Picking out the leading commercial directors is a thankless task given the vast array of outstanding sales talent there is in Australia. Nonetheless, the B&T team has come up with a list with some of the sharpest negotiators, networks and industry leaders going around.
In creating this list, B&T has avoided CEOs, MDs and country manager roles in which sales may be a large part of the remit, but is not the sole focus.
Instead, this list reflects commercial chiefs whose primary responsibility is ringing the sales room bell when large deals are signed off.
There are a few notable omissions. Again, B&T has not included a representative from Seven West Media, one of Australia’s largest media companies. The simple reason is that during the adjudicating period, Henry Tajer was hired as sales chief and recently left, leaving Katie Finney (TV) and Jordan King (digital) to serve as caretaker sales leaders.
There are also a couple of recent sales leadership hires, such as ARN’s Richard Hunwick, who will more likely feature in subsequent years.
Remember, there’s time to nominate for the upcoming categories, with Media Agency Investment Chiefs, next. If you know anyone great who doesn’t get enough airtime—let us know!
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Now it is time to pay tribute to Australia’s leading media commercial chiefs.
10. Tim Murphy, chief sales officer, QMS
Murphy joined QMS from rival oOh!Media in early 2024 at a pivotal time for the company. The digital outdoor specialist has been busy expanding its digital large format network across Sydney, including by taking over contracts with Transport for NSW and City of Sydney.
QMS claims it grown its audience reach by more than 40 per cent in recent years, providing Murphy and his team with truly national coverage to sell. He has coined this a “share-shifting moment”.
This was on display in the QMS’ commercially successful Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games contract, where the network helped advertisers including Allianz, Toyota Australia, Woolworths, Stan, Patties Food Group and Bupa reach 11.5 million Australians, not catapulting QMS as a serious national player in the sector but showcasing the power of out of home during high impact global events.
9. Vanessa Jones, head of auto, travel, QSR & services, Pinterest
Jones leads the sales efforts for a platform that has discovery, ambition and trendsetting at its very core. She joined the Pinterest team around four years ago and is its most senior sales person, working closely with the brands and agencies in the auto, travel, QSR & services sectors.
Her job is to help them engage with trendsetters and passionate users on one of friendliest platforms on the internet. Australia is one of the leading markets in Pinterest’s Rest of World geography, which grew revenues by 65 per cent in its most recent quarter.
The platform’s sponsorship of the Cairns Crocodiles is a reflection of Pinterest’s influence and ambition in the industry.
8. Carolyn Bollaci, group agency director, Naomi Shepherd, group industry director, Meta
In the past 14 years, few have done more to put Facebook and Meta on the map than Naomi Shepherd. As group industry director, she is responsible for dealing with brands directly and has been at the cutting edge of advertising, ad tech, marketing and media.
Meta is the largest social media advertising platform in the world and Shepherd has been at the frontline of its market penetration and growth in Australia for most of its existence.
Bollaci is responsible for partnering with agencies to grow their businesses, achieve results for clients and help scale education across the Facebook family of apps.
Bollaci’s job is to ensure agency partners and clients know how to get the most out of the platform and its ever evolving suite of tools.
In the second quarter of this year, Meta’s global ad sales soared by 22 per cent, and its deployment of AI technology is helping advertisers extract more value from their investment.
Both Shepherd and Bollaci have been regulars on B&T’s Women In Media Power Lists over the years.
7. Seb Rennie, chief commercial officer, SCA
The turnaround at Southern Cross Austereo in the past year has been remarkable. In FY25, revenue increased by 5 per cent, while digital revenues jumped by 29 per cent.
Seb Rennie and his sales team have been instrumental in a transitional year for the group, which has divested its TV assets to go “all in” for audio. This has helped turn the business around and focus more on assets like Listnr, which has finally become profitable. Rennie received a healthy bonus for his work in the past year. The former GroupM chief investment officer joined SCA in 2023, succeeding Brian Gallagher as the group’s sales leader.
He has since helped guide a challenged business that was the subject of an aggressive takeover bid by ARN, and is understood to be in talks with Nine, into one of the better performing legacy media owners in its category.
6. Nev Hasan, chief sales officer, Foxtel Media
Hasan leads a national sales team of around 100 in a business that has often led the market in its adoption of a video-first advertising future. Hasan’s team handles ad sales across Foxtel, Foxtel Go and Now, and the Foxtel Media Digital portfolio, which includes Binge and Kayo Sports.
