CSA 2023

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 then co-founding Naked Communications APAC. After leaving Naked, Adam co-founded Thinkerbell – where they practice ‘measured magic’. After just 3 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.

In other news Adam is also the author of two books “The Advertising Effect” (Oxford), and ‘Stop Listening to the Customer’ (Wiley). Aadm co-hosts the potentially multi-awarding winning podcast ‘Black T-Shirts’, and is a regular media commentator.

Anne Shea aka “Anne from Up” is a writer, marcomms and PR pro who’s been translating code notes into content since social media marketing was free. She co-creates and manages some legitimately nuts content for Up, the orange sensation that’s fast become Australia’s highest rated banking app. Anne’s also a nationally ranked amateur winemaker and brewer, who teaches and writes about growing and preserving food.

Daley Pearson is a multi Emmy®, AACTA, BAFTA and Logie Award winning producer, creator and co-founder and director at Ludo Studio. Previously Pearson created The Strange Calls which turned into the fastest format sale in Australian TV history with a remake at NBC Universal. Pearson is now Executive Producer on the Logie winning and Emmy winning animated series Bluey, which is the most watched show in Australian TV history, and co-creating and co-producing the animated series The Strange Chores (ABC TV).

Pearson Executive Produced the AACTA Award winning drama series Robbie Hood (SBS) and was showrunner on the Rose d’Or winning and Emmy nominated series, Content (ABC TV). Pearson also plays Thor’s room-mate, Darryl, with Chris Hemsworth and Jeff Goldblum in Taika Waititi’s ‘Team Thor’ and ‘Team Darryl’ comedy series for Marvel Studios. Currently, Pearson is developing and directing Ludo’s first feature film for an international SVOD for production in 2023.

Adam originally hails from the regional town of Mildura in North Western Victoria, but has Gooreng Gooreng bloodlines from Central Queensland – the Burnett River/Wide Bay area. Adam started his media career in community broadcasting in the late 1990s, initially in radio and then moved into Television.

Adam is an experienced creative producer, director, editor, executive producer and people leader, working with teams on developing, producing and overseeing content across multiple platforms.

Adam is the Head of Entertainment, Events and Sport at NITV and oversees many productions on his large slate including Going Places with Ernie Dingo, Sunrise Ceremony and The Koori Knockout. Adam also serves on the First Nations Media Australia board.

Adam lives in the Brisbane seaside suburb of Wynnum with his partner Cherry, children Rosalia and Tully, and his two cats Keifer and Nola.

Adam is incredibly passionate about First Nations storytelling and serving the First Nations community with communications outcomes – helping maintain the longest continuing living cultures in the world.

Deb Eccleston is a journalist by trade, with a 25-year career dedicated to leading creative professionals in the production of print and digital publications for audiences ranging in size from 200,000 to more than 1.7 million.

As RACQ’s Managing Editor, Deb is responsible for the development of RACQ’s print and digital publications including the Club’s principal member communication, The Road Ahead magazine, website and suite of eNewsletters. Leading a team of editors, journalists and designers, Deb creates publishing strategies that effectively execute on RACQ’s business goals of member value, engagement and retention. These strategies have resulted in increased readership and engagement through RACQ members’ channels of choice.

A self-proclaimed content ‘nerd’, Deb is passionate about connecting with audiences via the written word. When not preaching to her three teenagers about the virtues of reading books rather than scrolling phones, Deb can be found wandering the aisles of second-hand bookshops looking for literary treasures.

Ollie Wards turned his family’s brush with a Californian con-woman into an award winning hit podcast; the 4th season of The ABC’s Unravel True Crime series: Snowball.

Snowball was named one of Apple Podcasts’ ‘Best Listens’ of 2019, made the prestigious American Bella Collective top 100 list that year and won Best True Crime at the Australian Podcast Awards in 2020. Ollie created, researched, produced and wrote the story while on sabbatical from leading triple j as Content Director up to 2020. In that position, Ollie designed and coached content making across all of triple j’s platforms and subject verticals.

