About | Hearts & Science Australia
What’s the Heart? Science?
We dig deeper into Behaviour
Understanding your customers, what motivates them and their behaviours and journeys. Positioning your brand in all of this to maximise returns. That’s the Heart.
We dig deeper into Data
To be customer centric you need to be where your customers are. To do that effectively you need data. To manage this data you need technology. To decision this data you need insights. That’s the science.
Australia | Our Business, Our People
Hearts & Science was founded in New York in 2016 as a data-driven marketing agency designed from the ground up to rethink legacy media processes. The new approach resulted in client wins exceeding US$4BN in media spend and the agency grew to 800+ people within 12 months. Hearts & Science in Australia enjoyed some early global wins in 2017 and was officially launched in Melbourne and Sydney in 2019 as the third pillar agency of the Omnicom Media Group (OMG), incorporating the existing m2m agency. Hearts & Science Australia services a number of leading Australian and global brands delivering media audiences & insights, media planning, media buying and advisory services alongside SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), MMM (Market Mix Modelling) and Analytics services.
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Jane
Stanley CEOA trailblazer at heart, Jane is in her element as she sets the vision for what the global Hearts & Science mission looks like in Australia and New Zealand. The status quo is meant to be pushed and she is constantly looking to uncover new and daring ways to adapt to consumer behaviour.
As an analyst in her early career, Jane is deeply rooted in the power of data and understands its ability to provide audience insights. With over 15 years of executive experience at digital agencies like PHD and Clemenger Harvie, she has influenced work that has won Cannes Lions awards, Effies and Festival of Media awards across multiple continents. The recent winner of Campaign Asia Women Leading Change Vision, Jane is a talented woman - she even makes a mean gin from scratch!
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Richard
Smith Melbourne Managing DirectorAs a student of psychology, the understanding of consumer and employee motivation remains at the heart of Richard’s work. His mission is to maintain team morale and chemistry in the Melbourne office, and can boast record low churn rates.
He has over 25 years of agency experience working directly with brands like GSK, Suzuki, GE, Burger King, Shell and more at Maxus and m2m. Maxus (Now Wavemaker) was founded by Richard for Group M and has since made the top ten agencies globally. While he’s a music lover who can’t really play an instrument, who needs anything else when there’s karaoke?
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Wendy
Gower Sydney Managing DirectorWendy has been with the Australian Hearts & Science team since day one, building a strong culture and environment for growth. She believes in challenging the status quo to create sustainable business growth for clients and continues to lead by example.
Prior to Hearts, Wendy was Managing Director of m2m Sydney for 5 years and saw the business quadruple in size. With over 20 years of experience across large global agencies, Wendy has worked with brands like Apple, Unilever, Sony Pictures and Hyundai. She’s the mother of three beautiful girls, plays golf and still manages to fit Pilates in at least 3x a week.
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Gerard
Max Melbourne Managing PartnerGerard joined the team in 2020, merging his business Max & Partners into Hearts & Science.
A 25-year media industry veteran, Gerard held senior leadership roles with the Nine Network, Foxtel Media and the Seven Network before starting Max & Partners. His focus is the achievement of his clients’ business objectives through delivery of effective media strategy.
Gerard and his wife Ilana are the proud parents of three sons, and he is co-Chair of Leibler Yavneh College.
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Georgia
Leathart Head of StrategyGeorgia joined the Hearts & Science family in early 2021 and hit the ground running. Since she joined, the strategy division has doubled, and continues to grow as Hearts evolves its strategic offering under her leadership.
With experience ranging from FMCG to luxury fashion, Georgia has a true passion for her clients and absorbs everything she can about their industry, their consumers and the cultural shifts impacting the category. By getting to the heart of every client, she ensures that seemingly disparate trends are readily woven together and transformed into actionable insights and innovative planning outcomes.
Georgia's passion for the power of brands extends not only to delivering great products and services to their customers, but also to making a measurable impact on the planet itself. Despite 20% of all ads featuring animals, as a whole the advertising industry does little to help protect them . Since 2019 Georgia has been actively involved as a volunteer and strategic advisor to The Lion’s Share Fund, an innovate solution connecting the UNDP, conservation and corporate world that allows brands to give back when using animals images in advertising.
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Luke
Hutchinson Chief Investment OfficerLuke leads Investment and trading across Hearts & Science and has done since joining in early 2017. He has held roles across Sydney and London and has experience in major categories including but not limited to, FMCG, banking, automotive and tech. Luke offers market intelligence, commercial insight and driving positive value outcomes for our clients.
Luke is passionate about golf, to the point of obsession! when not on the course he can be found running half marathons and frequenting wine regions around Australia ?
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Ollie
Fifoot Chief Digital OfficerOllie focuses on digital change and transformation for Hearts & Science clients, from media and channel allocation to seeking change in people, technology and processes. With over 15 years’ experience in digital media, data and audience segmentation are Ollie’s passions, while his previous experience as an electronic engineer gives him a unique perspective on how to achieve tangible outcomes for clients.
