Dr Duane Varan is the CEO of MediaScience, a global pioneer in lab-based research integrating biometrics, facial coding, eye tracking, response latency testing and emerging measurement methods to understand the emotional dimensions of media encounters. The recipient of numerous awards including the Australian Prime Minister’s award for University Teacher of the Year, Dr. Varan has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed articles in leading academic journals and conducted in excess of 700 studies with the world’s leading television networks, advertising brands, and social media platforms.

Dr. Varan resides in Perth, Australia, and oversees lab operations across New York, Chicago and Austin.

Kate graduated from the University of Canberra with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, before beginning her career here in Sydney with M&C Saatchi, where she remained for ten years moving from production to account management, and finally as Marketing Director for the Asia Pacific business.

Since then, Kate has worked as the Head of Brand and Retail Marketing at Foxtel and the General Manager of Marketing, Financial Services for David Jones. In 2014, Kate joined Pernod Ricard Winemakers in Sydney, then moving to New York a few years later with Pernod Ricard USA as Global Head of Digital, also spending a year as head of the Absolut Vodka brand team. Kate moved back to Sydney in January 2020 for her current role with Marley Spoon.

Vanessa Lyons is the General Manager of ThinkNewsBrands. A three-time CMO Top 50 lister, she has held a range of senior marketing positions including General Manager, Marketing and Customer Experience at Wilson Parking, Group Head of Marketing, at insurance business AUB Group and stints at both Telstra and Philips.

Geraldine is an experienced marketing and product executive with experience across Australian and global markets. Her expertise has included leading the brand management, marketing communications (including advertising, promotions, sponsorship and public relations), market reserach, product marketing, distribution channel management, pricing and customer service across a number of industry sectors including digital and tech, auto, property and financial services.

Her role as director of marketing and product at Nissan is diverse and challenging, with prior roles that have included CMO and chief customer experience officer of iSelect, executive director of marketing, product and customer experience of General Motors Holden (GMH), GM brand and communications at Sensis (Telstra Digital Media) as well as roles across Westpac as associate director of marketing (in the institution bank), Accenture and Lendlease.

Geraldine also has a Bachelor of Business (with Honours) from Monash University and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, University of NSW.

She also has a wonderful husband, Paul, and three very 'busy’ children, Anneka, Oliver and Sacha.

Nadia is a respected and award-winning industry Journalist and Editor with 20 years’ experience and is the Publisher and Editor of CMO from IDG.

Throughout her career, she has maintained a focus on technology, business and marketing, working for titles such as CIO, Computerworld, PC World, Australian Reseller News (ARN), Exhibition News, Business Asia, and now CMO. Nadia rejoined IDG Australia in 2013 to create CMO, a dedicated title for the modern marketing chief. In 2015, CMO launched the CMO50 program, now recognised as the country’s premiere list for modern marketing excellence, supported by a highly prestigious annual event.