Today, Ollie is Director of Music for TikTok Australia and New Zealand, working with artists and music industry to connect them with audiences on the platform.

Sophia is a social media specialist, passionate about improving health literacy and education. She’s the Senior Social & Digital Media Officer at Queensland Health, focusing on the team’s short-form video strategy and guiding content development that results in behaviour change. Soph is an inspired creative, with plenty of ideas to go around. Outside of work, she’s a keen flatpacker and amateur potter.

As Urban List’s Head of Studio, Elise leads a team of content producers and project managers who create compelling editorial, video and designs for valued partners, such as GoPro, Singapore Tourism, Samsung, H&M, Aperol, American Express, Suntory Boss and Disney. From Reels to Be Real she knows what’s on the rise and slide with over a decade of experience working across digital publishing, television, social media, and production.

Ashton loves growing creative, connected brands and teams. Ashton is the CMO at Gathar – the private chef platform changing the way the world gathers by creating amazing dining experiences Australia-wide and in Los Angeles, supported by US Co-founder, Curtis Stone. Ashton has worked both in-house and agency-side for global game changers (Flight Centre), industry disrupters (Youfoodz), and award-winning agencies (Red Havas), and has been known to side-gig as a travel writer and restaurant reviewer. Helping people find their ‘why’ and making the work week feel less like a bunch of Mondays strung together is what gets Ashton out of bed every morning (as well as thinking about what she’ll be eating that day).

Simon Kelly leads the Queensland Police Service’s award-winning Media and Public Affairs team, which supports the 17,000-strong organisation with its external presence from influencing behaviours through campaigns, assisting with complex police investigations and managing the platforms the Service uses to engage with the public. 

Building and maintaining the brand of the state’s law enforcement agency is a round-the clock job with 24/7 reactive media, marketing campaigns, digital content and management of the Queensland Government’s largest social media audience coming under Simon’s remit.

With more than two decades of experience in journalism and communication, Simon’s expertise spans crisis management, stakeholder engagement and strategic communications. He is also partial to the occasional social media pun.

Kate is Manager, Social Media Strategy for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, where she drives the implementation of the ABC-wide social media strategy. Day-to-day that looks like everything between supporting her team to working on evolving platform strategy to building capability (and lots of things she can’t share in a bio!). You can distill her expertise in social media into strategy, creativity and innovation — but her special sauce amongst that is her passion to be an adaptive, compassionate and inspiring leader. If you see Kate at the conference, you’re sure to strike up a conversation if you ask about vertical video strategy, share what you’re experimenting with, and all things youth audiences.

Alexis Moran is a Wakka Wakka & Yuin woman. She is a digital journalist, producer and editor.

She joined NITV as Senior Digital Producer in May 2022.

Alexis then took on the new role of ‘NITV Digital Content Lead’ a few months later in September.

She is the product owner for the new NITV website, which includes overseeing the implementation of SBS’s new content management system and is the point of call for all backend tech issues.

Alexis assists with daily editorial oversight for all digital content, and helps in creating and executing the Digital Content Strategy currently being working on.

Prior to joining NITV, Alexis was at the ABC for 6 years and has spent 4 years at News Digital in Brisbane on the National newsdesk, picking up valuable skills in journalism, digital production and social media.

In her time at the ABC she undertook a number of secondments for special coverage and projects where she worked as a Digital Lead / Senior Producer and Researcher.

She had also regularly been at the helm of ABC live blogs and managed for the breaking news alerts on the ABC News app.

Dan Norris is a serial entrepreneur, award-winning content marketer, international speaker and the author of 6 Amazon best selling business books.

In June 2013 after failing at entrepreneurship for 7 years, he founded WP Curve a worldwide team of WordPress developers, providing unlimited small fixes and support, 24 / 7 for a low monthly fee. In 3 years WP Curve grew into a 7 figure business and exited to GoDaddy in a multi million dollar exit.

