Quest Events would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the official event advisory panel who contributed their valuable time and expertise to ensure the agenda for this event is timely and relevant for all stakeholders working in communications and public relations.
Vanessa Marven
Head of Marketing & Communications
HUGO BOSS
From hosting media at New York Fashion Week to producing a campaign shoot in remote Outback Australia, Vanessa Marven has enjoyed a diverse career in marketing and communications for some of the world’s most recognised brands including HUGO BOSS, R.M.Williams and Universal Pictures.
With a career spanning nearly two decades, Vanessa has also applied her expertise to the not for profit sector, developing and promoting campaigns such as Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, to create public awareness and research funding for breast cancer in young women.
Vanessa has particular expertise in PR, CRM, retail marketing and brand partnerships and enjoys team management and mentoring.
She is currently Head of Marketing for HUGO BOSS Australia/New Zealand, based in Melbourne.
Rachael Lonergan
Head of Strategy
Foundation
Rachael is an award-winning creative and media strategist with over 20 years of experience both in Australia and the United States. She’s worked with some of the biggest marketing brands in the world, as well as some of the most passionate start-ups. Her experience with digital strategy extends as far back as the year 1999, before Y2K was scheduled to destroy the world.
In 2016 she was named a Top Ten Linkedin Agency Influencer (one of two women to make the list). She has been widely published in industry journals, business magazines and in WARC. She has spoken at numerous industry events and conferences. However her favourite credit to date comes via writer John Birmingham, who blows up a character named in her honour in his novel, After America.
She is currently Head of Strategy at Foundation, a boutique media agency within the Omnicom Media Group.
Claire Salvetti
Managing Director
One Green Bean
I am an energetic and brave PR professional with senior management experience in Australian, UK and International brand communications.
I deliver strategic, effective campaigns that result in earned & owned media and integrate into the bigger marketing picture.
As a leader and coach, I inspire and empower my teams to be curious, brave and strive for excellence, whilst enjoying the journey.
Specialties:
- Strategic thinking that delivers big ideas and results in content, conversations and coverage
- Integrating PR, Experiential, Social and Sponsorship into the wider marketing mix
- Crisis and issues management
- FMCG, Bluechip companies
- New business development
- Community development
- Leadership
- Coaching
2014 Cannes PR Juror, Australian Representative
2014 New York Festivals Juror.
2014 PRIA Golden Target Awards Exec Committee
Susan Redden Makatoa
Division Director
Temple Executive Search
Susan is one of Australia’s leading corporate communications practitioners with over 20 years’ industry experience providing advice to leaders across the business, government and not-for-profit sectors. At Temple, Susan focuses on finding outstanding candidates for corporate clients and working with those clients to develop their team’s capabilities.
Most recently, Susan was Group Managing Director – Corporate for Ogilvy Public Relations, one of Australia’s leading PR agencies, overseeing public affairs agency Parker & Partners, employee engagement firm Ogilvy Impact and Ogilvy’s Corporate practice. She was previously a partner at SenateSHJ, and held senior roles at Savage & Horrigan, ASIC and the NSW Business Chamber.
Dedicated to the growth and development of the communications profession, Susan is a Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia. In 2016 was awarded the PRIA President’s Award for major industry contribution. She has also won four global IABC Gold Quills, five regional Golden Sabres and eight PRIA National Golden Targets. She has judged the PRIA Golden Targets and Mumbrella CommsCon awards and organised two PRIA annual conferences.
Deeply committed to diversity in the workplace, Susan was the author of the PRIA’s first diversity and inclusion policy in 2016. She has also been a speaker on the subject at TEDx, Macquarie University, IABC Global Conference, Women in Media and Communications and the CEO Institute.
Susan is an accredited member of the AICD and sits on the boards of Tresillian Family Care Centres, social philanthropy group Benojo and the Touched by Olivia
Neil O'Sullivan
Senior Product Marketing Manager APAC
CBS Interactive
Originally from the island of Ireland, Neil started his career at Pareto3d, a marketing experiential agency before spending a nine-year period in the not-for-profit sectors both in Ireland and Australia. While he was at Special Olympics in Ireland, he worked across a world summer and world winter games in Greece and the US before moving to Australia in 2011.
