CONFERENCE DAY ONE

Wednesday 21 May 2025

DAY ONE: Wednesday 21 May 2025

08.20

REGISTRATION & BARISTA COFFEE

09:00

WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Emma Roborgh

Emma Roborgh
Founder & CEO
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Kristy Kelly

Kristy Kelly
Managing Director
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum

B2C STORYTELLING FOR B2B AUDIENCES

09:10

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Emma Chalwin Workday CMO

Emma Chalwin
CMO
Workday (US)

UNLEASHING THE POWER OF B2C STORYTELLING FOR B2B AUDIENCES

Emma Chalwin is chief marketing officer (CMO) at Workday. She oversees the global marketing organization, with responsibility for building the brand and creating customer demand in markets around the world.

Prior to joining Workday in July 2023, Emma was executive vice president of Field Marketing at Salesforce, where she was responsible for creating go-to-market plans, driving brand awareness and messaging, as well as leading demand generation globally. Earlier, she held global brand and marketing leadership positions at Macrovision, McAfee, and Adobe.

THE WORLD'S MOST CELEBRATED B2B CREATIVE CAMPAIGN

09:35

Volvo Trucks CMO behind Jean-Claude Van-Damme's epic split, Ingela Nordenhav speaking at B2B Marketing Conference in Sydney, Australia 2025

Ingela Nordenhav
Brand Consultant & Former CMO
Volvo Trucks (Sweden)

CREATIVE, B2B GLOBAL VIRAL MARKETING AND CLEVER PR STRATEGY

As Global CMO at Volvo Trucks and responsible for a product launch of five new trucks Ingela introduced one of the world’s best-known B2B video content plays, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s epic split between two reversing trucks which to date has seen 122M views on YouTube.
An absolute pioneer as media consumption changed from traditional TV to social media, Sydney Morning Herald called the YouTube video back in 2013 “The art of going viral”.

Ingela will share her experiences of how to reposition a brand and boost brand awareness. She will discuss the importance of a brand promise, how to get your ideas a cross the line and the results it can create.

THE RISE OF ENABLEMENT'S INFLUENCE

10:00

THE RISE OF ENABLEMENT’S INFLUENCE – EMPOWERING GTM TEAMS TO BREAK DOWN SILOS AND MAXIMISE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

 

Session sponsored by:

10:30-11:00

MORNING COFFEE & NETWORKING BREAK

11:00

Choose one of four tracks. Book your team, split up and share learnings:

GROWTH

Track hosted by:

Part I: Leading international hypergrowth
Jon, with a background at Google and Stripe, joined Airwallex, an Australian Unicorn and global financial platform, two years ago to spearhead their international expansion and growth through marketing.

  • Insights into leading hypergrowth and navigating the challenges of international expansion with marketing
  • How marketing drives growth and supports business objectives.
  • The framework for driving repeated, predictable growth
  • Key strategies and lessons for marketing leaders aiming to drive international expansion, from APAC to EMEA, North and Latin America

Part II: Sales & Marketing alignment for GTM excellence

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Jon Stona Airwallex
Jon Stona
VP & Global Head of Marketing, Airwallex
Moderated by:
Simon Hickox, Director, APAC Growth Marketing, Seismic

FROM BRAND TO DEMAND

Track hosted by:Think Smart Marketing b2b cmo conference

Part I: The true cost of ‘doing more with less’ and how to overcome it
In this ‘no holds barred’ session, we’ll discuss the real challenges marketing leaders are facing in the struggle to do more with less, how to align to business mandates without sacrificing your GTM success, and practical ways to build a business case for local autonomy (and investment) – and measure its impact; including a case study showing the 4x ROI delivered by staying true to local market needs.

Part II: The Art and Science of Stakeholder Management
It is arguably the most important job marketers have and can define the success, failure or non-start of a program. The harsh truth is many marketers today are thrown in the deep end of management and leadership roles without the experience, mentorship or training in stakeholder management which can take years to cultivate. Whether your stakeholders are the executive team, sales leadership, partners, or the board – success depends on your ability to proactively manage them.

In this hands-on workshop style session, we’ll:

  • Explore the dimensions of stakeholder management
  • Discuss strategies for understanding, aligning and influencing stakeholders
  • Workshop real-life scenarios, and
  • Address burning questions from the audience
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Stella Kordonis Redhat
Stella Kordonis
Head of Regional Marketing, Brand Experiences & Comms, Red Hat
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Janine Pares TSM
Moderated by:
Janine Pares, Founder and MD, Thinksmart Marketing

DATA vs CREATIVITY & INSTINCT

Track hosted by:Mahlab B2B Marketing Leaders Forum

Part I: Are you swimming in data or sinking under its weight?