With over 65,000 copies sold, Dan’s books have been translated into 13 languages and inspired thousands of people around the world to launch their businesses, with may resulting in 6 and even 7 figure businesses.

After the WP Curve exit Dan co-founded one of Australia’s fastest growing craft beer breweries, Black Hops Brewing. In 2015 Black Hops brewed the world’s first beer for the biggest entertainment franchise on earth, Call of Duty. In 2018 Black Hops was voted Australia’s Champion Small Brewery at the AIBA awards, Australia’s number 1 beer competition. In 2020 Black Hops was voted #1 Craft Beer Brewery in the annual Beer Cartel Craft Beer survey. As at November 2022, Black Hops has 3 breweries on the Gold Coast, one in Brisbane employs 70+ staff and produces 2.5m+ litres plus per year distributed to thousands of customers around Australia including the major retailers Dan Murphy’s, BWS, Coles and 1st Choice.

Janet is a passionate advocate for women’s health and female empowerment.

She is a vibrant and honest individual with the gift of telling it exactly how it is (and she’s not afraid of being in front of the camera).

As one of Midnight Health’s first two employees, Janet has witnessed the company go from strength to strength, with Youly paving the way for other MH brands to succeed.

Daniel Allen experienced the devastating loss of a friend to suicide in 2016. In response, he and his friend Edward Ross started TradeMutt. Together they created funky, eye-catching shirts to help start a conversation about blue-collar working men’s mental health.

The business donates 50 per cent of profits to charitable organisations and social initiatives. By July 2021, TradeMutt had enabled 9,825 people to access early intervention mental health support. It’s also provided more than 22,000 hours of disability employment and $3 million in mental health support.

It funds about 700 hours of mental health conversations each month. TradeMutt has won Australian Men’s Health Awards, including Best Men’s Mental Health Project. Daniel and Edward made Queensland’s 2021 Top 20 Under 40 list of business entrepreneurs.

With their Funky Shirt Fridays now an Australia-wide ritual, Daniel and Edward are making men’s mental health a priority – one conversation at a time

Bo de la Cruz is recognised Australia-wide as a champion touch, rugby union and league player, and an exceptional role model for aspiring young athletes.

Bo launched her football career in Darwin when she was 12 and has since forged a reputation as a sporting powerhouse after repeated outstanding achievements on the world stage.

The multi award-winning athlete has been a vital cog in the Australia Women’s Open Touch team since 2001 and in 2012 was named Vice Captain of that team as well as Captain of the Australian Indigenous Women’s open team.

Among her many sporting achievements, Bo was a member of the Australian team that won the 2003 & 2007 Touch Football World Cup and was voted Overall Female Player of the Series and Most Valuable Player for Australia in 2003.

In 2009, as a dual code representative, Bo shone for Australia at the inaugural Rugby Sevens World Cup for Women in Dubai, and became the Territory’s first world champion rugby player when her team defeated New Zealand in the final playoff. She is also a member of the 2010 Australian Rugby Union Wallaroos World Cup Squad.

In 2005 and 2012 Bo was named Most Outstanding Sportswoman at the Deadlys, which recognises Outstanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the categories of Sport, Music, Entertainment and Community.

In 2003 Bo was awarded the National Indigenous Sportswoman of the Year at the National NAIDOC awards, and Sportsperson of the Year 2004 National Indigenous Sports Awards.

Bo was named the NT Sports Awards Ambassador of the in 2002, the 2003 NT Young Achiever Award for Sport, 2004 NT Sportsperson of the Year and 2010 NT Sports awards Steve Ablala Role Model of the Year.

More recently, Bo was named as a member of the Touch Football Australia Golden Jubilee team which recognises the top 14 female players to ever play the sport of touch football.

Bo also recently captained the Australian Women’s over 35s team to an undefeated World Cup win in Malaysia in May, which was her final Australian representative honour.

