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26^th March 2019

Isentia’s second edition of its Leadership Index has revealed two distinct styles of leadership in Australian business – conservatives and disruptors. The report revealed the top 25 CEOs and top five disruptive leaders in Australia, identifying their differing characteristics and the roles they play in modern business.

As well as updating its analysis of CEOs in Australia and New Zealand’s top 150 companies, Isentia explored the characteristics of Australian leadership through the lens of disruption. The top 150 companies were derived from a combined list of the ASX50, the NZX50, the 2018 IBIS World Top 500 companies published by The Australian Financial Review and Deloitte’s Top 200 data in New Zealand.

Isentia’s Chief Insights Officer, Khali Sakkas, says observations around the behaviour and portrayal of disruptive leaders are key in understanding modern businesses.

“Often in business we focus on measuring performance solely with financial metrics. However, this approach fails to recognise the impact of leadership trends and values,” Sakkas says. “We included a study of disruptive figures because in the current business climate, every single industry is seeing disruption, whether from technology developments or heightened customer expectations.

“Assessing disruptive personalities adds another layer of insight into the leadership of Australian business. No single individual featured in both the top 25 CEOs and the top five disruptive leaders. What we’re noticing is two distinct styles of leadership.

“Traditional CEOs are typically required to be risk averse, answering to shareholders and board members. On the other hand, the new generation of disruptors are usually undertaking a potential risk, yet their creativity can have a huge payoff.”

Disruptive leaders

To identify disruptive leaders, Isentia used its extensive media database to search for varying forms of the word “disrupt” in combination with leaders’ names. The most mentioned disruptors were global business leaders with celebrity status including Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Positive characteristics of this group included “ambitious” and “charismatic” while “erratic” and “impulsive” were listed as negative attributes. A significant 46 per cent of coverage regarding these individuals focused on their personal life, wealth and behaviour.

Coverage of Australian disruptors was often focused on business being disrupted, rather than the individual responsible for the change. Personalities were positioned as decisive and innovative leaders, with minimal negative attributes. The number one disruptive leader was Telstra CEO Andy Penn, who has led the telecommunications giant through a pivotal transformative period from mid-2018. With the rollout of the NBN, Telstra has required strong leadership to navigate the substantial changes to its business.

Penn exhibits the three most common traits of a disruptive leader: the ability to provide guidance in the face of circumstances outside of the business’ control, a focus on keeping technology front-of-mind in decision-making, and an aptitude for agile, flexible and forward-thinking ideas.

The top 25 CEOS

Isentia analysed more than 50,000 media items aired or published between 1 October and 31 December 2018 to provide an understanding of Australia and New Zealand’s top 150 companies. As in the first Leadership Index released in November, the CEO profiles and media trends of these businesses were assessed to reveal the top 25 CEOs. The three main factors that were evaluated were public perception, employee approval and financial performance.

Of the 150 companies assessed, the top 50 alone were mentioned in more than 700,000 media items. However, on average, the top CEOs were only present in nine per cent of their company’s coverage. BHP CEO, Andrew Mackenzie, retained his position as the number one leader in the final quarter of 2018.

Looking forward

The Isentia Leadership Index is designed to provide a benchmark to compare leadership profiles over time, highlighting key trends and figures as they shift each year.

“Broadening our report to include a study of disruption has really enriched our understanding of Australian leadership. It will be interesting to see which style of leadership becomes more prevalent in the coming years, as we continue to undertake our Leadership Index. Suggestions for other research topics are always welcome,” Sakkas says.

-ENDS-

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Willis
Howorth Communications
sophie@howorth.com.au 0458 111 948

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As communications professionals look toward 2026 planning sessions, one question dominates the conversation - How can we use AI in a safe, scalable, and sustainable way?

Behind this question often lies the hope for an "AI easy button"—a one-click solution for complex measurement challenges. However, as discussed in our recent APAC webinar, the real opportunity lies not in automating old metrics, but in architecting a smarter era of measurement.

Hosted by Russ Horell, Isentia’s Chief Revenue Officer for APAC, the session featured deep dives from two industry leaders who've contributed immensely to research and planning: Ngaire Crawford (Director of Insights, ANZ) and Prashant Saxena (VP of Research and Insights, SEA). Together, they unpacked the transition from using insights and converting them into strategic, measurable storytelling.

Here are the key takeaways from the discussion.

1. From experimentation to transparency

If 2024 and 2025 were the years of "playing in the sandbox," 2026 is set to be the year of transparency.

Ngaire Crawford emphasized that while AI is incredible at summarising data and recognising patterns, it does not automatically generate insight. As we integrate these tools, the focus must shift to methodological integrity—understanding the source data, the structure, and the limitations of the models we use.

"Models are really good pattern finders. But they don't necessarily set what good looks like, or understand the consequences of being wrong. And the antidote to that is always going to be good design." – Ngaire Crawford

2. "More data, better insight" is the misconception

A major misconception remains that feeding AI endless amounts of data will naturally result in better answers. In reality, without the right framework, more data often just creates more noise.

Prashant Saxena warns against the "sameness" that AI can generate. If everyone uses the same models on the same big data sets without specific objectives, they will get similar, generic answers. The role of the insights professional is evolving from descriptive reporting to strategic storytelling—using judgment to break through the "echo chamber" of AI validation.

3. Kill, keep, create: redefining our metrics

The panelists played a game of "keep, kill, create" to determine the future of measurement metrics.

