If you’re like B&T and spend hours poring over the financial results of the largest companies in adland (alright, maybe minutes) and relaying that information to long-suffering family members, you’ll know just how important—and disruptive—technology and digital transformation is for the industry.
Leading this change are a coterie of experts from across the creative and media agencies, publishers and platforms. In many ways, one can chart the course of a business by the strength of its data offering.
But first, a couple of notes. Yesterday, Jayde Smith became Akcelo’s group director of technology following a nine-year stint with the DDB Group. It’s safe to say it’s early days for him in this role but it’s likely he’ll be in contention for next year’s list. News Corp’s Julian Delany would also have been on the list but he left Sydney for the bright lights of New York last month. Maurice Riley, Publicis’ chief data officer, featured on our Best of the Best Data Scientists list just the other week.
A note on the job titles here, too. Not everyone has a chief technology or chief product officer title, but we reckon the 10 below have largely analogous roles and remits in their sections. This list also is the successor to last year’s Best of the Best Technologists list.
We’re still taking nominations for upcoming Best of the Best lists too. Next week, we’re looking at the top social changemakers in adland that have changed the world beyond the industry. The week after, we’ll be getting our Trello boards and Gantt charts aligned with the best project managers.
NOMINATE NOW FOR B&T’s BEST OF THE BEST!
10. Anupam Wagle, chief technology officer, OMG
Anupam Wagle is the chief technology officer at Omnicom Media Group (OMG). He brings more than 20 years of experience in the marketing and technology industry, spending 12 years at OMG.
Wagle’s experience is crucial to the continued success of OMG’s agencies, including the country’s largest media agency, OMD. He oversees the design, architecture, and optimization of OMG’s technical solutions and marketing technology stacks and was described as a “vital” part of the team for more than a decade—we’re not surprised at all.
9. Joan Magno, group product manager and group lead – video, photo, social, Canva
Joan Magno (or Jo, to her friends) has been with Canva for some six-and-a-half years, joining the design darling as a product manager. Nowadays, however, she leads the work on Canva’s video, photo and social teams—critical at a time when the business is eyeing global expansion and, one day, domination.
Magno won the Product trophy at the Women Leading Tech Awards in 2024, a just recognition of her decade-long dedication and the success of the product teams she has led, helping to innovate in video, photo, and social media creation, making these tools more accessible through the use of AI and ML technologies.
8. Danica Bellchambers, head of AI product, Nine
Two months ago, Danica Bellchambers swapped her role Clemenger BBDO’s executive director of data science and analytics for a new, and extremely important role, as Nine’s head of AI product.
Bellchambers is no stranger to the pages of B&T, featuring on our Best of the Best Data Scientists list last year, winning the Tech category at B&T’s Women in Media Awards in 2024 and being shortlisted for the AI Pioneer category at the Women Leading Tech Awards this year.
During her time at CHEP and Clemenger, helped slash the number of hours it took staff to produce work for clients without a discernible drop in quality. She also created a data science internship in collaboration with UNSW which saw eight students receive real-world experience and created six revenue-generating products for CHEP. She also led a partnership with Melbourne University to create a Carbon Conscious Campaigns initiative for its Masters of Data Science degree. It’s early days but we reckon Nine has a real winner in Bellchambers.
7. James Wylie, regional chief information officer APAC, OAG
There’s been a massive recent shift in Omnicom’s creative operations with TBWA’s longstanding CEO Paul Bradbury departing and Nick Garrett coming in as overall CEO.
But in James Wylie, it has a deeply experienced and industry-leading technologist who can help smooth the technical side of the transition. He’s spent the last 15 years with the Clemenger Group, spending more than nine years as its chief information officer.
Since January, he’s led the Omnicom Advertising Group’s information operations across the entirety of Asia-Pacific, leading and harmonising the teams across BBDO, DDB and TBWA from Auckland.
6. Tim Matheson, chief technology officer, WPP
Tim Matheson has been WPP’s chief technology officer in Australia and New Zealand for just over five years. Prior to this, he spent three 12 years with DT and three with AKQA following its acquisition.
Over the years, Matheson has delivered complex digital solutions for major Australian brands, including Myer, Bunnings, Coles, Honda, Optus and Tourism Australia. In recent years, he has played a pivotal role in expanding AKQA across APAC through strategic mergers and acquisitions of specialist digital businesses. With WPP in a real time of transition, Matheson’s experience locally will be crucial keeping the tiller steady.
5. Lucio Ribeiro, chief AI and innovation officer, TBWA
There are few more well-known and well-liked people in the technical side of adland than Lucio Ribeiro. He has built three businesses, led innovation and technology for corporates including Optus, Seven West Media, and Nine, and consulted to global brands from Mercedes-Benz and BMW to Mondelez and Goldman Sachs. During his time with Optus, in particular, he helped to drive the adoption of 5G technologies and formed strategic partnerships with AWS, Nvidia and SpaceX.