Does having more data truly empower you to make smarter decisions and achieve better results? Or is it simply overwhelming, leading to noise and indecision? Is there such a thing as too much data?

Join the debate:

  • Are you leveraging data to its full potential, or is it getting in the way of bold, creative decision-making?
  • Whether you believe “more is more” or “less is more,” you’ll gain practical tips on using data strategically to achieve your goals.
  • Understand how the role of data is evolving and what it means for your marketing strategy.
  • Get ideas to combat analysis paralysis, improve data quality, and balance creativity with analytics.

Part II: Data vs. instinct: Striking the right balance in creative campaigns

How much weight should be given to data-driven insights versus the power of human intuition and experience in the context of planning and executing creative B2B marketing campaigns?

  • The strengths and limitations of data in guiding creative decisions
  • How instinct and experience can complement data, especially in uncharted or nuanced scenarios
  • Practical frameworks for deciding when to lean on data and when to trust your gut
  • The balance between science and art in marketing
  • Enhance your approach to campaign planning and execution by blending analytical rigor with bold creative instincts
Moderated by:
Cara McLeod, CEO, Mahlab

ABM, ABX AND FOCUS ON BUYING GROUPS

Track hosted by:Infuse B2B Marketing Leaders Forum 2024

Part I: From Leads to Buying Groups

While recent research by Forrester highlights that 93% of buying groups consist of two or more people, studies from 6sense and INFUSE reveal that the average number of decision-makers in buying groups has risen to 10. Surprisingly, only 10-15% of stakeholders actively engage in the buying process — the majority of their research conducted in dark funnel. This underscores that up to 70% of the buyer’s journey remains anonymous.

Learn how to transform your approach to driving pipeline growth. By shifting focus from leads to targeting entire accounts and understanding buying committees,  realigning your marketing and sales efforts to capitalize on account-based opportunities.

Part II: Revenue strategies for defensive buying groups
As marketers, we must understand and develop GTM strategies and programs that resonate with multiple buyers
at your best opportunity accounts.

  • Business and tech purchase drivers that generate tech investments today
  • Buying committee roles, dynamics, and preferences by stages of their decision journey
  • Company business and tech priorities and which technologies buying groups are focused on
  • Tools, content, channels, and resources they rely on at different stages of their decision process

12:30 – 1:30

LUNCH & NETWORKING BREAK

1:30 - 2:50
Round-Tables B2B marketing conference sydney australia 2019

Industry Tracks

CHOOSE ONE TRACK MOST RELEVANT TO YOUR CURRENT CHALLENGES AND AREAS OF INTEREST

As one of the forum highlights, join your industry peers for these group discussions with your competitors and peers.

You’ll be discussing challenges and pressing topics that are most relevant to you and B2B marketers in your specific industry.

Choose from B2B Marketing in:

  • It/Tech/Saas, Cloud
  • Banking, Financial Services & Insurance
  • Professional Services
  • Manufacturing & Health
  • Property & Construction

B2B MARKETING IN IT/TECH/SAAS/CLOUD

Track hosted by:Adapt, at b2b marketing conference, sydney, australia 2025

Part I Panel: Know Your Customer, Why does GTM intelligence matter

Part II Interactive Panel: Top priorities for B2B tech marketers:
Growth:

  • Being more strategic and less tactical in driving growth
  • Growing Market Share at scale
  • Retention, growing share of wallet and focus on customer churn and the levers marketing control

Demand Generation:

  • How to accelerate pipeline, conversions and driving leads across all stages of the funnel
  • To drive more personalised campaigns at scale. Being able to consolidate engagement across our target accounts and prioritise those for sales follow-up.
  • Maximise ROI from 1st and 3rd party events
  • Grow marketing influenced pipeline

Performance metrics & Pipeline Contribution:

  • Better opportunity tracking, building metrics to create closer alignment with Sales teams
  • Moving from Demand Gen and pipeline contribution to focus on Sales Stage One
  • Measuring and demonstrating long term marketing impact v short term sales needs
  • Better alignment on an executable strategy with measurable objectives

Brand:

  • Investing in brand and moving from awareness to consideration to conversion
  • Achieving brand awareness across multiple markets in an efficient and scaled way.
  • Developing clear narratives around value propositions for target audiences

Sales and Marketing alignment + enablement

  • Alignment on an executable strategy with measurable objectives
  • Building metrics to create closer alignment with Sales teams

This session will be on-point for IT/Tech/Saas/Cloud marketers – not a generic theory session.