Global Leadership
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Ralph
Pardo Chief Executive OfficerAs CEO of disruptor media shop Hearts & Science, Ralph brings a wealth of experience building innovative, award-winning marketing strategy for some of the world’s most successful brands.
A future-focused leader, he has made ambidextrous expertise fundamental to the Hearts offer, fueling a capability set that delivers divergent thinking for clients. Central to his leadership style, he encourages clients and teams to look at the media strategies the same way that the tech world looks at software – a process that must be continually updated. A recent Adweek Media All Star, he moves seamlessly throughout his career between the worlds of big business and entrepreneurship.
Ralph was born and raised in New York City as a child of the Puerto Rican diaspora. He is passionate about creating pathways for the next generation of diverse leaders, and can often be found mentoring young minority entrepreneurs and startups in the media space.
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Jeff
Wamble Chief Financial OfficerCrunching numbers and deciphering analytics, Jeff lives and breathes where finance meets creativity. He loves perfecting his craft in an evolving environment like advertising and media and is always analyzing spreadsheets to provide additional value for clients. He wears many hats and gives equal attention to Hearts & Science, its employees and its clients.
Jeff has a firm grounding in finance, starting his career as a senior accountant at the Arthur Andersen accounting firm (now Accenture) before becoming the director of finance at Stillking Films Group. He later made his full foray into the media industry as a finance director at Ogilvy and later at OMD.
Jeff’s diverse work background has enabled him to successfully adapt to different personalities across the agency while still providing support as a business partner. A man of many talents, he also spent six years in the Louisiana Army National Guard and earned his MBA from Columbia University.
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Alex
Siddall Chief Strategy OfficerAlex helps clients keep the emotional connection with consumers strong, even in an ever-growing transactional world. He believes there is true differentiation in how Heart & Science shows up for clients and is at the frontlines of defining strategic products to keep them there. From shaping the value proposition, to winning pitches and expanding the client portfolio, Alex is an invaluable asset on the Hearts & Science team.
With over 15 years of senior leadership experience, Alex directed projects at agencies like Initiative and We are Mobile Ltd to simplify stories, narrow focus, and translate campaigns across touchpoints. This work gave him a deep understanding of the importance of translating insights into actionable media behaviors and his contributions were instrumental to winning Adweek Agency of the Year in 2019.
If he’s not cooking up the next creative strategy for a client, he can be caught compulsively checking the latest property listings or brushing up on his semi-professional soccer skills.
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Dana
Basile Chief of StaffPeople are the engine of Hearts & Science and Dana is at the center of creating the programs, protocols, and processes to keep things humming. She loves to refine processes and thrives in environments where she can coordinate any hint of chaos into new working models for better client and team efficiency.
Dana has a deep understanding of staffing across its lifecycle from her extensive experience working with both teams and clients. From her time as Client Success Director at Kenshoo for clients like AT&T and Hilton, to Executive Director of Client Operations at Hearts & Science, Dana transformed their ecosystems at the intersection of vision and output.
She has deep expertise in employee turnover and its correlation to emotional intelligence from her MBA thesis published with honors. Now she’s ready to build on that experience to enhance the Hearts narrative alongside its CEO. She is intentional about elevating every voice, and that shines even brighter on karaoke night when choosing the perfect song.
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Sharon
Cullen President of Integrated InvestmentWhether it’s making a mean guacamole or streamlining digital and programmatic, Sharon always strives for excellence. She is excited to inspire teams at Hearts & Science to put data at the forefront of their investment decisions and knows that this approach will help build trust with clients.
Sharon has been a key part of the Omnicom Media Group family for the last 25 years. From her early stage career in research and sales for A&E and BBDO to the east coast regional director at OMD, Sharon is ready to help others pivot along with an ever-changing media landscape. She was named Media Buyer of the Year by TVWeek in 2018 and has maintained a curious attitude toward continuously learning in the midst of an evolving industry.
But it’s not just accolades and experience that Sharon has been collecting along her career—she also has a diverse set of Brady Bunch paraphernalia. Ask her about it!
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Ilana
Casser Executive Director, Head of New Business and MarketingInventive at heart, Ilana is always looking to identify new ways to elevate growth at Hearts & Science. She caught the bug for new business early in her career, learning quickly that the hustle, the tension and the thrill of the win is where she wanted to make her mark. Now she is working to bring business development and marketing closer together for greater market impact.
With a breadth of almost 20 years of experience across marketing agencies, Ilana has a clear perspective of the unique advantage Hearts & Science holds in the market. She served as Head of Growth at Initiative and SVP of Integrated Media at 360i. Her work was instrumental in guiding these teams to several engagement and media plan awards with some of the most notable successes to each of those agencies, too.
Her experience as a mother has resulted in a keen perception and ability to juggle competing tasks and never lose her cool. She won “Working Mother of the Year” in 2018 and is not afraid to (out)shine in her 11-year old daughter’s TikTok videos and challenges.
