The Australian Centre for AI in Marketing (ACAM) has launched a national network of ACAM Accredited Advisors to help more marketing teams and business leaders build AI capability and move from experimentation to execution, with fractional executive community Maestro becoming the first strategic partner.
ACAM’s Accredited Advisors extends its reach across Australia by bringing together ACAM’s research, benchmarking, education programs and AI Results Transformation methodology with a growing cohort of experienced marketing practitioners, executives, consultants and specialists.
The launch comes as organisations increasingly move towards the more complex challenge of embedding AI across teams, workflows and operating models. ACAM’s Accredited Advisors provide them with access to specialists who can support capability building and transformation, while drawing on ACAM’s frameworks, research and methodologies.
Maestro, a curated community of fractional experts, interim executives, independent consultants and contractors, is the first strategic partner to join ACAM’s Accredited Advisors program. Vetted Maestro members will undertake accreditation and participate in the delivery and commercial expansion of ACAM programs and transformation services.
ACAM co-founder and CEO Louise Cummins said the network reflects the changing nature of both AI transformation and the workforce required to deliver it.
“Over the past year we’ve seen organisations move very quickly from asking what AI in marketing can do to asking how they actually make it work across their organisation,” Cummins said. “That requires much more than technology. Organisations need capability, leadership, change, operating model expertise and experienced people who can help turn AI opportunities into action.
“At the same time, there is an extraordinary pool of senior professionals moving into fractional, independent and portfolio careers. This partnership allows us to bring those two shifts together. Our courses and programs have always been designed by marketers, for marketers, and as we scale it was important to us to remain true to that. ACAM Accredited Advisors bring deep AI marketing capability across a broad range of disciplines, which means we now have the ability to work with many more marketing teams.”
The accreditation pathway requires selected practitioners to build familiarity with ACAM’s research, methodologies, education programs and approach to responsible AI adoption before becoming eligible to represent or deliver defined ACAM services.
Cummins added: “Our ambition isn’t to build a huge permanent consulting team, but build a strong core organisation around our intellectual property, research, data and customer relationships, supported by a highly credible collection of experienced advocates who can be brought into engagements when their expertise is needed.”
The Maestro partnership will initially support ACAM’s enterprise offering across AI capability building and transformation, including programs such as AI Advantage and AI-Ready, as well as ongoing strategic support and transformation reviews through ACAM’s AI Results Transformation methodology.
Maestro co-founder Annabel Acton said: “The future of work is increasingly about bringing the right expertise into an organisation at the right moment, rather than building every capability permanently in-house. Our partnership with ACAM is a great example of that model in action, combining ACAM’s AI and marketing expertise with the depth, flexibility and sector experience of the Maestro network.”
Four Maestro practitioners have already achieved ACAM accreditation, with an additional ten currently undergoing the program and other candidates to be identified in due course.
ACAM senior industry advisor Kathryn Illy, who is leading the Maestro accreditation program, said: “One of the things we are seeing is a significant group of highly experienced people between traditional roles who have enormous expertise, relationships and value to contribute. Rather than seeing that experience sitting on the sidelines, we want to create pathways for these Maestro professionals to build their AI capability and participate directly in the transformation taking place across industry.”
ACAM Accredited Advisors follows the recent launch of the Global Centre for AI in Marketing (GCAM), an international platform combining original research, benchmarking and evidence-led insight to help marketing leaders measure organisational AI maturity, with the United States becoming GCAM’s first international benchmark market through a partnership with The CMO Syndicate.
