Rick Speciale

The founder of MyCMO, Rick is a commercially savvy marketer with over 15 years of experience managing brand, product development and public relations for start-ups, medium sized and Fortune 100 companies. Past experience includes work at Bank of America, News Corporation and Fox Sports as well as small and medium enterprises.

He has developed “portfolio management” techniques for businesses to efficiently generate profit and manipulate the online marketing mix. His trademark service includes “Yield Audits” to identify operational inefficiencies, channel biases and other symptoms that undermine profitable returns from marketing. To address challenges uncovered in these audits, Rick has assembled an accomplished team of practitioners and contacts able to solve client business problems with proficiency.

Rick has lectured at Sydney University and served as ADMA Digital Council Chairman focused on guiding the industry in marketing best practice and lobbying for self regulation over how business promotes to customers. Prior achievements include 2006 AMI National Finalist Award for PR Strategy and 2007 IAB Awards Finalist for Automotive online marketing.

Mike Da Silva

Recognised as a leading global authority on Promotion Marketing, Mike Da Silva is a highly decorated pioneer of the Industry, with 35 years experience in Australia, the United Kingdom and Asia.

Mike is currently the CEO of Sydney based MDSA Promotion Marketing, 21 years in operation this year. He is also CEO of NMA/MDSA Entertainment Marketing Australia and Asia, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Beijing, London, Tokyo & a Partnership in Bollywood. The Group is the largest Product Placement group in the USA and has worked with all Hollywood Studios & Production Companies for 30 years. He is the Immediate Past President of the prestigious 42 year old, New York based, Marketing Agencies Association Worldwide. MAA has Members in 19 Countries.

MDSA specialises in the following areas:

•  Customer acquisition, retention & relationship.
•  Trade Marketing
•  Sales Force & Consumer Incentives
•  Cross Promotion combining two or more Partner Companies
•  Small Business Central online Community
•  Prize Bank Development & Execution
•  Lottery Permit Service

His clients include:

Qantas (for 16 years), ANZ Bank (9 years), ING Direct (6 years), News Digital Media, including Carsguide, news.com.au, CareerOne & MySpace (5 years), PayPal, eBay, BPAY, Coles (Vintage Cellars & their Baby Club), Australian Wool Innovation  (Australia & global), Accor, Universal Pictures, Paramount, Dreamworks (LA) Twentieth Century Fox (Sydney & LA), SONY Pictures, Disney, Tourism Australia, Tourism NSW, Goodman Fielder (Mighty Soft Bread), Tourism WA & G’Day USA.

Mike is a holder of the Australian Defence Medal for is service as a Medic in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps.

Tony Mittelmark

With over 20 years of experience building online applications from commercial search to full featured communities, Mittelmark is a proven performer. Mittelmark via his company Venture Logic is now focused on online application development specializing in Web2.0, integrated ad products, and interface shells.

Venture Logic assists companies to deploy online interfaces in a manner that not only captures the commercial opportunity but also a price that makes sense to the scale of that opportunity. Venture Logic has been involved in some of Australia’s most popular commercial websites and continues to provide strategic assistance to corporations and media companies in Australia and overseas.

Clients include: Yellow Pages, White Pages, Alta Vista, CarPoint, and CarSales, as well as the development of career networking and placement site LinkMe (www.linkme.com.au) and online communities such as AutoCult (www.autocult.com.au) for motoring enthusiasts, the Trading Post’s Pets and Outdoors Communities (community.trading-post.com.au) and popular women’s community she said (www.shesaid.com.au). Mittelmark is currently digital director for DMG Radio Australia and is responsible for their new network portal, streaming audio interfaces and mobile applications.

Max Sim

Max has held management and senior leadership roles in Search Marketing (PPC/SEM, SEO, Social Media) and Analytics. In this capacity, he has worked with some of the largest online and consumer brands in the world including eBay, Sony and Google in the use of analytics. More recent work includes responsibility for News Corp subsidiary web sites. As arguably the largest media empire in the world, with a stable of global brands including the Wall Street Journal, The Times (London) and Myspace, News Corp has given Max hands-on Search Marketing experience in highly competitive verticals such as:

News | Cars | Travel | Jobs | Property | Sports | Local Search

Beyond executing global Search strategy, Max’s scope extends to Product Development, Product Management, Usability and User Interface decisions, Marketing, Editorial and IT decision-making across a wide spectrum of industries. His experience includes not only large business enterprises, but also small startup businesses.

Max currently does Search Marketing for several of the most popular property lead generation sites in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Nicki Bourlioufas

Nicki has over 12 years experience as a public relations consultant and finance journalist and editor with Australian and International media companies, including News Corporation, Fairfax Media and Dow Jones. She has most recently worked as Media and Editorial Director with the consulting firm BlueChip Communications.  Nicki has good relationships with key journalists and can target information so it reaches the right audience. She has broad experience in media relations and is an expert finance and copy writer. She can explain complex information for any audience and help you to imprint your brand through clever words and ideas.

Abramo Ierardo

Abramo Ierardo, aka The Data Guy, is Managing Director of Action Mailing Lists (AML), one of Australia’s largest list brokers. He has worked in the DM space for over 15 years with a career that encompasses broadcast, print media, direct mail and email marketing. He has supplied prospect lists for over 400 DM campaigns already this year! More recently, he has been extensively involved with ADMA’s Data Council as it produced a Best Practice document for Data Use and is the author of “The List Report”.

Ian Farmer

Ian is a highly driven digital strategist with an international client side background. Creative, energetic and highly strategic in his thinking, Ian is on the forefront of identifying and interpreting emerging trends. He has a rare competency to transcend the traditional advertising, social media and technical execution functions (CRM/ PR/ Promotion) of the digital domain.

Ian has spent the last five years in the digital space as a consultant, building a strong reputation with clients such as Blackmore’s, Greater Building Society, Vic roads, Bundaberg Rum, Guinness and Brita. Prior to going out on his own, he spent nine years at Mars. Here he was responsible for driving digital marketing strategy, CRM and analytics across a team of 40 digital specialists.

During his time at Mars he also held the position of Information Technology Director for Master foods Australia and NZ. In that role he focused on developing web based strategies for the portfolio of company brands, managing marketing initiatives to drive content and customer interaction as well as focusing internally on the development of intranet sites to build information transfer amongst the group.