Bo was born in Darwin, on Larrakia country and now, residing in Brisbane on Turrbal/Jagera country, for the past 6 years. Bo is a proud descendant of the Gudjala and Erubian (Darnley Island) people in the Torres Strait and is working for Deadly Choices as an Ambassador helping promote healthy lifestyle choices to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as well as a part of the Business Development team co-ordinating partnerships between major NRL, AFL and Suncorp Netball Teams. Bo is also the only female panellist on NITV’s weekly Indigenous Rugby League show Over the Black Dot and new series Feeding the Scrum. all while being a mum to her 3 beautiful children: Kobe 9, Rome 7 and Lyla 4.

Karen Paterson (nee’ Dorante) is a Wagadam/Daurareb woman from the Torres Strait.

She has been involved in media for more than 30 years and is currently the general manager of the National Indigenous Radio Service, based in Brisbane.

She has also worked in various roles at Triple A Murri Country, Radio 4MW and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Karen is an advocate for the Indigenous community radio sector and currently serves on the board of First Nations Media Australia and is a member of the Community Broadcasting Foundation’s Sector Investment Advisory Committee whose tasks include providing independent, informed advice on funding policy and practice.

She is a strong believer in self-determination and the importance of Indigenous community-control in managing community affairs.

Danielle is the Co-Founder & CEO of Scrunch, a global membership platform for The Creator Economy. And the Founder of SPARK, sales courses and coaching for founders, that don’t suck.

Danielle has a background in fashion design, blogging and enterprise sales. Ten years ago she started a local Brisbane-based blog while pursuing a career in enterprise sales for Australia’s largest telecommunications company. It was through this blog that the world of digital Influencers and their challenges would interest her so much that she threw-in a rising career to pursue the world of technology startups.

Over the last decade Danielle has raised over $3Million in capital, built a global remote team, built and exited a D2C company and will always share the real startup stories to help female founders shortcut their success in business, no matter what that looks like for them.

Awarded EY Entreprenuer of the year in 2019, Danielle is building a life she loves around Sales & Marketing and showing other leading females how they can do the same. Outside of business Danielle’s heart belongs to travel, yoga and champagne!

As a proud Wakka Wakka man and the founder and Executive Director of Gilimbaa, David brings a lifetime of culture and connections that lie at the heart of the outcomes delivered by the highly skilled and experienced Gilimbaa team. David was influenced by his immediate family and his Elders who encouraged him to use his creative skills to connect his culture to the wider community. With over 15 years as a cultural performer working at home and abroad, David uses creativity as a tool of 21st century cultural communication.

David has built strong community networks that are fundamental to Gilimbaa’s ability to deliver meaningful and culturally appropriate communication strategy, design, artwork, and campaigns. David has a unique capability to walk in two worlds, influencing in boardrooms with the same ease as he connects with community. He is a member of the Microsoft Reconciliation Action Plan Advisory Group and Indigenous Advisory Group Member for the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, former board member of the Queensland Museum Network, and former chairperson of the Queensland Museum Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Consultative Committee.

Madhushri is a content strategist, devoted to developing ideas that increase a brand’s share of voice and deliver organic user acquisition.

As Content Program Manager at Microsoft’s Clipchamp video editor, she demystifies all things video marketing and creator economy with tutorials as editor of the Clipchamp blog and optimizes high-value landing pages to support growth.

When she’s not writing, she can be found immersed in art and mythology, learning about sustainability innovations, tutoring at QUT, or guiltily enjoying Dragon’s Den repeats.

Brittanie has more than a decade experience in digital and content marketing roles across agency, local and state government, and private enterprise. In 2017, she co-founded The Content Division – a content marketing and production agency based in Brisbane. As the Managing Director at The Content Division, she manages the strategic direction of the business and leads a team of epic content creators.

Kurt has been strategy director and co-founder of Brisbane content agency The Content Division since 2017. For 20 years he has been a journalist and marketer covering industries from economic development and business services to fast moving consumer goods, software and tech, food, B2B, and much more. Kurt brings a simple and solid strategic lens to his work, and is deeply passionate about creativity and forging distinctive brands.