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Kat Chia Telstra Health CMO
Kat Chia
Global Head of Marketing & Comms, Telstra Health
Renee Cathcart
Head of Marketing ANZ, Workday

B2B MARKETING IN BANKING/FINANCIAL SERVICES/INSURANCE

Panel followed by interactive Q&A and round-table discussions

Panellists will share their main challenges and opportunities as B2B marketers in Banking and Financial Services:

  • How CX transcends everything, and how to align the business around it
  • Balancing B2B and B2C and B2B2C – Utilising B2C principles in B2B
  • Digital transformation and what this means for re-building high-performance teams, workflows and customers
  • The impact of ESG, macro forces and marketing’s role in data governance, cybersecurity and privacy threats and breaches
  • The role of brand and the impact on CX – how to get internal support and budget for long-term brand build vs short-term demand generation
  • Working with sales, partners, advisors when building personal relationships with clients
  • How to manage internal risk appetite to be able to experiment with new ideas
  • How do we measure ROI for retention and up/cross sell of existing customers
  • AI in marketing in BFSI – where’s everyone at?
  • Unlocking trust with the CEO and leadership team

This highly interactive session will end with round table discussions diving deeper into these topics with your peers.

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Gretchen Fox Aware Super
Gretchen Fox
CMO, Aware Super
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Linda Griffin Zurich Insurance
Linda Griffin
Head of Brand, Marketing & Corporate Affairs ANZ, Zurich Insurance

B2B MARKETING IN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Panel followed by interactive Q&A and round-table discussions

Panellists will share their main challenges and opportunities as B2B marketers in professional services including:

  • Building brand and managing transformation, change and growth in professional services
  • The importance of brand and positioning in an undifferentiated industry
  • Engaging your people (engineers, lawyers, accountants etc) as your brand ambassadors and thought-leaders
  • The digitally enabled professional services firm – Driving and building digital capability within your organisation
  • Providing an omni-channel experience in professional services
  • The “sales” and marketing alignment and relationship in professional services
  • Adapting and leveraging Account Based Marketing (ABM) in professional services
  • Advancing the marketing department as credible, growth and revenue driver for the business

This highly interactive session will end with round table discussions diving deeper into these topics with your peers.

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Sonia Adams GHD
Sonia Adams
Global CMO & Chief Client Officer, GHD
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Nicole Aman CMO PWC
Nicole Aman
MD, Marketing, Clients, Markets & Growth, PwC

B2B MARKETING IN PROPERTY/CONSTRUCTION

Panel followed by interactive Q&A and round-table discussions

This session will be on-point for B2B property and construction marketers

  • Addressing customer pain points through an integrated Marketing & Sales approach
  • Providing data rich analytics to further inform the GTM strategy
  • Enabling enterprise Marketing teams to work smarter with Martech
  • Storytelling with Impact
  • Tailoring Messages
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Lydia Sheridan JLL
Lydia Sheridan
Head of Marketing ANZ, JLL
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Megan Elkhouri Icon Construction
Megan Elkhouri
Group Marketing & Communications Manager, Icon Construction
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Amelia Wilson programmed
Amelia Wilson
Marketing & Comms Lead ANZ, Programmed

B2B MARKETING IN MANUFACTURING & HEALTH

Panel followed by interactive Q&A and round-table discussions

We’ll discuss our main challenges and opportunities as B2B marketers in Manufacturing including:

  • Advancing the marketing department as credible, growth and revenue driver for the business
  • How do you lift your team to be strategic and commercially focused
  • Adapting and leveraging Account Based Marketing (ABM) in the Manufacturing sector
  • CX: who is driving it in manufacturing firms and what does it look like?
  • The role of brand for firms in the manufacturing sector
  • B2B E-Commerce – Moving B2B Business throughout digital channels with B2B e-commerce
  • Supplier marketing – Driving better engagement and fuelling marketing performance with suppliers
  • Sales & marketing alignment with large national and regional sales teams

This highly interactive session will end with round table discussions diving deeper into these topics with your peers.

