The Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) has appointed veteran marketer David Morgan as the new chair of its advisory board, ushering in a leadership shift as the industry body doubles down on upskilling marketers and navigating regulatory change.
Morgan – who has served on ADMA’s board since 2021 – brings over 35 years of global experience, including senior marketing roles at Samsung, Citibank, Procter & Gamble and Nestlé, and a stint as global CMO of Standard Chartered Bank. He is also the founder of consultancy MacMorgan and an educator who has trained over 10,000 marketers worldwide.
He succeeds Steve Brennen, co-founder and CEO of Archie, who is stepping aside after a decade as chair to become ADMA’s vice chair. On his appointment, Morgan paid tribute to his predecessor’s legacy of navigating “ever-changing challenges and opportunities” – from CEO transitions and a merger with the Australian Computer Society (ACS) to the upheavals of COVID and the rise of AI.
“Steve has led the industry capabilities and compliance, setting us all up for success,” Morgan said. “I’m privileged to accept the challenge of the high bar Steve has set, and excited to accelerate ADMA’s strategies for success.”
As the new chair, Morgan signalled his strategic priorities will bolster ADMA’s current direction rather than reinvent it. “We’re not inventing new strategy – we’re doubling down on the current strategies, which is regulation and capability, and we’re going to… drive them hard,” he said at a media roundtable in Sydney.
Morgan’s focus is twofold: helping marketers lead data-driven growth while ensuring they master the “pitfalls of regulation” – such as privacy, data protection and trust – that come with it. At the same time, he plans to amplify ADMA’s push on marketing skills development.
“We’ve got a fantastic tool in the Capability Compass… There’s nothing that exists [globally] to the calibre and quality of what we have,” he said, noting Australia is “punching above its weight” in setting world-class standards for marketing talent.
Capability Compass, is a skills assessment tool developed with top CMOs to identify marketing skills gaps across 13 core competencies. The initiative was born from the recognition of a “capability crisis” in the field, and Brennen has been a driving force behind its development and rollout.
Ultimately, Morgan argues, these efforts serve a bigger mission of cementing marketing’s role in business: “Marketing is integral – it’s the central function of business success… As marketing is integral to business success, ADMA is integral to marketing success, because we are the first and best leaders in how to build capability and… in regulation.”
ADMA chair, David Morgan.
Brennen’s decade: guiding marketers through disruption
Morgan’s appointment marks the end of an era for Brennen, who has chaired ADMA’s Advisory Board since 2014. In that time, heoversaw a transformative decade for Australian marketing – one he describes as an “enormous” change with “every marketer facing unprecedented disruption”.
Speaking about his tenure, Brennen said it was “a genuine honour to have been entrusted with the job of helping guide the industry through challenges like COVID, sweeping regulatory reform and rapid digitisation”.
He led ADMA’s evolution from a traditional direct marketing association into a data-driven marketing authority, reflecting how data became “the new currency” for the industry over the last decade.
A key achievement of Brennen’s chairmanship was bolstering ADMA’s voice in policy and compliance. “We saw a lot of regulatory reform… and I think ADMA played a critical role navigating through,” he said. The association worked closely with government on major privacy law updates and helped marketers stay on top of new compliance obligations.
After a long run at the helm, Brennen said he feels ADMA is “in a good place” and that now “it’s about making it happen” – which is why he will remain involved as Vice Chair to support Morgan and ADMA CEO Andrea Martens in the next phase.
Capability and compliance at the forefront
With Morgan and Brennen working in tandem, ADMA is doubling down on two pillars it sees as critical for marketers today: capability and compliance. ADMA CEO Andrea Martens noted that these focus areas “have never been more important” amid an environment of rising complexity.
On the compliance side, Martens observed that marketers are being directly impacted by an onslaught of new regulations and ethical expectations around data.
“We are entering one of the most significant periods of reform the industry has seen,” she said, pointing to the first phase of Australia’s Privacy Act reforms landing this year and growing scrutiny of ethical AI and data use.
“Marketers are now operating in a completely different risk environment than they were 12–18 months ago. Marketers are no longer adjacent to compliance; we are very, very much at the centre of it.”
That shift has spurred ADMA to ramp up its advocacy and guidance. Martens explained that ADMA has been actively engaging with regulators through roundtables, formal submissions, and sharing member insights.
“We’ve built training around privacy, consent, cookies, AI and dark patterns that the industry is lapping up because it’s written… in a way that makes it simple and clear and they can actually apply it in their day-to-day roles,” she said.
Equally urgent is the marketing capability gap. Martens highlighted recent research that revealed a startling deficit in fundamental skills – only 32% of marketers could name the four Ps of marketing, and just 16% could calculate Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
“It was these sorts of insights that really led us to develop the Capability Compass,” she said. The tool spans 13 core capabilities and 65 specific marketing skills – from insight and strategy through to execution – and delivers a data-driven benchmark of where teams excel and where they are exposed.
Co-developed with top CMOs and supported by Mark Ritson, the Compass is designed to be practical and includes 65 skill-specific toolkits following a 70/20/10 learning model: 70% on-the-job, 20% mentoring, and 10% formal training.
ADMA is now rolling out the Compass across its member base and beyond. Martens said international interest is growing, and global organisations have already begun adopting it. Later this year, ADMA will publish a “state of the nation” report benchmarking Australia’s marketing capabilities across the 65 skills.
“Staying relevant isn’t an option – it’s absolutely fundamental,” Martens said.
Marketers rise to the challenge
Despite the fast-evolving and sometimes daunting landscape, ADMA’s leadership remains optimistic about marketing’s future. Brennen described it as both “the most challenging… and the most exciting” time to be a marketer.
“I think it’s one of the most fun jobs in the world… You have to be on the edge, you have to be learning all the time,” he said.
Martens agreed: “It’s like this complex Rubik’s cube… And when you unlock it, the magic that creates for a business and for the teams is immense.”
With Morgan now at the helm and Brennen still engaged, ADMA is entering its next chapter with a clear mission: to equip Australia’s marketers with the capability, confidence and compliance know-how to thrive in a landscape of constant disruption.