Tourism Australia (TA) has confirmed that its chief marketing officer, Lisa Ronson, will be leaving the organisation in March to join Coles Group.

Ronson will join Coles on 1 May as its CMO, bringing female representation amongst the group’s executive leadership team to almost 40 per cent.

Coles CEO Steven Cain said in a statement: “I am confident Lisa’s experience working across a number of sectors, businesses and geographies will be of immense benefit to our business and our objective to make life easier for our customers.”

Recognised within the industry as one of Australia’s top CMOs Ronson has led a number of award-winning TA marketing campaigns, including ‘Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns’ which, amongst many honours, received a coveted Titanium Lion award at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

TA managing director John O’Sullivan said Ronson had done an outstanding job in her four years leading the marketing team.

“Lisa has been a wonderful custodian of the Tourism Australia brand. In her time as CMO, she has brought a new level of customer centricity, commercial focus and creativity to our marketing,” he said.

“She is someone who believes passionately in the power of creative ideas and partnerships to deliver commercial results.

“That approach is certainly a big part of the legacy she leaves our organisation, and especially evident with recent creative campaigns such as ‘Aussie News Today’, ‘Dundee’ and ‘UnDiscover Australia’.

“We will not only miss Lisa’s marketing expertise, but also her enormous enthusiasm for the industry and passion for her colleagues. She’ll be sadly missed, but goes with our very best wishes and gratitude for a job extremely well done.”

Ronson said it had been an honour and a privilege to lead the TA marketing team and to help promote Australia to the world.

“I’m hugely grateful for my time at Tourism Australia. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on so many amazing projects, with talented and enthusiastic people and for such a great brand,” she said.

“I will miss it a great deal, especially the team and the industry, but feel that the time is right to move on and hand over the reins.”

Ronson has agreed to stay with TA until March 2019 to help manage the transition and bed in the organisation’s newly appointed global creative and digital agencies: M&C Saatchi, Digitas and ASAP+.