This is Mediaweek’s Growth 20 list for 2025, celebrating the leaders, brands and businesses driving exceptional momentum across Australia’s media, marketing and creative industries.
The Growth 20 recognises those achieving standout commercial, audience or creative expansion, the people and organisations turning strategic vision into measurable success.
These leaders have navigated rapid change with agility and ambition, proving that sustainable growth is fuelled by innovation, clarity of purpose and a deep understanding of audience needs.
As part of the annual Mediaweek 100, the Growth 20 shines a spotlight on those redefining what progress looks like in a dynamic media economy, building not just bigger businesses, but stronger, more future-focused ones.
Nicholas Gray
Managing Director & Publisher, The Australian & Prestige; Managing Director, Tech Platform Partnerships, News Corp Australia
Nicholas Gray sits at the intersection of editorial strength and platform innovation, shaping how prestige news brands evolve in an age of subscriptions, global partnerships and audience expectation.
Since establishing his new leadership team in mid-2024 for The Australian & Prestige Titles, Gray has driven a sharpened focus on audience engagement, digital storytelling and subscription growth.
He led appointments of senior executives in commercial, marketing, digital development and data, enhancing the division’s capability to deliver content that resonates and converts.
Under Gray, The Australian has expanded its global collaboration with the Wall Street Journal and The Times, bolstering its editorial pedigree and access to international content and audiences.
He has also overseen the rollout of a visual and brand refresh: design enhancements across print and digital that align brand identity, and the launch of new sections like Health & Wellbeing with digital-first leanings.
Gray’s leadership is helping define what premium publishing looks like in 2025. Combining high-quality digital storytelling, design and technology with rigorous commercial discipline.
He’s proving that prestige titles can expand audience reach and relevance, not just domestically, but on the international stage, while retaining core editorial identity.
Antony Catalano
Executive Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Australian Community Media
Antony Catalano is driving one of the more audacious regional media transformations in Australia, pushing Australian Community Media (ACM) beyond its print legacy into a diversified, data-driven publishing and marketplace engine.
Under his leadership, ACM has doubled down on digital subscriptions across its regional mastheads and agricultural titles.
With its digital subscription model expanding, ACM is implementing a series of native apps combining agriculture reporting, weather and economy tools driving stronger engagement among rural audiences.
Its ACM Precision platform now supports more than 1 million unique enriched audience profiles, enabling advertisers to target regional audiences with greater precision.
Catalano also continues to push for structural scale via acquisitions and alliances.
Catalano has maintained a strong anchor in community journalism, ensuring ACM’s 160 mastheads remain rooted in local identity even as they evolve. His ability to blend entrepreneurial energy with regional fidelity is redefining what sustainability looks like for non-metro media.
In 2025, his leadership is being watched closely, not just for ACM’s own trajectory, but for how regional media might reclaim influence, revenue and relevance in Australia’s broader media ecosystem.
Max Eburne & David Watkins
Co-chief Executive Officers, JCDecaux ANZ
In a media climate that demands agility, measurement and scale, Max Eburne and David Watkins are repositioning JCDecaux ANZ as a modern, programmatic-first out-of-home powerhouse. Rather than relying on legacy inventory, they’re building forward.
Over the past 12 months, their leadership has seen JCDecaux expand its inventory across transport, retail, airport and street furniture networks.
They’ve also advanced the rollout of programmatic trading through the VIOOH SSP, JCDecaux’s digital-out-of-home trading engine, making Australia one of the more mature DOOH markets in the region. The platform now supports multi-context targeting (day-part, audience, location) and dynamic creative activation to match situational frames.
Their co-leadership model balances commercial drive and operational rigour. They’ve reinvigorated agency relationships, emphasised creative integration into OOH briefs, and introduced sustainability measures (including low-energy LED assets and carbon footprint disclosures) across new site rollouts.
In 2025, JCDecaux’s “Precinct Takeover” with ANZ at Melbourne Park delivered one of the most ambitious tram shelter activations seen in Australia.
Under Eburne and Watkins, JCDecaux is shifting how OOH is perceived, less as static reach inventory, more as dynamic, measured media that integrates with digital ecosystems.
Their execution is pushing the industry toward greater accountability, blending large-format scale with ad tech precision, and setting a benchmark for what growth in outdoor can look like in 2025 and beyond.
Tony Prentice
Director, Client Partnerships & Sales, Cartology
In a media landscape increasingly defined by data, proximity and performance, Tony Prentice is helping redefine what effective media looks like.