During his first two years in Melbourne, he worked within the Oxfam Australia communication team on their global Trailwalker event. He then joined the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) towards the end of his time in Melbourne and eventually moved to Sydney in 2014 after taking over the National Marketing and Communication Manager role with the industry body. He then moved out of the world of PR in 2016 and joined the ranks at CBS Interactive as the Senior Product Marketing Manager for APAC. CBSi is the digital publishing arm of the CBS Network originated from the US, with offices all across North America, the UK, Singapore and locally here in Australia, specialising in industry sectors like business technology, consumer technology, entertainment, gaming, music and sports.
An avid sports enthusiast, Neil has played various codes throughout his life. He currently plays soccer in the NSW NPL 3 with Dunbar Rovers and has previous state honours in rounders, soccer, hurling and gaelic football from back in Ireland.
As a passionate advocate for mental health, Neil also sits on two volunteer groups, Darkness Into Light Sydney (DIL) - a global event - and the Light Ball Sydney (LBS) - an initiative created in Sydney by he and his colleagues who have had people close to them affected by mental health - who both tackle the stigma associated with the topic. In 2016, DIL Sydney raised $60k AUD for batyr - a charity tackling the issue with the youth of Australia - and the LBS raised a staggering $150k AUD for the same charity - after raising $70k AUD the previous year for beyondblue. He's also been published by the Irish Times newspaper in Ireland on the subject and has also made several appearances on radio.
In 2015, Piktochart, the global online graphic design tool featured Neil in their customer profile video series and in 2016, he was also selected as a finalist for the Irish Chamber Australian Business Awards, in the Young Professional category. He's also a member of the Leadership Think Tank Senior Executive peer-to-peer group in Sydney.
Somehow, after finding some 'spare' time in 2016, he and his partner, Suzanne Tuttle, a qualified Nutritionist, set up Sydney's first infrared sauna studio in Bondi, Nimbus & Co. Within the initial six months of launching, Nimbus & Co has been featured by major industry publications such as Women's Health, Russh, POPSUGAR, and RESCU. More recently, the studio was featured in a special AMEX card customer highlight campaign following the successful launch of the business.
Neil is now a Bondi native and has one of his brothers living there as well. His loves include his dog, Chucky, going to the cinema, attending live music events, practising his yoga, of course using his own infrared saunas and he is currently learning to swim."
Jackie Crossman
Principal
Red Agency
Jackie Crossman is a distinguished member of the Australasian PR community by any measure – longevity, client acquisition and impact, industry service, peer recognition or awards success.
A Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) and regular judge of PRIA’s Golden Target Awards and Mumbrella’s CommsCon Awards, Crossman is a corporate and marketing communications specialist with extensive experience and expertise in issues and crisis management, social media activation, event and sponsorship solutions and media strategy, relations and interview skills training.
Her early career was in radio and after a grounding in PR with global firm Burson-Marsteller, Crossman founded her own consultancy in New Zealand in 1988, a business that eventually became Porter Novelli New Zealand of which she was Managing Director.
Prior to forming Crossman Communications again in Australia in 2003, she was Executive Director of NISAD Schizophrenia Research based at the Garvan Institute in Sydney. Crossman Communications was acquired by Red Agency on 1 January 2016 with Crossman appointed Sydney Principal.
The creator of the long-running Weet-Bix Kids Tryathlon, National Vegetarian Week and ‘Thank You Day’ for Research Australia, Crossman has counselled many of Australia’s most successful companies and has won multiple PR awards at state, national and international level.
Sofia Dedes
Managing Director
Will & Word Communications
Having spent a good part of her 15 year career advising Government Ministers and Premiers, Sofia Dedes has also worked for United Nations in Lebanon and prides herself on being cool in a crisis. Sofia increased the profile and promoted the research work of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne and the Heart Foundation of Australia, educating the community about the risk of heart disease, Australia’s single biggest killer.
A Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA), her early career was spent in journalism, working for both The Age and Leader Newspapers. Having managed media and crisis across the globe, Sofia recently started her own communications consultancy.
She is a firm believer in advocating for the greater good and carving a path for the next generation of journalists and media professionals, To that end, Sofia is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Media, PR & Communications (Influence/Impact) at RMIT in Melbourne and is a Board Member for Timor-Leste charity Alola Australia.
Rebecca Sands
Associate Director PR & Communications
Knight Frank