The Battle of Big Thinking 2018

Tea Uglow works for Google’s Creative Lab in Sydney.  She works on a range of projects with cultural organisations and practitioners to enable artists, writers and performers to use digital tools to amplify or augment their artistic, theatrical or musical practice.

By experimenting with digital tools at the creative core of culture the aim is to transform existing cultural practice without losing the tradition, values and intangible qualities that make the arts so valuable.

Tea explores new models for interaction with the invisible information all around us. This is often described as ‘beyond screen’: options that are not screens in our hand, or in our lap, or on our face. As a team we look to augment our daily physical reality with digital content, ideally cultural content.

The Creative Lab is a global team of creators, developers and film-makers who examine the technology that surrounds us and explore the potential of digital tools to make the world a better and more enjoyable place.  It was founded in 2008 by Andy Berndt who runs the main Creative Lab in Google New York.

Brent Smart is the first ever Chief Marketing Officer of IAG, Australia’s largest insurance company with leading brands including NRMA, CGU and SGIO. Brent leads group-wide marketing efforts, responsible for brand strategy and marketing operations.

Previously Brent spent 20 years in the advertising business. He was CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi New York working on iconic American brands like Cheerios, Tide and Walmart. He spent 7 years with BBDO, running their San Francisco office and the creatively revered Colenso BBDO in New Zealand. Brent has led a body of highly awarded creative work, recognized with over 25 Cannes Lions and over 40 Effies.

Brent has returned home to Australia from New York City with his wife and three young boys who have American accents and can’t kick a drop punt.

Gaia Grant is the Managing Director of Tirian International Consulting, and a lecturer and doctoral researcher at the University of Sydney Business School in the discipline of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Gaia is the author and co-author of a number of books including the breakthrough new book The Innovation Race: How to change a culture to change the game, along with international bestseller Who Killed Creativity?... And How Can We Get it Back?.

Through her company Gaia has been involved in helping to create a culture of innovation at top businesses worldwide, including: introducing future-solutions thinking at Google’s headquarters (US); designing a workshop on sustainable solutions for emerging markets at Nestlé (Switzerland); and preparing teams for the future at the Four Seasons Hotels (Canada). She also worked on a number of development projects, including assisting with a government funded organisation that designs innovative agricultural solutions for impoverished communities in Indonesia. Gaia has authored more than 30 corporate educational resources used by Fortune 500 companies and sold under license globally.

Justin leads strategy across the M&C Saatchi Group. Since joining the agency he has been responsible for new business wins on IAG, Lexus, Woolworths, eBay and Jack Daniels; driving 40% growth. He has led major brand transformation projects for NRMA, CommBank, Optus and Woolworths

Prior to joining M&C Saatchi Justin was CSO at Droga5, and BBDO Global Planning Director in NY, where he led integrated strategy for Procter & Gamble and Diageo. Justin has previously worked on News, Google, HBO, Qantas and P&G.

In 2013, Boss Magazine named Justin one of its six Young Executives of the Year, the only ad industry representative in the exclusive group and has been awarded Strategist of the Year by Campaign Asia in 2014-2017.

Dr. Paul Brown is a senior lecturer in creative intelligence in the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, and UTS Business School, at the University of Technology.

Paul has been part of the teaching and development teams for a range of subjects and courses which have been recognised as breaking new ground, including the award winning Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation.

Paul’s research specialisation is in production economics and sustainability, and he has a number of projects that focus on how different innovations are adopted and diffused through the economy.

One of Paul’s favourite pastimes is working with students and industry partners to walk the difficult line between divergent (creative) and convergent (analytical) modes of working, as they try to solve some of society’s most challenging problems.

Harriet Johnston works at Uber Eats in the Brand & Campaigns team. 

She joined the business in mid-2015 only a few weeks after launch in Sydney.  Prior to working at Uber, Harriet worked as a corporate merger & acquisition lawyer.