As Director of Client Partnerships & Sales at Cartology, the retail-media arm of Woolworths Group, he’s positioning retail media as one of the most powerful growth engines in Australian advertising.
In 2025, Prentice has helped steer Cartology’s expansion into more aggressive omnichannel retail media tactics.
One major initiative has been extending the retail video network: in February, Cartology announced plans to deploy 4,000 weigh-scale screens in deli/seafood counters and over 10,000 assisted checkout screens across Woolworths stores, adding to an already substantial in-store screen footprint.
These assets strengthen the “last mile” visibility for brands right at point of purchase, deepening how Cartology connects first-party shopper insight with media exposure.
Under his leadership in client strategy, the company has also upgraded measurement sophistication and attribution models, aiming to show advertisers how in-store exposure and digital touchpoints converge to drive outcomes.
These moves reflect a broader performance orientation under Prentice: aligning commercial operations with data, client needs, and retail context.
Prentice’s influence is shaping how Cartology transitions from a retail media enabler to a true media publisher: combining in-store infrastructure with digital assets, enhancing client performance measurement, and expanding advertiser trust in retail media’s role in the total media mix.
Georgie Nichols
Chief Revenue Officer, Mamamia
Since joining Mamamia in 2024, Georgie Nichols has transformed Australia’s largest independent women’s media brand into one of the most commercially dynamic publishers in the market.
As Chief Revenue Officer, she has marked one of Mamamia’s strongest periods of performance in its history.
Nichols has re-engineered Mamamia’s client model, shifting advertisers from one-off campaigns to long-term, ecosystem partnerships across audio, video, digital and social.
She has also diversified revenue through video and vodcast commercialisation, expanding both inventory and audience reach.
Her inclusive, partnership-first leadership has energised teams and deepened client confidence, turning Mamamia into a scaled, multi-platform partner capable of competing with the largest networks.
In a market dominated by conglomerates, Nichols is proving that independents can deliver measurable growth through innovation, collaboration, and culture.
Sasha Mackie
Senior Director Marketing – Streaming, Studios & Networks AU/NZ,Warner Bros. Discovery
Sasha Mackie has been instrumental in Warner Bros. Discovery re-entry into the Australian streaming market, positioning HBO Max as a premium, bold entrant in a crowded field.
She masterminded the “All Killer. No Filler.” campaign ahead of HBO Max’s launch, using Australian humour, cultural insight and direct messaging to cut through industry noise.
Under her leadership, the campaign rolled out across TV, digital, social, OOH and experiential formats, reinforcing the brand promise across screens.
Working collaboratively with EssenceMediacom and Special, the HBO Max launch described the launch as “textbook”.
Mackie’s approach balances creativity and execution discipline. She has emphasised that transparency, measurement and audience-first culture are non-negotiable, not just brand frills.
Her work ties campaign metrics directly to acquisition, engagement and retention targets, rather than relying solely on brand lift.
In the context of 2025 media translated global ambition into local resonance, underscoring the importance of how marketing excellence.
Chris Jones
Director of Network Sport, Seven West Media
Chris Jones is redefining Seven’s sports strategy, consolidating leadership and innovation under a single vision as sport becomes central to the network’s content and platform ambitions.
Appointed Director of Network Sport in mid-2024, Jones moved up from Executive Producer of Seven’s cricket coverage, bringing over two decades of experience across major events such as the Olympics, AFL, the US Masters and Australian Open.
In his current role he now oversees all of Seven’s sport strategy, with a realigned team structure, including newly promoted heads of AFL & Sport Innovation; Horse Racing; Cricket; and Digital Sport.
Since his promotion, Jones has begun refreshing Seven’s sport coverage. He has recruited high-profile production and on-air talent, reworked program formats to sharpen storytelling and audience engagement, and emphasised coverage across both free-to-air and digital platforms.
The sport division has also kicked up its investment in digital sport operations, signalling an increased focus on streaming and on-demand sports content.
“Sport is part of Seven’s DNA and a key reason why we are the most-watched television and digital network,” Jones said when the restructure was announced, noting that Seven intends to bring “the best local and international sport to all Australians for free.”
Jones’ influence is steering Seven toward a model where sport isn’t just marquee events on TV nights, but a continuously evolving, cross-platform experience that anchors audience loyalty, drives digital growth and maintains cultural relevance.
Nikki Rooke
Director of Sales – Total Television, Nine Entertainment Co.
Nikki Rooke is driving the commercial meld between free-to-air and digital video at Nine, standing at the frontline of the “Total Television” model that blends broadcast, streaming and analytics into one advertiser-centric offering.
