The CMO Awards, powered by Mi3, are now officially open for nominations and we’re calling on Australia’s  most effective marketing leaders to start getting those submissions underway.

The CMO Awards program, which makes its debut in 2025, is a next-generation annual recognition initiative celebrating Australia’s most progressive and effective CMOs and marketing leaders as the champions of business growth.

The awards are about celebrating those leading the marketing function who are displaying strategic, discerning marketing thinking, driving business change and commercial success, showcasing modern marketing leadership and enabling greater collaboration and better customer engagement as a result.

The program has five key aims:

• Recognising Australia’s most progressive and effective CMOs and marketing leaders
• Rewarding and supporting successful, innovative growth strategies and ‘big M’ marketing delivery
• Building excellence and elevating the stature of Australia’s best performing marketing chiefs and their teams
• Supporting excellence across marketing, customer and business growth leadership
• Connecting and supporting an alumnus of CMOs, marketing leaders and emerging marketing leaders.

This year’s program is supported by Platinum sponsor, Adobe, and Gold sponsors, Publicis Groupe and News Corp Australia.

Categories and nominations process

In 2025, there are three categories open for nominations. The CMO Awards program requires nominees to complete a submission-based questionnaire in order to be considered. To do so, please download and complete the relevant submission questionnaire from our CMO Awards website.

Chief Marketing Officers of the Year: This award is open to the most senior marketing executive representatives for an organisation based in Australia with a remit that includes the Australian market. Nominees can either purely have the Australian remit, or be Australia-based with responsibility for Australia + a regional or global footprint for their organisation. This year’s program will be recognising a top 25 list of Chief Marketing Officers of the Year, plus CMOs of the year across both small to medium businesses (up to 200 employees), and enterprise (>200).

First-Time CMO of the Year: This special recognition award will recognise up to 3 marketing leaders in these senior-level roles for less than 2 years. It requires nominees to also complete the main nomination form in order to be considered.

Best Growth Initiative of the Year, presented by Publicis Groupe: This award category is about recognising the best growth initiative undertaken by CMOs and their marketing teams in Australia over the last 12 months. This category has a dedicated submission questionnaire. This submission can be entered by either the Australia-based CMO/chief growth officer, or most senior executive in the marketing function with leadership responsibility for the growth initiative.

Download the CMO Awards questionnaire for this year’s awards here.

All submissions will be judged by our 2025 stellar judging panel encompassing respected figures from the marketing industry including former marketing and brand leaders, CEOs, board members, agency, media and business leadership. Judges are asked to read all completed submissions and judge each on key areas, with combined scores and rankings for each individual used as the basis for the final list of award winners.

Final selections are not open to negotiation. All scores will be kept confidential and are not released publicly.

There is no entry fee to take part in these awards. Please be assured all submissions are kept strictly confidential within the judging panel and will not be distributed or published without express permission.

NOMINATIONS WILL CLOSE 14 MARCH 2025.

You can find more information about the CMO Awards program, plus download the nomination forms, from the CMO Awards website.

Completed questionnaires are to be sent to CMO Awards program manager, Nadia Cameron: nadia@mi-3.com.au