Prior to joining Starcom, Toby spent five years at Sony Australia leading brand and strategy, most recently as GM Consumer Marketing. He also held a variety of roles as both Sales & Marketing Director at Olympus and Polaroid.

He is also a Board Director of the MFA (Media Federation of Australia) and part of the Starcom Global Leadership team. He is inspired by digital disruption changing consumer behaviour which is affecting most business and the opportunity through diversity of experience and skills to lead client’s transformation.

When not working, Toby is a keen on ocean paddling, triathlons, travelling and enjoying backyard sports with his boys as family time.

A marketing and consumer engagement specialist with over 18 years experience in global/regional brand marketing, Anthony Ho is currently Associate Director Equity, Chocolate and Biscuits, Australia and New Zealand, at Mondelēz International, proud custodians of the iconic brands such as Cadbury, The Natural Confectionery Co., Oreo and Philadelphia.

Anthony has architected strategies for some of the world’s most recognised and loved brands. With a focus on driving innovation, he has been celebrated for driving many award winning campaigns across markets including most recently Oreo’s relaunch across Australasia, Middle East & Africa, as well Oreo’s digital influencer collaboration content series.

Anthony links his passion for innovation and a drive for business results by focusing on driving business growth through integrated communications approaches grounded in data driven insights. He cites his passion for digital and emerging media along with an openness and desire to collaborate with forward looking partners as a key enabler in transforming business results.

Adam has build a career making the complex simple and the simple compelling. He honed his craft with a range of local and international clients including Telstra, Microsoft, Verizon, Commonwealth Bank, General Motors, JP Morgan Chase, Allianz, SAP, News Corp & Optus.

During his time in the US he served as Executive Vice President, Strategy – a period where he developed a fascination for Customer Experience, the nuanced nature of international marketing and universality of brilliant creative.

A passionate supporter of continuous education and talent development, Adam is the current President of the International Advertising Association & member of the global IAA board. A father of three, he wouldn’t be without health cover and is a regular in ER.

Adam is President of the International Advertising Association, Australia.