Promoted in May 2024 to Director of Sales – Total Television, Rooke leads Nine’s national sales teams covering Metro TV, Regional TV and BVOD.
Over the past year, Rooke has overseen the rollout of unified pricing, reporting and tools that link television campaigns more tightly to digital accountability. She has pushed to embed 9Now into linear buying conversations, giving agencies a more seamless path to buy across TV and BVOD under one umbrella.
In stepping into this role, Rooke emphasised continuity and opportunity. “I can’t wait to work with all our advertisers who understand and embrace the power of television and the sustainable, profitable returns it delivers,” she said.
Rooke’s leadership strengthens Nine’s capability to compete in a fragmented media market. By aligning sales, product and tech toward total-video strategies, she’s turning broadcast heritage into future-proof commercial scale helping advertisers see value not just in reach but in performance across all platforms.
Nev Hasan
Chief Sales Officer, Foxtel Media
Nev Hasan has played a pivotal role in steering Foxtel Media toward a truly unified, data-centric video sales model, one where linear, streaming and BVOD converge under an impression-based paradigm.
Under Hasan’s direction, Foxtel Media also forged partnerships with CommBank iQ and Adgile, layering payment-insight data and independent verification onto its video inventory. The aim is to help advertisers connect exposure to real business outcomes.
Hasan’s work is reshaping the sales architecture beneath Foxtel Media and moving toward a single trading currency, tighter alignment across Foxtel, Kayo and Binge and more flexible, audience-based client tools.
He is establishing a commercial foundation that allows Foxtel to compete in 2025 not merely as a broadcaster, but as a streaming-aware ad platform where legacy and digital inventories are managed under a unifying logic.
Rod Prosser
Chief Sales Officer, Paramount ANZ
Rod Prosser is leading the commercial transformation of Paramount’s media portfolio in Australia, positioning the business to capture the complexity of today’s audience landscape.
In January 2025, Paramount rolled out its Paramount Connect platform, a converged advertising technology stack that brings together Network 10 (linear), 10 Play/BVOD, Paramount+, and FAST channels into a single trading ecosystem.
Under Prosser’s leadership, the sales strategy is oriented around audience and outcome rather than channel silos.
As Paramount aligns its platforms and revenue engines under one commercial framework, Prosser’s role is pivotal.
His leadership is helping shape how a major global media brand competes locally, capitalising on unified ad tech, data insight and brand strength to drive sustainable growth in 2025 and beyond.
Mark Fairhurst
Chief Revenue Officer, oOh!media
Mark Fairhurst stepped into the acting Chief Revenue Officer role at oOh!media in late 2024 before permanently taking on the role in March 2025, bringing deep out-of-home experience into an organisation actively scaling its programmatic and retail-media ambitions
Over the past year, Fairhurst has been at the forefront of oOh!’s push to modernise its revenue model.
During oOh!’s national leadership tour, he and CEO Cathy O’Connor unveiled a new commercial framework aimed at giving clients modular, data-informed access to inventory.
Fairhurst’s influence is evident in how oOh!media is evolving from a reach-based network into a performance-driven, digitally enabled media business.
By combining data partnerships, programmatic sophistication and retail-media integration, he is helping reshape how advertisers plan and measure out-of-home.
His commercial leadership reflects a clear shift within the company, toward accountability, innovation and client simplicity, positioning oOh!media to compete confidently in a market where digital precision now defines success.
Alex Spurzem
Managing Director, Australia & New Zealand, Samsung Ads
Alex Spurzem is steering Samsung Ads toward full momentum in the ANZ region, capitalising on connected-TV growth, first-party signals and measurement sophistication to reshape how video advertising works.
Over the past year, Samsung Ads has seen remarkable expansion. Streaming now drives approximately 71% of all viewing time on Samsung Smart TVs in Australia, up markedly from a 50/50 split just half a decade ago.
Spurzem observes this as a structural shift: “A third of new Samsung TVs aren’t even being connected to an antenna,” he told Mediaweek.
Under his leadership, Samsung Ads has grown its advertiser base more than two-fold by pushing advanced CTV data activation and measurement solutions.
The business has leaned heavily on automated content recognition (ACR) to link genre, viewing behaviour and ad exposure, enabling audience targeting and campaign optimisation across Samsung’s Smart TV ecosystem.
Samsung now supports more than 100 FAST channels globally, and in ANZ, Spurzem claims the native Samsung TV Plus audience is pushing toward one million active users, enabling advertisers to reach audiences unreachable via linear.
