Australian Community Media (ACM) has launched its Commercial Strategy Centre of Excellence – a commercial strategy and operations division that is committed to growing partners’ businesses in regional Australia.
The division will be led by Jarrah Petzold, ACM’s chief marketing officer. It will unify the independent publisher’s top commercial strategy executives to drive commercial growth and successful outcomes for partners.
Heading up the division is Maree Neale, who takes on the role of director of commercial strategy, Lisa Levesque, who has taken on the role of deputy director of commercial strategy and Lupe Prada, was promoted to marketing and commercial strategy director, ACM Agri, with Chris Clarke who moves into the role of director of business intelligence role.
Jarrah Petzold
Neale is currently ACM’s Commercial Operations Director, has more than 20 years of experience in commercial leadership and business management across government, agencies, SME and not-for-profit organisations. She has been with ACM for nearly a decade in senior leadership roles, and has also had senior roles at Nine and Fairfax Media.
Levesque has more than 20 years of experience across strategy, communications, media, publishing and advertising in Australia and the UK. She has been with ACM since 2020 as national strategy director. She previously spent more than a decade at Southern Cross Austereo, leading strategy and insights, and as communications director at global media agency, MEC (now Wavemaker), based in the UK.
Prada brings more than 20 years of experience in media strategy, consumer insights and business growth. She has been with ACM since 2023, as commercial strategy lead and most recently, as head of marketing – ACM Agri, working across the business’ agricultural mastheads, marketplaces, joint venture businesses and agri events.
Clarke has been with ACM for nearly a decade, providing coaching and data driven sales training to media sales professionals. He previously oversaw across the Border Mail’s footprint, before moving into an overarching sales director and sales data analysis role. He has been ACM’s head of business improvement for the past 18 months.
The new division comes as ACM aligns its marketing and commercial efforts to support regional audiences and advertisers.
Neale added: “As a country girl at heart, with deep roots in regional Australia, I’m passionate about community connection and regional media. The Commercial Strategy Centre of Excellence will allow ACM to leverage its collective expertise across the whole portfolio. I’m proud to be working with some of the brightest minds in media sales and strategy to help grow our partners’ businesses in regional Australia.”
Petzold said: “Establishing this new team reflects ACM’s commitment to driving growth and transformation of our business. I’m looking forward to working with Maree, Lisa, Lupe, Chris and the broader team, and I have every confidence that this will see us continue to deliver market leading opportunities to connect businesses with regional audiences in 2025.”
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Top image: Maree Neale, Lisa Levesque, Lupe Prada, Chris Clarke