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Ed Edwin Lee ResMed CMO
Ed Lee
Senior Director, Commercial Marketing APAC, ResMed
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Scott Ciantar IDEXX
Scott Ciantar
Head of Marketing APAC, IDEXX
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Chantelle Lane CMO Bapcor
Chantelle Lane
GM Wholesale (Former CMO), Bapcor

2:50pm

AFTERNOON TEA & NETWORKING BREAK

TRANSFORMING AN ENTERPRISE BRAND

3:30

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Courtney Cusack Fujifilm

Courtney Cusack
Head of Marketing
FUJIFILM Business Innovation

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Janine Pares TSM

Janine Pares
Founder & MD
Thinksmart Marketing

TRANSFORMING AN ENTERPRISE BRAND

Brand challenges are becoming more common for many B2B organisations. Whether it’s brand or category awareness, attracting new segments or markets, aligning to business strategy or market shift, or consolidating after acquisitions – these all require defining how your brand shows up in market.

When you’re dealing with not just one, but all these challenges simultaneously, what’s a senior business and marketing leader to do? In this keynote, you’ll hear the story of how Fujifilm Business Innovation Australia’s business transformation sparked the need for brand transformation. You’ll see how they:

  • United three brands and business units into one whole
  • Focused on the brand legacy to develop a compelling story
  • Created a strong creative platform to create differentiation in a cluttered market
  • Developed the tools and material to enable and align the sales organisation

Session sponsored by:

b2b marketing leaders forum thinksmart marketing TSM

AFTERNOON KEYNOTE

3:55

KEYNOTE - AWAITING INTERNAL APPROVAL

CLOSING INTERNATIONAL KEYNOTE

4:20

B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Lisa Gilbert Kyndryl

Lisa Gilbert
VP & Global CMO
Kyndryl (US)

BUILDING BRANDS THAT RESONATE ACROSS CULTURES & ACCELERATING GROWTH ACROSS DIVERSE GLOBAL MARKETS

Before helping launch Kyndryl’s brand from scratch in 2021, an $18B IBM spin-off with over 4500 existing clients and 90, 000 employees globally, Lisa held several key leadership roles at IBM, including CMO of IBM Japan, CMO for UK and Ireland, and VP of Marketing for IBM’s Growth Markets based in Shanghai. During her time at IBM, she not only pioneered the company’s first Net Promoter Score program but also played a pivotal role in accelerating the tech giant’s growth across diverse global markets.

Today at Kyndryl, Lisa leads global marketing strategy and Account Based Marketing, leading a team of CMOs across regions to forge and deepen strategic customer relationships that drive substantial business outcomes. She’s known for building high-performing teams that deliver results, with a proven track record of delivering revenue growth and exceeding business targets through the marketing programs she builds. Her expertise spans across brand development, market expansion, and implementing transformative go-to-market strategies that enhance business performance.

Lisa’s unique combination of international experience, proven track record as a transformation agent, and team building has made her a distinctive voice in the B2B marketing world, particularly when it comes to navigating global markets and building brands that resonate across cultures.

5:00PM NETWORKING DRINKS | 6:30PM DINNER & PARTY

GTM

Track hosted by:

GROWTH

Leading international hypergrowth
Jon, with a background at Google and Stripe, joined Airwallex, an Australian Unicorn and global financial platform, two years ago to spearhead their international expansion and growth through marketing.

  • Insights into leading hypergrowth and navigating the challenges of international expansion with marketing
  • How marketing drives growth and supports business objectives.
  • The framework for driving repeated, predictable growth
  • Key strategies and lessons for marketing leaders aiming to drive international expansion, from APAC to EMEA, North and Latin America
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Jon Stona Airwallex
Jon Stona
VP & Global Head of Marketing, Airwallex

SALES & MARKETING ALIGNMENT FOR GTM EXCELLENCE

INTEGRATED GTM STRATEGY

Track hosted by:Think Smart Marketing b2b cmo conference

FROM BRAND TO DEMAND

From Brand to Demand: the true cost of ‘doing more with less’ and how to overcome it
In the age of ‘doing more with less’, there’s even more pressure on local and regional teams to limit investment in local content, campaigns and customer insight in preference for global material across the GTM. While the P&L looks healthier in the short term, the real cost often comes in audience engagement, brand positioning, demand generation, and pipeline progression over the mid and long-term.

In this ‘no holds barred’ session, we’ll discuss the real challenges marketing leaders are facing in the struggle to do more with less, how to align to business mandates without sacrificing your GTM success, and practical ways to build a business case for local autonomy (and investment) – and measure its impact; including a case study showing the 4x ROI delivered by staying true to local market needs.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT

The Art and Science of Stakeholder Management
It is arguably the most important job marketers have and can define the success, failure or non-start of a program. The harsh truth is many marketers today are thrown in the deep end of management and leadership roles without the experience, mentorship or training in stakeholder management which can take years to cultivate. Whether your stakeholders are the executive team, sales leadership, partners, or the board – success depends on your ability to proactively manage them.