Spurzem leads Samsung Ads’ growth in ANZ, and he’s pushing media buyers to recalibrate how they define television.
Not by channel, but by addressable, data-enabled audiences. His work contributes strongly to how CTV, streaming and platform-native advertising will be measured and monetised moving forward.
Tim Murphy
Chief Sales Officer, QMS Media
Tim Murphy is leading QMS’s charge as the digital out-of-home (DOOH) market intensifies, combining aggressive network expansion, programmatic sophistication, and data-driven measurement to build momentum across Australia.
Since joining QMS in early 2024, Murphy has overseen several high-profile tender wins that bolstered QMS’s premium footprint.
In 2025, the company secured nine sought-after Transport for NSW digital billboard assets, boosting its Sydney reach. “QMS is now the home of Sydney’s most prestigious digital out-of-home assets, in the most sought-after locations,” he said when the deal was announced.
He has also described the new QMS takeover of the Auckland Transport account as “a true game-changer that re-shapes the way OOH will be planned and bought in New Zealand.”
Murphy has pushed deep into programmatic DOOH and integrated tender strategy. He has prioritised linking exposure to outcomes, introducing measurement frameworks and metrics that help advertisers understand real campaign lift.
Under his leadership, QMS has also leveraged major events like the Paris Olympics via its digital screen network, offering live updates and dynamic ad formats that caught advertiser interest and drove incremental revenue.
Murphy’s influence is helping reframe how outdoor media is bought and valued in 2025.
Nick Young
Digital Commercial Director, Nine Entertainment Co.
In 2025, Young has expanded Nine’s digital advertising capabilities across its streaming platforms while strengthening the premium content portfolio through Nine’s exclusive sales representation of HBO Max in Australia.
He also articulated Nine’s strategy of linking audience delivery to business outcomes, rather than simply selling airtime.
Young’s influential approach is in how he brings technology and commercial rigour together, by converting audiences into advertiser value.
By building a unified, data-rich sales engine, he helps Nine push further into the digital future while providing clients clearer paths from campaign to ROI.
Ben Kimber
Director, Stan Sport / Nine Entertainment Co.
Ben Kimber has led Stan through a year of record-breaking success achieving all-time highs in subscribers, viewership and financial performance.
Under his leadership, Stan has launched marquee events including the Premier League on Stan Sport, major Pay-Per-View boxing moments, extensive Rugby coverage, and premium Grand Slam Tennis, driving huge audience engagement.
Supported by the wider Nine Entertainment network, Stan has delivered standout awareness and results while simultaneously building for the future, introducing new billing structures, content delivery pathways, product functionality and ad-serving capability.
With earnings up 31% and revenue up 10%, Kimber’s tenure continues to prove that a strong culture and strong results go hand in hand.
By combining world-class production, platform reliability and data-driven marketing, Kimber is setting a commercial template for sports streaming in Australia.
His work helps position Stan Sport not only as a premier destination for live sport, but as a proactive contributor to wider strategy across content, subscribers and ad revenue in the evolving Nine ecosystem.
Julian Ogrin
Chief Business Officer, Foxtel Group
Julian Ogrin now sits at the centre of Foxtel Group’s commercial re-engineering, tasked with aligning product, pricing, distribution and revenue across Foxtel, Kayo and Binge to create a unified and value-oriented streaming ecosystem.
Previously overseeing streaming and advertising, Ogrin was appointed to the newly created Chief Business Officer role in 2025 as part of Foxtel’s executive restructure under DAZN’s ownership.
His remit is explicitly to bring coherence to the Group’s products and monetisation levers and “aligning Foxtel’s platforms and products within the DAZN Group,” Foxtel Group CEO Patrick Delany said when announcing the shift.
Ogrin’s background in streaming gives him both technical and commercial credibility.
In his new role, his teams are working to simplify subscription tiers, optimise bundling, calibrate pricing elasticity and strengthen cross-platform customer lifetime value.
Part of his mandate also involves collaborating closely with DAZN’s global product and distribution unit to bring scalable learnings from Australia to the parent group.
Ogrin’s influence in 2025 lies in translating strategic ambition into operational discipline. His ability to bind data, pricing, product and platform under one commercial logic is key to whether Foxtel can outpace competitor streaming bundles, deepen ARPU, and deliver scalable returns as a newly globalised, performance-driven media group.
