Mi3 is delighted to formally launch the CMO Awards, a next-generation recognition program celebrating Australia’s most progressive and effective CMOs and marketing leaders as the champions of business growth.

A year in the making, the CMO Awards annual recognition program, powered by Mi3, celebrates those leading the marketing function who are displaying innovative, strategic 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.

Three major strategic partners have teamed up with Mi3 for our first-year program. Adobe is building on its support for the Australian marketing leadership community demonstrated through a seven-year-long association with the former CMO50 program by coming on-board as Platinum Partner of the CMO Awards 2025.

The CMO Awards also has two very special Gold Partners: Agency giant, Publicis Groupe, which also takes on the naming rights for the inaugural Growth Initiative of the Year Award; and News Corp Australia, one of the country’s largest and most significant media groups.

The inaugural CMO Awards program kicked off with a special launch event in Sydney yesterday attended by more than 50 of Australia’s leading marketing chiefs, former CMO50 alumni and business executives. Special guests on stage included Uber Marketing Director APAC, Andy Morley, Guzman y Gomez global CMO, Lara Thom, and non-executive director and UN Women chairperson, Georgina Williams, who discussed the macro-economic conditions and where the focus must lie as marketing leaders, as well as how they’re building perceptions of marketing as business leaders.

Categories and nominations process

Nominations for the first CMO Awards program will open on 29 January 2025 and utilise a submission-based process. All categories will be vetted by a stellar judging panel including some of the nation’s most successful former marketing, agency and media leaders who have since diversified their careers into business leadership, executive consulting, board directorships, startup investment and recruitment.

Winners will be revealed at the CMO Awards Gala Dinner event in Sydney on Wednesday 7 May 2025.

In our inaugural year, categories will cover:

• Chief Marketing Officers of the Year: A list of finalists, broken into two groups: CMOs of SMBs (of up to 199 employees) + CMOs of larger organisations (200+ employees). Judges will then select from both cohorts to make up the final top 25 list. The structure of identifying smaller and larger organisation-sized CMOs allows us to recognise a ‘CMO’ of the year in each company size, along with a top 25 CMOs across the group.
• First-time CMO of the Year: Defined as a CMO who has been in a marketing leadership position for less than two years, this category is to celebrate those demonstrating the right behaviours, capabilities and attitude who are still building the tenure of role that enables them to achieve meaningful strategic delivery.
• Best Growth Initiative of the Year – brought to you by Publicis Groupe: This specialist award creates a category that elevates the CMO’s full team while also recognising leadership excellence pertaining to a growth agenda. This award category is open to CMOs or growth program leaders across marketing, customer and business functions.

Alongside the official launch of the program this week, Mi3 has revealed the first tranche of judges for the CMO Awards. Joining the judging panel are luminaries of the industry including:

• John Batistich, non-executive director, startup advisor
• Andrew ‘Billy’ Baxter, former Ogilvy chief, non-executive director, chair, adjunct professor, Uni of Sydney and founder, 24hr Business Plan
• Susan Massasso, former chief marketing and brand officer, The A2 Milk Company; non-executive director
• Michele Philips, former CMO, business leader, partner at 100 Percent Partners
• Michael Rebelo, CEO, Publicis Groupe
• Georgina Williams, non-executive director, former financial services marketing leader
• Mike Zeederberg, MD, Zuni; ADMA trainer and university lecturer

More judges will be announced in the coming months.

In complement to the formal CMO Awards annual program, Mi3 will be creating a new slate of editorial products to further support excellence and elevation of the CMO role in business, as well as to foster peer-to-peer connection and community. These include a new limited edition CMO Awards podcast series, available via the Mi3 distribution network, and a two-part special report.

“Having spent eight years building the former CMO50 program between 2015 and 2022, I experienced first-hand the power such a program can play in crystallising the craft of marketing and CMO’s role in delivering business growth and value,” said Mi3 Associate Publisher, Editor of Marketing and CMO Program Manager, Nadia Cameron. “More than just recognising those who hold a CMO role, the focus of the former CMO50 was to reward those marketing leaders and teams being brave, bold and striving for effectiveness using the modern tools and accoutrements of this constantly evolving profession. It was also a much-loved mechanism for connecting this dynamic community together.

“More than ever, we need a credible, prestigious program with integrity at its core to help support and elevate marketing to the stature it deserves in today’s organisations. With the CMO Awards and our complementary program of editorial and initiatives, our ambition at Mi3 is to give current and emerging marketing leaders exactly this.”

Initial information and a timeline for the inaugural CMO Awards can be found at: https://cmoawards.com.au/