Investor Centre

James Merritt

James Merritt is a proven business leader with over 20years of experience across both Europe and Asia. Having worked in South Korea and Thailand, as well as overseeing the wider APAC region from India to Japan and New Zealand, James brings a wealth of experience including successful turnarounds in several Asian geographies. James brings with him a strong track record of business building, navigating local legislative changes and delivered global strategic frameworks, while also providing extensive expertise in data science and consumer insights. 

James joins Isentia following over 11 years with Dunnhumby as Managing Director & Board Member APAC. Having led the region, he delivering customer-centric strategies across key partners and suppliers to drive business growth, while also being a Board member to all entities across the region . During his time with Dunnhumby James worked across local and global roles and moved to Asia in 2011 to lead Dunnhumby Korea, later becoming Managing Director for Dunnhumby Thailand & Malaysia. 

Prior to joining Dunnhumby, James held a number of senior marketing roles at Tesco, working across 5 of the 6 core functions within Corporate Marketing, focusing on customer behaviour and the impacts of price, promotions and place. James is a Business and Marketing Graduate of Sheffield Hallam University with a CIM Advanced Diploma.

Jen Marshall

Jen Marshall brings strong leadership and extensive experience from across digital, product and media segments . Jen joins Isentia as Chief Product Officer departing from her position as CEO of Brainmates, a consulting, training and event business focusing solely on the practice of Product Management. During three years at the helm, she helped build the Brainmates business and worked with clients across diverse industries, spanning digital, physical and service products.

Prior to Brainmates, Jen was a Product Director at Fairfax for four years and was also a Category Manager at Optus Digital Media. Jen’s early career was spent leading teams and producing 24/7 news at Sky News in Australia and the United Kingdom. Jen is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors course, she has an Executive MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication in Broadcast Journalism from Charles Sturt University.

Paul Russell

Paul Russell has spent the last 15 years leading technology teams and building consumer and business-facing digital products. His experience spans small start-ups, scale ups, and larger enterprises in fast-moving, high-change businesses; encompassing marketplaces, software as a service, and media.

Most recently he was the CTO of Yahoo7, a joint venture between Yahoo Inc and Seven West Media. Here, he led a technology transformation that delivered a highly productive web delivery platform, while reducing costs and delivering market-leading products. Prior to Yahoo7, he was the Managing Director of SoftwareSeni, a blended onshore/offshore software development business, Executive GM of Technology and Delivery at Salmat Marketing Services, and CIO at Fairfax Digital.

Khali Sakkas

Khali Sakkas directs our Insights service across Australia, New Zealand and Asia. With over 12 years’ experience in communications research, Khali has a deep understanding of our clients and the media intelligence industry. She is passionate about Insights, and has presented at a range of conferences, providing strategic advice on demonstrating success, reputation management and the impact of integration.

Khali holds a Bachelor of Communications from Charles Sturt University, has previously worked as an academic researcher for Monash University and also as a researcher for Indonesia’s national newspaper, Kompas. She is a member of the AMEC Asia Pacific Chapter Leadership team.

Sean Smith

As Chief Commercial Officer, Sean Smith is responsible for the commercial performance and long-term health of Isentia, including overseeing the delivery of services and growth across client and market portfolios.

With over fifteen years’ experience in the media intelligence industry, Sean is a well-respected leader in the industry and has extensive client knowledge across corporate, government and public relations sectors. Having previously held roles as Chief Executive for ANZ and Chief Executive for Media Intelligence at a global level, Sean brings a wealth of experience to further drive sales excellence and share best practices across all markets as CCO.

Prior to working in the media intelligence industry Sean worked for the Australian Sports Commission and Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee (SOCOG). Sean is the current Vice President and Board Member for FIBEP (global association for media intelligence) and has completed Executive Education in International Business Management with Stanford University.

Tom Gerstmyer

Tom Gerstmyer is an Operations Leader with over 18 years of experience in the media industry and a diverse background with roles across sales, business development, supply chain, IT and program management in the US and Australia.

Before joining Isentia he held a number of senior operations roles at Fairfax Media leading large-scale transformation across technology, people, culture, sales, distribution and logistics to deliver multi-million dollar improvements in margins and cost bases. Tom is a former Non-Executive Director of the Audited Media Association of Australia and holds a Bachelor of Arts, Business Administration (Marketing) from Towson University.

Kelly Young

Kelly Young is a senior HR professional with deep experience on the frontline of business transformation and a focus on building performance cultures within companies.

She was most recently People and Culture Director at Bauer Media, where she overhauled employee experience by building leadership and change programs. She was able to create a culture of collaboration through mentoring and people initiatives, while supporting the widespread transformation of the business. Ms Young also held numerous HR roles at Fairfax Media across key brands including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review and digital brand teams. Following the 2013 formation of the Australian Publishing Media – grouping the leading metropolitan and regional products nationally – Ms Young continued to build culture and talent to meet the needs of an ever-changing media business.