In this hands-on workshop style session, we’ll:

  • Explore the dimensions of stakeholder management
  • Discuss strategies for understanding, aligning and influencing stakeholders
  • Workshop real-life scenarios, and
  • Address burning questions from the audience
B2B Marketing Leaders Forum APAC 2025 Janine Pares TSM
Moderated by:
Janine Pares, Founder and MD, Thinksmart Marketing

DATA vs BRAND

Track hosted by:Mahlab B2B Marketing Leaders Forum

DEBATE: "TOO MUCH DATA IS NEVER ENOUGH" – AGREE OR DISAGREE?

Are you swimming in data or sinking under its weight?

As marketing leaders, we’re constantly bombarded with data; customer insights, campaign metrics, real-time analytics, and more. But does having more data truly empower you to make smarter decisions and achieve better results? Or is it simply overwhelming, leading to noise and indecision?

In this provocative and energising debate, hosted by Mahlab’s CEO, Cara McLeod, we’ll tackle one of the most pressing questions in modern marketing: Is there such a thing as too much data?

Join this session to:

  • Challenge your perspective: Are you leveraging data to its full potential, or is it getting in the way of bold, creative decision-making?
  • Learn from the best: Two expert panels will bring real-world examples, sharp insights, and fresh thinking about how data drives (or hinders) marketing success.
  • Walk away with actionable ideas: Whether you believe “more is more” or “less is more,” you’ll gain practical tips on using data strategically to achieve your goals.
  • Engage in the debate: Join the conversation, share your thoughts, and discover how your peers are navigating the same challenges.

Why attend?

  • Understand how the role of data is evolving and what it means for your marketing strategy.
  • Get ideas to combat analysis paralysis, improve data quality, and balance creativity with analytics.
  • Exchange insights with other marketing leaders who are grappling with similar issues.

DATA VS. INSTINCT: STRIKING THE RIGHT BALANCE IN CREATIVE CAMPAIGNS

In an age where data is abundant and increasingly accessible, marketers are often faced with a dilemma: How much weight should be given to data-driven insights versus the power of human intuition and experience?

This session explores the dynamic interplay between data and instinct in the context of planning and executing creative B2B marketing campaigns.

Through real-world examples and thought-provoking discussion, we’ll examine:

  • The strengths and limitations of data in guiding creative decisions.
  • How instinct and experience can complement data, especially in uncharted or nuanced scenarios.
  • Practical frameworks for deciding when to lean on data and when to trust your gut.
  • Case studies showcasing successes and lessons learned from both approaches.

Whether you’re a data-driven marketer or a creative visionary, this session will provide actionable insights and tools to help you navigate the balance between science and art in marketing. Walk away with strategies to foster innovation while remaining grounded in data-backed decisions.

This session is for marketing leaders looking to enhance their approach to campaign planning and execution by blending analytical rigor with bold creative instincts.

ABM, ABX AND FOCUS ON BUYING GROUPS

Track hosted by:Infuse B2B Marketing Leaders Forum 2024

Adapting your revenue strategies to win the hearts, minds and budgets of your defensive buying groups

Unlocking predictable revenue hinges on establishing meaningful connections with the buying groups within your
target accounts. By adeptly addressing their unique needs using accurate account and buyer intelligence and
activation tools, you empower their research and decision-making processes.
As marketers, we must understand and develop GTM strategies and programs that resonate with multiple buyers
at your best opportunity accounts. Drawing insights from exclusive research conducted by the team at INFUSE and
incorporating lessons from marketing and revenue leaders, this session will delve into the following:

  • Business and tech purchase drivers that generate tech investments today
  • Buying committee roles, dynamics, and preferences by stages of their decision journey
  • Company business and tech priorities and which technologies buying groups are focused on
  • Tools, content, channels, and resources they rely on at different stages of their decision process

THE LONG GAME: RESETTING EXPECTATIONS FOR BUYERS AND SELLERS IN A SKEPTICAL MARKET

Lessons in Sales & Marketing Alignment

Unlocking predictable revenue relies on establishing meaningful connections with the buying groups within your target accounts. However, research shows that buyers spend up to 70% of their buyer’s journey without ever engaging
with sales. As a result, the selling process has evolved into validating the decisions made earlier in the buying journey.

Explore how marketers can adapt to this defensive landscape and discover actionable steps to reset both buyer and seller expectations and expand your influence throughout the buyer’s journey, from awareness to expansion