Mari Kauppinen is a highly accomplished business and marketing leader with more than 25 years’ experience operating at both strategic and operational levels across B2B and B2C environments. Her career spans international markets including Australia, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with deep expertise in driving growth through engagement led marketing solutions.
Mari is recognised for her ability to translate complex business challenges into innovative marketing and engagement strategies that inspire human behaviour and deliver measurable commercial outcomes. She thrives in client centric environments where traditional marketing models fall short, and where motivation, recognition and experience led solutions play a critical role in driving performance.
As Managing Director, ITA Group ANZ, Mari leads the Australian and New Zealand business in delivering end to end incentive marketing, reward, recognition, loyalty and travel and event solutions. She is strongly aligned to ITA Group’s mission to inspire extraordinary effort by strengthening emotional connections between organisations and their customers, partners and employees. Prior to ITA Group, Mari was the founding Managing Director of The Marketing Practice, a B2B marketing agency in APAC, and before that spend over 20 years in various marketing leadership roles in IBM.
Under her leadership at ITA Group, the focus is on helping clients increase sales performance, channel effectiveness, customer loyalty and employee engagement through strategically designed incentive programs and unforgettable travel experiences. This is achieved by integrating insight, strategy, creativity, data, technology. AI and reward platforms to deliver personalised, scalable and results driven solutions that create real behavioural change and ROI.
Mari is passionate about continuous transformation — from adopting new ways of working such as Agile and collaborative partnerships, to building high performing teams and strong ecosystems across creative, AI and technology, travel and fulfilment partners. Her leadership style reflects ITA Group’s people first culture, with a strong emphasis on insight led program design, seamless execution and exceptional client experience.
Known for her coaching led and inclusive leadership style, Mari is deeply committed to developing the next generation of marketing and industry leaders. In recognition of this commitment, she was awarded B&T Mentor of the Year in 2022 and appointed to the B2B Marketing Leaders Hall of Fame for Progress in 2025. She actively contributes to the industry as an advisor, panellist, public speaker and awards judge, sharing her perspective on engagement, leadership and the evolving role of marketing in driving business outcomes.
Mari holds a Master of Science in Marketing (Helsinki School of Economics, Finland), a Master of Communications (Public Relations) from the University of Technology Sydney and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Outside of work, Mari enjoys going to the gym, practising yoga and pilates, travelling, spending time in the snow and hanging out with her husband, two grown up daughters and their boxer dog, King. She is known for occasional party singing, making yummy soups — and usually being the only Finn in the room.
