Mari is an accomplished senior Marketing and Communications leader with over 25+ years of experience at both strategic and operational levels in a wide range of marketing and PR roles in B2B and B2C industries across markets in Australia, Asia pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Her expertise lies in translating business challenges and opportunities into innovative and transformational marketing and communications strategies and plans that deliver sustainable business outcomes in a client centric world where old ways of working no longer apply.
Currently Head of Marketing, Digital, Demand Generation and Channel for IBM Australia/New Zealand, Mari is passionate about ongoing marketing transformation, client value and business growth. This involves finding new ways of doing things from new mind sets (such as working in an Agile way) to data, analytics and technology to organisational capability and leadership, agency partnerships and ecosystem development to enlighten clients with innovative “end to end” marketing campaigns that drive personalisation at scale and deliver measurable outcomes and ROI.
Known for her coaching and collaborative leadership style, Mari has a deep passion for mentoring the next generation of leaders through reverse, individual and group mentoring. She is involved in mentoring programs within IBM as well as externally with the Sydney Marketing Society, Sydney University and the Marketing Academy. She is a current Advisory Board Member, a keen panelist and a public speaker as well as an active Marketing Industry awards judge in Australia.
Mari holds a Master of Science – Marketing (Helsinki School of Economics, Finland) and Master of Communications – Public Relations (UTS, Sydney) as well as a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Outside work, Mari enjoys going to the gym, practising yoga, going to the snow and hanging out with her husband and two daughters and a boxer puppy called King. She is known for occasional party singing, making mean soups and usually being the only Finn in the crowd.