• Kill: The panel was unanimous in moving away from vanity metrics. Ngaire called for the end of Cumulative Reach, noting it is a biased metric that offers no context. Prashant agreed, suggesting that AVEs (Advertising Value Equivalents) need to be finally left behind.
• Keep: Share of Voice remains useful as a foundational benchmark (a "census" of market presence), provided it is redefined to measure the share of a specific idea or perception rather than just volume
• Create: The future lies in Authenticity Metrics. Prashant argued that while reputation is a downstream outcome, authenticity is the upstream outcome that drives it.

"Authenticity is more upstream, as reputation and trust are more downstream... That's an authentic ritual on a day-to-day basis, which leads to reputation." – Prashant Saxena

4. The "home field advantage" for communicators

Despite the technical buzz surrounding AI, the panel argued that communications professionals hold a distinct advantage. "Prompt engineering" is, at its core, a language and communication skill.

The future doesn't necessarily belong to the most technical users, but to the most articulate—those who can clearly define an outcome, ask the right questions, and deconstruct language to get the best result from a model.

Trust your judgment

As we move into 2026, the advice from our experts is to not let AI replace your strategic point of view.

• Have an opinion: Don't wait for metrics to be imposed on you. Go into conversations knowing what you want to measure and why.
• Pause before you prompt: As Prashant advised, "Paper before a chatbot.". Define your strategy and objectives on paper, using your human experience and judgment, before turning to AI to execute the work.

By combining the speed of AI with the nuance of human strategy, communicators can finally build the sophisticated measurement systems they have always wanted.

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Interested in viewing the whole recording? Watch our webinar here.

Alternatively, contact our team to learn more insights into meaningful measurement, KPIs and communicating using the right dataset.

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The media landscape is accelerating. In an era where influence is ephemeral and every angle demands instant comprehension, PR and communications professionals require more than generic technology—they need intelligence engineered for their specific challenges.

Isentia is proud to introduce Lumina, a groundbreaking suite of intelligent AI tools. Lumina has been trained from the ground up on the complex workflows and realities of modern communications and public affairs. It is explicitly designed to shift professionals from passive media monitoring back into the role of strategic leaders and pacesetters. 

“The PR, Comms and Public Affairs sectors have been experimenting with AI, but most tools have not been built with their real challenges in mind.” said Joanna Arnold, CEO of Pulsar Group. 

“Lumina is different; it is the first intelligence suite designed around how narratives actually form today, combining human credibility signals with machine-level analysis. It helps teams understand how stories evolve, filter out noise and respond with context and confidence to crises and opportunities.”

Setting a new standard for PR intelligence

Lumina is centered on empowering, not replacing, the human element of communications strategy. This suite is purpose-built to help PR, Comms, and Public Affairs professionals significantly improve productivity, enhance message clarity, and facilitate early risk detection.

Lumina enables communicators to:

• Understand & Interpret: Move beyond basic alerts to strategically map the trajectory and spread of narrative evolution.
• Focus & Personalise: Achieve the clarity necessary to execute strategic action before critical moments pass.
• Execute & Monitor: Rapidly deploy strategy firmly rooted in real-time, actionable insight.

Get a demo today: Stories & Perspectives module

We are launching the Lumina suite by making our first module immediately available: Stories & Perspectives.

In the current fragmented, multi-channel media environment, communications professionals need to be able to instantly perceive not just how a story is growing, but also how it is being perceived across different stakeholder groups.

Stories & Perspectives organizes raw media mentions into clustered, cohesive Stories, and the Perspectives that exist within each, reflecting distinct media, audience, and public affairs angles. This unique functionality allows users to:

• Rise above the noise: Instantly identify which high-level topics are gaining momentum or fading from attention.
• Get to the detail, fast: Uncover the influential voices, niche communities, and specific channels actively shaping the narrative.
• Catch the pivot point: Precisely identify the moment a story shifts—from a strategic opportunity to a reputation risk—or when a new key opinion former begins guiding the conversation.

"Media isn’t a stream of mentions," said Kyle Lindsay, Head of Product at Pulsar Group. "But rather a living system of stories shaped by competing perspectives. When you can see those structures clearly, you gain the ability to understand issues as they form, anticipate how they’ll evolve, and act with precision. That’s what we mean when we talk about AI built for communicators, and that's what an off-the-shelf LLM can't give you."

The Lumina Roadmap: AI tools for the future of comms

The launch of Stories & Perspectives is the first release of many. Over the upcoming months, we will systematically roll out the full Lumina roadmap, introducing a comprehensive set of AI tools engineered to handle every phase of the communications lifecycle.

The full Lumina suite will soon incorporate:

• Curated media summaries: AI-driven daily summaries customized specifically to the priorities of senior leadership, highlighting only the most relevant stories.
• Reputation analysis: Advanced measurement tracking how critical themes like ethics, innovation, and leadership are statistically shaping corporate perception.
• Press release & media relations assistant: Tools designed to accelerate content creation and craft hyper-focused, personalized pitches that reach the precise contacts faster.
• Predictive intelligence layer: Technology engineered to track and anticipate story momentum and strategic change before the window of opportunity closes.
• Intelligent agents: Background agents continuously scanning all media channels for emerging key spokespeople and previously undetected reputation risks.
• Enhanced audio, broadcast & crisis detection: Complete, real-time oversight of all channels—including audio and broadcast—enabling rapid context building and optimal crisis response delivery.

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Want to harness the power of Lumina AI for your PR, Comms, or Public Affairs team? .

Complete the form below to register your interest.

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