SIMON RUTHERFORD
Media Strategist
With 21 years media experience (7 in buying and 14 in strategy), Simon is one is Australia's most awarded media strategists working for industry leading agencies such as George Patterson Bates, Media Decisions, The Media Palace, Bellamyhayden and now Slingshot.
During that time he led teams developing innovative marketing and channel solutions on some of Australia's biggest brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Westfield, Sony, Sanitarium, Lion Nathan, Daewoo, Uncle Bens and Mars to name but a few.
Of particular note, Simon has extensive experience in leveraging some of Australia's largest and acclaimed multi-year sponsorships (Cricket, V8s, Big Brother), resulting in five MFA awards including the Grand Prix. As a further complement Simon has considerable experience in the sporting arena working in a sponsorship leverage or media strategy capacity across the AFL, NRL, FFA and Superleague.
JEFF COOPER
General Manager
Jeff learnt his most valuable lessons in marketing by spending his own money.
Some marketers might be happy with a career that saw them conceptualise and implement million dollar campaigns for some of the world's largest brands, including; Vodafone, CommSec, Commonwealth Bank, Sony, 3M and The Australian, be crowned as one of the top up-and-coming entrepreneurs in Australia in Anthill magazine's 30-under-30 Awards, pioneer world first marketing technologies, co-author a six book series on strategy, guest lecture at Sydney's top universities on marketing strategy and take the helm as the country's first Gen Y General Manager of a strategic marketing consultancy. That's Jeff's career to date and, at the ripe old age of 28, he plans on achieving a lot more.
He's a true generalist, that's why he's Step Change's General Manager (among other things). His interests as a musician, accomplished painter, woodworker and sculptor are balanced with a passion for business and an almost 'rainman' like ability with obscure topics like biology, human neurology, decision making and behaviour.
CRAIG RISPIN
Futurist
Craig Rispin is a Business Futurist and Innovation Expert. His expertise lies in emerging business, people and technology trends—and how companies can profit from them.
Craig has over 20 years’ experience working where the future has been created with some of the most innovative companies in the world in IT, consumer electronics, internet and broadcasting organisations.
He is an award-winning speaker and has addressed audiences of 15 to 3,000 people on 5 continents. He has also consulted with the CEOs of leading companies worldwide.
His clients include BHP Billiton, Canon, Colonial First State, IBM, Kimberly-Clark, Mallesons, NRMA, Sportscraft, Symantec, Toyota, the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and countless professional industry associations.
ASHTON BISHOP
Marketing Strategist
Ashton Bishop is Australia’s Predatory Marketer – an expert in pinpointing how brands can grow by outsmarting their competitors.
However, his path was a somewhat unusual one. After graduating with a commerce/law degree he turned his hand to street preforming, TV presenting, stand-up comedy, film directing and even literally ran away with the circus.
Fortunately Ashton eventually found his niche in marketing, where he has spent the last 14 years working internationally on some of the world’s biggest brands. He’s a business owner, serial entrepreneur, challenging, sometimes even controversial, but always focused on what gets results.
He’s run million dollar campaigns for billion dollar brands, received film awards, guest lectured at leading universities, won creative and strategic recognition from his peers and, in a world first, brought marketing strategy together with digital technology.