Now he’s at TBWA as the agency’s inaugural chief AI and innovation officer, where he’s set on turning AI confusion and chaos into clarity. In his three months with TBWA, he’s hit the ground running, launching Rise, a new strategic service aimed at ensuring brands remain discoverable and recommended within AI-driven platforms—a major looming challenge that will affect every business. He also runs the InnovAItor series of events with Vijay Solanki.
4. Josh Lamont, , Head of Tech and Ecosystems, Accenture Song
Josh Lamont has been with Accenture in its various forms for more than a decade and has been in his current head of tech and ecosystem role for just over a year. In this role, he leads a team of 400 people across Accenture’s marketing, digital products, commerce,
sales and service functions across Australia and New Zealand.
His role spans entire customer capabilities and focuses on unifying purpose and experience to fuel growth for brands across Australia. Lamont’s work is bearing fruit, too, as Accenture Song has won NRMA, the Creative and Digital across Tourism Australia, Qantas, AGL and more, often in large part due to the strength of its technical capabilities. Now with its nascent media division up and running, Lamont’s role will become even more important to Accenture Song’s continued success.
Lamont was described to us by a very well placed source as “a bit of a fun”. We understand he’s being modest.
3. Kristin Perchal, director of product, Atlassian
Kristin Perchal is a true industry leader. She’s been with Atlassian for just less than three years, serving currently as the head of Jira core experiences and in Jira service management beforehand. She’s also previously served in senior product roles at Zip Co and Xero.
Now, however, she’s leading the largest team within Jira to improve the product with AI. She was also tapped to lead Atlassian’s the largest UX change in years guiding 61 teams from across 11 different geo-located product teams. She drove the business strategy to acquire AirTrack, addressing the top sales blocker for Atlassian’s IT product offering, Jira Service Management.
Her clarity of thought and calm leadership in trying moments led her to win the Product category at this year’s Women Leading Tech Awards. She was described to us as “a powerhouse, not only leading Product for Jira Transformation, but also spearheading the global navigation rollout across Atlassian”.
When so much of the world, let alone the advertising, marketing and media industries relies on Atlassian’s tools, we all owe a debt to Perchal’s work.
2. Ryan Menezes, chief media and solutions officer, WPP Media
Last year’s number one, Ryan Menezes has had his role adjusted within the WPP world following the sunsetting of GroupM and creation of WPP Media. He had been the CEO of GroupM Nexus but now he’s the chief media and solutions officer within WPP Media.
The business in Australia has been flying of late. While the transition to WPP Media in other parts of the world has been bumpy, the Australian business is an exemplar for the rest of the industry with strong integration and performance in new business. Its agencies EssenceMediacom and Mindshare, in particular, have been performing extremely well, scoring 8.5 and 9 out of 10 in B&T’s Agency Scorecards this year. Wavemaker’s Scorecard has yet to be revealed. All three have been performing well for new business, with Mindshare recently notching a large chunk of the surprisingly lucrative MG account.
Menezes’ tech smarts have been central to that growth. He has been vocal in the market about the future of digital ad targeting and why WPP’s federated learning model will become the only sensible and sustainable option for personalisation in the years to come. With Menezes in WPP Media’s corner, we wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right.
1. Hoang Nguyen, co-founder, Plus Also Studios & chief data & technology officer, Howatson+Company
Hoang Nguyen has been an important figure at Howatson+Company since its earliest days, joining in July 2021 after spending three years with what was then CHEP Network.
He joined as Howatson+Co’s chief data and technology officer and has spent his time making sure the agency’s creative and latterly media efforts perform above the market, helping set the agency on its course to become arguably the finest advertising agency in the country—after all, Howatson+Company is our reigning Advertising Agency of the Year.
However, it’s Nguyen’s work with Howatson+Company’s AI spinoff Plus Also Studios that has swept him to the top of this list. Thanks to his efforts in setting up the studio, Nguyen is officially listed as its co-founder. The agency told us as part of our Agency Scorecards project that Nguyen had “transformed” the business with AI innovation and became and lauded him as “vital” to clients and having played a major role in “growing revenue and delivering scalable, tailored solutions with measurable business impact”.
This work has led to Qantas, News Corp, Petbarn and Foxtel using Plus Also’s AI tools in their internal studios, delivering immediate cost efficiencies. The agency said Plus Also’s end-to-end capabilities as a managed service was “key” in winning major retail clients Endeavour Group and Myer.
In fact, Plus Also, now with sites in Clovelly and Cremorne, now has a larger new business pipeline than has ever been the case for the main Howatson+Company operation. That radical transformation and business success is why Nguyen is the Best of the Best.