Pippa Leary
Managing Director & Publisher, Free News & Lifestyle, News Corp Australia
Pippa Leary is leading News Corp’s free news and lifestyle portfolio through a critical rethinking of how engagement and scale translate into value, for both audiences and advertisers.
Over the past year, she has overseen the Free News & Lifestyle division’s continued rise to prominence.
The division, which includes news.com.au, Escape, Taste.com.au and Body+Soul, reaches over 17 million online Australians and moves beyond raw reach.
Under her leadership, News Corp’s video audience in the news category has also grown more than 20 per cent over two months, while the lifestyle video audience now accounts for over 60 per cent of the total in that segment.
Leary’s work is helping recast what free news publishing can be in 2025. One that prizes meaningful engagement across screens, disciplined measurement, and high-quality content.
In doing so, she’s not only boosting the commercial strength of News Corp’s Free News & Lifestyle division but helping set new standards for how online publishing can thrive in a crowded, attention-driven media landscape.
Gereurd Roberts
Group Managing Director, Seven Digital
Gereurd Roberts is spearheading Seven’s digital turnaround, turning 7plus into the network’s principal growth engine through product, data, streaming and commercial innovation.
Roberts has sweeping responsibility for digital marketing, audience intelligence and data, product & technology, content strategy and scheduling, platform partnerships, and digital sales.
Under his guidance, 7plus has delivered strong year-on-year audience gains, seeing strong growth in the second half of the year, and a 26 per cent increase in revenue for the full year and an even sharper 41 per cent rise in the second half.
Key digital engagement metrics also surged, including a 27 per cent increase in daily active users and a 41 per cent rise in streaming minutes over FY25.
Seven started streaming the AFL on 7plus this year under a new deal.
He is a key architect of the “7plus-first” strategy, which gives new overseas content priority on the streaming platform before broadcast, helping drive discoverability and retention.
Roberts has also aggressively expanded FAST channels: 7plus now hosts over 50 free, ad-supported streaming TV channels, with FAST viewership up 56% year-on-year and minutes per viewer up 41%.
Roberts’ influence is reshaping what a modern broadcaster looks like through execution across product, data, commercial strategy and content in one role.
He is seen as a driving force in Seven’s future where digital scale and monetisation define success.
Hilary Perchard
Chief Executive Officer, Foxtel, Kayo & Binge
Hilary Perchard is leading the Foxtel Group’s streaming era, uniting Foxtel, Kayo and Binge under a strategically coherent structure to drive subscriber growth and commercial synergy.
Appointed CEO in 2025 following DAZN’s acquisition of the Foxtel Group, Perchard now oversees all entertainment and sport streaming services, bringing together product, technology, marketing and customer experience teams to operate as one ecosystem.
His mandate is clarity and cohesion and Perchard has implemented a tighter organisational model, integrating production, engineering and content functions to increase efficiency and focus investment on areas of growth.
Under his leadership, Binge has continued to expand its premium offering, recently announcing an exclusive multi-year partnership with Sony Pictures Television to become the Australian home of British drama.
Kayo remains central to Foxtel’s sports dominance, supported by innovations in dynamic ad insertion and fan personalisation, while Foxtel itself continues to serve as a high-value hybrid platform for bundled households.
Perchard’s commercial discipline and product expertise are defining the next phase of Foxtel’s evolution under DAZN ownership.
By aligning three powerful streaming brands into one cohesive strategy, he is positioning the group to compete globally from an Australian base proving that smart integration, not sheer scale, is what drives sustainable streaming success in 2025.
Matt James
Chief Sales Officer, Nine Entertainment Co.
Matt James is rebuilding Nine’s commercial architecture for a multi-platform future, driving integration across television, publishing and audio under one unified sales strategy.
In April 2025, James was formally appointed Chief Sales Officer. In this capacity he now leads revenue across Total Television, Total Publishing and Total Audio at Nine.
James’s remit is ambitious and his influence is far-reaching within the company and the wider media industry.
He is executing a Total-TV proposition that merges linear broadcast inventory with 9Now and streaming video under a single trading framework.
His early public comments emphasise repositioning Nine for “digital video market leadership” through deeper client collaboration, data-driven measurement, and streamlined accountability across revenue sources.
“We have spent the last several months re-arming and re-organising ourselves to be able to execute an advanced digital strategy across TV, Publishing and Audio, and Nine is well-placed for a strong future,” he said on his appointment.
He has reorganised the sales structure to reduce silos and promote cross-platform planning, elevated performance metrics that connect audience delivery to business outcomes, and re-energised Nine’s digital sales teams as business and opportunities grow.