Hasan joined Multi Channel Network (the sales house that became Foxtel Media) in 2012 as a digital group sales manager and quickly worked his way up the ranks to director of advanced advertising. In 2023, he became chief sales officer, and during his time at Foxtel has led to the creation of the Q Break ad model, Foxtel’s Connected TV advertising strategy and the launch of addressable audience targeting on Foxtel GO, Addressable Go.
After Foxtel’s recent acquisition by Dazn, Hasan will be a key leader helping the business solidify its place as a leading streamer in this market, especially in the sports arena.
5. Rod Prosser, chief sales officer, Paramount
After the departure of Kurt Burnette at Seven and Michael Stephenson at Nine, Rod Prosser represents the old guard of TV advertising sales.
Having joined Network 10 15 years ago, Prosser has seen it all and presides over the only sales team in Australia that offers advertising solutions in linear TV, BVOD, SVOD and FAST.
Paramount has endured a challenging run in recent times due to a softer advertising market, and there are also questions about how new ownership under Larry Ellison’s Skydance will impact the Australian business. Nonetheless, Prosser has shown, time and again, an ability not only to adapt to change, but reinvent a sales offering that can thrive in it.
4. Mark Fairhurst, chief revenue officer, oOh!media
One of the outdoor advertising sectors most experienced and reputable executives, when Fairhurst joined oOh!Media as a revenue adviser late last year, the business was coming off one of its worst fiscal years since Covid, marked by flat growth.
Since stepping into the Chief Revenue Officer role at oOh!, Mark’s leadership has led oOh! To 17 per cent year on year growth in H1 as out of home continues to take share from other media. In an illustrious career, Fairhurst has held senior sales roles in all of the major players in outdoor, including JCDecaux, APN Outdoor (which oOh!media acquired) and QMS, where he was chief customer officer before joining oOh!media.
As Cathy O’Connor makes way for new CEO James Taylor, who is new to the OOH sector, Fairhurst’s unrivalled experience of the market and how to drive value for advertisers will be pivotal in keeping oOh!media’s momentum on track.
3. Caroline Oates, YouTube, programmatic ad sales, Google
In the streaming wars, it’s easy to forget that the world’s largest streamer, by some distance, is YouTube and it is Caroline Oates’ role to make sure the platform is front of mind with advertisers.
Speaking to media buyers in market, she is doing a cracking job of helping YouTube redefine itself as a rival to TV, extracting more advertising dollars for rivals particularly in the CTV space.
Although Melanie Siva leads Google, Oates is often in the market fighting Google and YouTube’s corner on important industry issues including cross media measurement and its future direction.
The former head of insight and strategic planning at News International is now at the forefront of video measurement and trading in Australia and an important cog in Google’s and YouTube’s formidable success.
2. Matt James, chief sales officer, Nine Entertainment
As sales lead of Australia’s largest and most diversified media company, James oversees a broad range of assets across the 9 Network, Stan Sport, Nine Radio and Nine Publishing’s titles like the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Australian Financial Review.
He was rubber stamped as chief sales officer in April after acting as one since December, when he stepped into a void left by long-term sales boss Michael Stephenson. Those are difficult shoes to fill but James has the experience and know-how to do the job.
He has previously led Nine’s Melbourne office, was managing director of Mi9 and Nine Powered. Previously Matt James was the global CEO of Zenith Media and also the Australian boss. James presides over the largest local advertising business, and the early signs are that his influence is delivering. Nine’s revenue grew in FY25, well above market conditions, powered by digital advertising and subscriptions growth.
1. Lou Barrett, managing director of client partnership at News Australia, News Corp
There is a reason why Lou Barrett was the ideal candidate to host a fireside with Harvey Norman’s Katie Page at this year’s Cairns Crocodiles conference.
Barrett is one of the closest friends of Price, the leader of one of Australia’s largest advertisers. Relationships are probably what Barrett does best. As managing director of client partnership at News Australia, she has forged some of the most enduring and impactful partnerships for clients, agencies and consumers for years.
Barrett leads one of the largest advertising sales teams in Australia, more than 500-strong, and the offering for advertisers has been supercharged with the addition of streaming platform Tubi. A former sales boss and leader at Network Ten, Barrett is the perfect leader to guide News Corp Australia from a legacy newspaper and digital business into a genuine all screens advertising behemoth.
Barrett’s energy, passion, network and deep client relations skills are as legendary as her annual deals at D_Coded. She is simply the best.