Jacquie Shanahan

Jacquie Shanahan joined the group in August 2015 and brings many years of company secretarial, corporate governance and commercial law experience to the group. She has had company secretarial and legal roles with subsidiaries of United Parcel Service of America, ASX listed Roc Oil Company Limited and RGA Reinsurance Company of Australia Limited (continuing). In addition to these roles,

Jacquie has been involved in the regulation of corporate governance reporting at the ASX and was a senior associate in corporate commercial practice at Corrs Chambers Westgarth. Jacquie holds Bachelor of Arts and Laws for the University of Queensland and is a member of the Law Society of New South Wales and the Association of Corporate Counsel Australia.

Fiona Pak-Poy

Fiona was appointed to the Board in May 2014 as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Fiona is also Chair of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Fiona brings significant experience gained particularly with technology companies. She is currently a non executive director of The Sydney School of Entrepreneurship. Fiona is a member of ASIC’s Director Advisory Panel and The Sydney School of Entrepreneurship. Previously, she was a member of the board of MYOB Group Limited, the Securities Industry Research Centre of South East Asia (SIRCA),  StatePlus, the Federal Government’s National Precincts Board and Innovation Australia Board where she Chaired or was a member of a number of the innovation committees.

Fiona was a General Partner of an Australian venture capital fund that invested in Australian technology companies. She also served as a Councillor of the Australian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (AVCAL). Prior to this, Fiona co-founded a catalogue and e-commerce business, was a strategy consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, an R&D engineer at Stratco and worked with consulting engineering firm Pak-Poy and Kneebone.

Fiona received an Honours Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Adelaide and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Abigail Cheadle

Abigail Cheadle was appointed to the Board in January 2019 as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Abigail is also Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Abigail is a Chartered Accountant with twenty-five years’ experience gained in Australia, Russia, Asia and the Middle East.  She has held senior management positions in major accounting and risk management firms including Kroll, KordaMentha, Deloitte and Ernst & Young.  Abigail has had an international executive career establishing, building, managing, acquiring, merging, investigating, restructuring and recapitalizing businesses, particularly in the finance, services and technology sectors.

Abigail is currently a non-executive director and chair of the Audit, Risk & Compliance Committee (ARCC) of Qantm Intellectual Property Ltd (ASX: QIP) and previously served as a non-executive director and ARCC Chair of SurfStitch Group Ltd.  She holds a Bachelor of Business from Queensland University of Technology.

Travyn Rhall

Travyn Rhall was appointed to the Board in July 2018 as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Travyn is also a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Travyn has over 30 years experience as a Consumer Insights and Analytics executive based in Sydney, New York and London. Mr Rhall was Global CEO from January 2016 to December 2017 of Kantar Insights, a division of Kantar, the data investment management arm of WPP plc, an FTSE100 integrated media, marketing and communications group. As Global CEO, Mr Rhall was responsible for WPP/Kantar’s portfolio of leading Consumer Insights brands which included Millward Brown, TNS, IMRB (an Indian Insights business), Kantar Japan and Lightspeed (an online and mobile survey research provider). These businesses had combined revenue of US$2.5 billion and over 15,000 employees. From 2006 to 2013, Mr Rhall was Regional CEO of Millward Brown for Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific and then Global CEO from 2013 to 2015.

During this period, Mr Rhall executed strategies that resulted in exceptional growth especially in China and South East Asia, and the successful integration of a number of acquisitions in Analytics, Consulting and Digital Advertising Effectiveness. He also led the analytics practice globally within Millward Brown. From 1998 to 2006, Mr Rhall held various roles at AC Nielsen in New York and Sydney including Managing Director of Asia Pacific. Prior to his roles at ACNielsen, Mr Rhall held senior executive roles at Roy Morgan Research and the Australian Bureau of Statistics where he was Director of Statistical Methods. Mr Rhall is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Market and Social Research Society of Australia. He has a B.A. (Hons) in Statistics from Macquarie University and Graduate Diploma in Economics from the Australian National University (ANU).

Justin Kane

Justin Kane was appointed to the Board in July 2018 as a Non-Executive Director. Justin is also a member of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee.

Justin is Director of Research and a Founding Partner of Gilead Capital LP, an investment management firm located in New York. Gilead Capital is Isentia’s largest shareholder and currently owns 15.4% of issued capital. Justin has extensive experience in the investment management and technology industries.

Jeffrey Strong

Jeffrey Strong is the Chief Investment Officer, Managing Partner and a Founding Partner of Gilead Capital LP. He has a long career in investment management and broad experience as a director on company boards across Europe and North America. Jeffrey is a Director of MCS Holdings Ltd and was previously a Director of Landauer Inc, TPC Group and Treveria plc.