Ben started as a creative with Australia’s leading local and global agencies before launching his own independent SMART. In 2011, SMART was acquired by IPG seeing Ben named McCann CEO. McCann Australia was soon the world’s most awarded agency and Australia’s most effective, achieving global acclaim for campaigns including “Dumb Ways to Die”, the most awarded in advertising history. In 2016, Ben was named McCann Worldgroup Asia Pacific Creative Leadership Chair, overseeing creative excellence and setting new McCann creative and effectiveness records across the APAC region. In 2020 Ben launched HERO as a new independent, integrating creative, media and technology through Borderless Creativity.

A financial and business management professional, Zain’s qualifications and memberships span The Institute of Chartered Accountants, Certified Practicing Accountants, Institute of Internal Auditors and being a fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia.

He maintains full oversight of our finance and commercial support services. Having led multidisciplinary teams for over 12 years in two creatively recognised advertising agencies, Zain is a passionate and highly effective leader, driven by his core focus on people, process and technology.

Possessing a unique background split between Creative and Media Agencies in the U.K., Asia and Australia, James is one of Australia’s most experienced agency changemakers. His leadership roles have spanned some of the world’s most progressive integrated agencies.

Launching his career in London with creative powerhouses Lowe Howard-Spink and BBH, Greet’s first regional leadership role was with Saatchi’s China before settling in Australia. As CEO at OMD, he led and revived the agency to be crowned the first Media Agency to win B&T and AdNews Media Agency in the same year, eventually becoming Media Agency of the Decade. Then as a regional CEO of Mindshare (across ANZ, Japan and Korea), he saw the agency double its size in Australia and be named Mindshare Worldwide’s country of the year.

Now after nearly two decades in Australia, James has built a reputation described by Mumbrella as “one of the most respected and experienced operators in the media space, having run some of the biggest media agencies around. Not many others have had as much impact over the years.”

With deep experience as both a client-side CMO and agency CEO, Erin’s passion is applying her real-world knowledge and proven methodologies to help businesses create sustainable growth in revenues, profits and brand value. A specialist in the area of decision-support, Erin brings a wide variety of decision-making tools to help brands make better strategic planning decisions. Formerly CEO of Victorian Tourism and Events Industry Council Marketing as well as GM for Melbourne Aquarium and Underwater World Sunshine Coast and as a current Executive Board Member of Cultural Attractions of Australia, Erin boasts extensive tourism, leisure, event and destination marketing and visitor experience modelling expertise.

A global creative professional, Ben’s career has spanned roles in North America, UK, Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Australia. Ranking among Australia’s most awarded creative leaders of the past decade, Ben has been recognised as one of the top five ECDs in the world at the Cannes Lions and in the Top 10 CCOs in the world on The Won Report.

Ben was most recently CCO at Clemenger BBDO Sydney, which enjoyed its most successful period in history for both creativity and effectiveness during his time there. Before that, he spent six years as regional CCO for Y&R Australia and New Zealand, seeing the agency named the most awarded ANZ network at Cannes and Spikes for three years running.

A passionate advocate for creative effectiveness, Ben believes in logical magic – meaning that brilliant and effective ideas come from deploying both sides of the brain. Although which side goes first is still a mystery.

Creativity can do remarkable things.

It’s taken Shane from Johannesburg to Cape Town, then Sydney and now Melbourne.

Along the way it’s allowed him to work at some of the world’s best agencies, making the kind of work his always wanted to make, with the kind of people his always wanted to work with.

It’s helped Shane gain industry recognition at award shows like D&AD, The One Show and Cannes, where his work has been awarded Gold Lions in Mobile and Design and at Spikes Asia, with multiple Grand Prix.

It’s strengthened the brands which he has had the opportunity to work on such as Volkswagen, Myer, the Sydney Opera House, BMW, Monash University, McDonald’s and the Australian Defence Force to name a few.

Souad believes that humanity should be at the heart of every interaction, whether it be brand and customer, business and employee, or client and agency. As a strategic consultant to executives at world-leading organisations, Souad helps to plan and deliver regional and global marketing initiatives at scale. She has lived and worked in the UK, Singapore and Australia and has worked with some of the world’s leading technology companies, including Meta (formerly Facebook), Google and Telstra.

Souad believes in business as a force for good and her experience also includes cause-related and community marketing. She is a passionate DEI advocate and is on the Steering Committee for Rare with Google’s Leadership Accelerator for underrepresented talent. She has lead pro bono programs, spearheaded an internal mental health awareness initiative and is a passionate mentor and trained coach.

Tim is an entrepreneurial strategist who is passionate about using marketing technology to drive growth. After beginning his career at MySpace, he went on to work for Clemenger BBDO, Ogilvy and DT/AQKA prior to founding his own agency B.B.E. This agency was focused on strategy-first, technology agnostic solutions for brands and start-ups who wanted higher performance from their marketing programs.

After 6 years of growth, B.B.E was acquired by the HERO group and Tim joined the HERO team as Managing Director of our Melbourne operation.

Nat is a dynamic marketer with a unique skillset of both client and agency experience spanning over 20 years.

She has a deep understanding of the consumer and brings an evidence based approach to marketing which has been honed during her time at the world renowned Ehrenberg Bass Institute for Marketing Science. This has been a touchstone throughout her career, and one that she has used this experience for the benefit of PepsiCo and other brands including McDonald’s and easyJet.

Ella’s the Executive Producer at HERO leading all thing digital production – CX, marketing and anything in-between. Previously, Ella worked in production and account management roles at global agencies including Clemenger BBDO, Ogilvy and R/GA, on clients including National Australia Bank, Westpac, Mars, CUB, BMW/MINI and Toyota.

Ella loves working at the intersection of strategy, creative and technology, creating meaningful, boundary-pushing work that ladders up to organisational goals.

Kate is a unique individual with expertise in the use of analytics and performance measurement in creative businesses. A strong believer in balancing long term and short term goals Kate is also actively involved in academic research to improve accountability of advertising and demonstrate the value of creativity.

With over 20 years’ experience in marketing research, media and analytics Kate has worked for a diverse range of agencies and clients, including as General Manager of Annalect where she was responsible reporting, analytics, planning tools and training programmes on data driven decision making.

With over 20 years’ experience in marketing, branding, and communications in Australia and Europe, Dominic cut his teeth at leading agencies such as Clemenger BBDO in Australia and McCann-Erickson London.

He established his business development prowess early, with an impressive new business record in roles for Landor – winning major clients such News Limited, Carlton United Breweries, and General Mills– and later at Blue Marlin, where as General Manager and then Managing Director, his clients included GlaxoSmithKline, Reckitt Benckiser, Schweppes, and Unilever. Dominic was also Managing Partner at Interbrand in Australia, where he worked with George Weston Foods, McDonald’s, and on the re-branding of Telstra.

Across his career, Dominic has kept a desire to innovate – and to find new ways to do so, at the heart of what he does. Returning to Landor in 2011, he helped the business double in size, and ushered in a new Major Innovations capability, before moving to Cowan as CEO and Head of Global Growth where he worked extensively across APAC, re-positioning the business as an Innovations and Communications Consultancy and reinvigorating the client base.