Lisa Stark – Chief Marketing Officer, Eric Insurance Limited, MBA, CPM

I’ve had a fantastic career in sales and marketing, leading to various executive roles including; Product & Marketing Manager Asia Pacific for a large global company, General Manager of a leading print & print management company, leader and CMO of a Digital Marketing Agency partnered with Salesforce and most recently CMO of Eric Insurance Limited. Through these roles, I have worked with every industry and most of the top organisations and Federal Government departments in Australia. I’ve also been on boards and owned my own franchise. This exposure has given me great insight into all aspects of business and every facet of the customer experience. I draw on it every day to try and make a difference.

I’ve always been passionate about my team members and customers. People are everything and culture drives success. I’m a huge fan of Richard Branson’s and subscribe to his thinking “Build a business that puts its people first. Work with partners who share your same progressive and inclusive values. Focus on delivering a great customer experience, and success will come. Make business a force for good. Stay positive; attitude is everything.”
Consequently, I’ve never found it difficult to deliver successful strategies and strong results for customers and the companies I work for. I’m constantly challenging the status quo and collaborating with other members of the business, leading agencies and vendors to introduce new products, services and ideas, streamlined operations and more customer focused interactions.

I love marketing and the diversity of the channels at our disposal today is awesome. You can reach people in so many different ways and so cost effectively. The key is to constantly test, re-evaluate, seek feedback and critically and unemotionally evaluate results to drive continuous improvement. The challenge is to stay well informed and educated with the constant change around us. I thought I was pretty savvy when I joined Digital Logic, but Salesforce Marketing Cloud training opened up a whole new world for me. I had to park my ego, empty my cup and learn from all the techo experts around me – who we’re all in in their late 20’s, early 30s! In return, I taught them about customers, business and leadership. The net result was we because one of the top 10 SFMC partner agencies globally. From that time, I have committed a minimum of 15-20 minutes per day, just to learning and staying relevant myself. I also love to mentor and support upcoming marketers in their careers.

It has been a wonderful experience to become a part of the AMI family and to have access to my peers, great ongoing training and of course, Lee Tonitto, who is just so supportive. As a marketing leader, internal mentoring is frequently non-existent, so being able to interact with other members, attend events and participate in training is invaluable. AMI is also driving greater respect for marketers and our involvement in leadership teams. I think this is critical. Marketers are usually exceptional strategists, with great customer insight, and this kind of input on boards is vital to the future success of businesses.