Revealing the CMO50 list for 2017

We present the 50 most innovative and effective CMOs in Australia

Gambling, broadcasting and aviation have taken top three honours in this year’s third-annual CMO50 list.

The CMO50 annual list is aimed at recognising Australia’s 50 most innovative Chief Marketing Officers driving business impact within their organisation. This year’s program is brought to readers by our exclusive sponsor, Adobe.

Now in its third year, this annual list recognises those leading the marketing function who are demonstrating innovative, strategic thinking, driving business change and commercial success, showcasing modern marketing leadership, and enabling greater collaboration and better customer engagement as a result.

This year’s top spot was secured by Sportsbet chief commercial officer, Barni Evans, making his third appearance in the list managing a team of 185 staff. Evans highlighted three trends that have transformed marketing over the past three years: Personalisation, automation and social.

“On the personalisation side, we have a vision of creating a unique experience for every customer,” he told CMO, adding that as a pure-play online business, Sportsbet has the ability to tap into more than 260 million digital transactions per year. “We know who they are, and therefore what they like. If we’re smart, we should be able to provide them with what they’re interested in.”

Initiatives helping his team include elevating the analytics team to report to the CEO and introducing a specific personalisation team; investing in technology infrastructure to help automate tailored interactions; putting Sportsbet’s trading functions at the centre of the organisational workflow and harnessing social, Evans said.

Second on this year’s CMO50 list is ABC director of audiences, Leisa Bacon, who recently gained responsibility for the broadcaster’s wider audiences team consisting of service design and user experience, local and international audience strategy and digital prioritisation. Among her achievements are turning the ABC’s ‘War on Waste’ program into a socially impactful movement that has changed consumer attitudes.

In third position this year is Qantas CMO, Stephanie Tully, one of many in the CMO50 to have gravitated to marketing from a non-marketing professional background. With the increased commercial and data-driven bent, as well as growing remit of marketers today, Tully suggested “marketing is more exciting for it”.

The full list of CMO50 for 2017 is now available online: View the full profiles of all of our CMO here.

Across the top 10, marketing chiefs represented a range of industry sectors, from education to insurance, financial services, IT, entertainment and retail. Across the wider 50, there was also a mix of industry as well as size of marketing function, with the majority of entrants managing teams of 50 to 100 staff (29 per cent).

A significant takeaway from this year’s list was just how wide the marketer’s sphere of influence is becoming. Growing responsibility could be seen across digital product and strategy, customer experience, sales and innovation, and nominees this year painted marketers as collaborations, from customer service to HR, IT, sales, finance, digital, innovation and even legal.

Overall, the 2017 CMO50 received a record amount of entries, and 28 of those listed in the 2017 CMO50 are new entrants. Notably, 74 per cent report directly to the CEO, up from 56 per cent across our 2016 list. This year’s CMO50 list was defined by a 12-strong judging panel, details of which can be found here.

To celebrate, more than 80 of the cream of Australia’s leadership crop attended a gala CMO50 dinner in Sydney on 19 October to recognise the achievements of their peers as well as hear from this year’s top 10 marketing leaders.

First pictures from our CMO50 event are now up online.

And check out our who's who slideshow too

You can find the full list, along with detailed profiles of this year’s most innovative and effective CMOs, in our dedicated CMO50 portal.

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+:google.com/+CmoAu

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.
Show Comments

Latest Videos

More Videos

More Brand Posts

What are Chris Riddell's qualifications to talk about technology? What are the awards that Chris Riddell has won? I cannot seem to find ...

Tareq

Digital disruption isn’t disruption anymore: Why it’s time to refocus your business

Read more

Enterprisetalk

Mark

CMO's top 10 martech stories for the week - 9 June

Read more

Great e-commerce article!

Vadim Frost

CMO’s State of CX Leadership 2022 report finds the CX striving to align to business outcomes

Read more

Are you searching something related to Lottery and Lottery App then Agnito Technologies can be a help for you Agnito comes out as a true ...

jackson13

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Thorough testing and quality assurance are required for a bug-free Lottery Platform. I'm looking forward to dependability.

Ella Hall

The Lottery Office CEO details journey into next-gen cross-channel campaign orchestration

Read more

Blog Posts

Marketing prowess versus the enigma of the metaverse

Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.

Liz Miller

VP, Constellation Research

Why Excellent Leadership Begins with Vertical Growth

Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?

Michael Bunting

Author, leadership expert

More than money talks in sports sponsorship

As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.

Simone Waugh

Managing Director, Publicis Queensland

Sign in