James Koefoed is the Digital Strategy Leader at one of the public broadcasters in Australia, SBS. Since he started the role 18 months ago, he has only been to the SBS office five times. The remainder of the time has led his team of 5 members from his home office. His role is split between performance marketing and optimising the marketing budget and thought leadership and innovation for the SBS digital strategy.
More broadly, James has been a career marketeer, conversion rate optimiser. He has worked at Fuji Xerox, in agencies, Disney and the Australian public broadcaster, ABC.
He has worked as a marketing lead, sales, producer and freelancer.
The rise of digital marketing as a driving force has been significant during his career, but the overarching fundamental of marketing remains the same. Digital marketing has allowed campaigns and marketing efforts to be measured.
The underlying passion for James has been delivering results. He loves coming up with business cases and scenarios and measuring the results. He expects marketing will make a material impact on the business and works to demonstrate this, so the perceived value of marketing is elevated in the organisation.
SBS has one of the best cultures in Australia. It’s the best culture that James has worked in. The charter at SBS is based on Diversity, Inclusion and Equity. The charter forms the impetus for the culture. SBS is one of the few services in Australia that provides a broad range of services for the migrant and Indigenous communities in Australia. James's boss is on the multicultural committee. Diversity and Inclusion are about caring about people and their well being.
The most significant change for leaders has been working and collaborating with the whole person and just the employee. It takes more time and requires more listening to ensure that proper work-life balance is achieved and the mental health of team members is optimised. Many team members feel under pressure to complete projects on time and to a specific requirement. James tries to alleviate the pressure by focusing on the outputs and setting realistic schedules. As much as possible, he gives his team permission to start and finish the project when they want as long as the output is to the required standard.
The second aspect of Jame’s leadership is the rapidly changing technology around digital marketing. Intimate knowledge is required for marketers. His philosophy is to lead from the form and make sure his whole team is up to date with the required skills and processes. It’s a never-ending professional development process.
Advice for young professionals starts with making sure you have a passion for marketing. Don’t worry about titles or compensation. Challenge yourself on why you want to go down the marketing career path. If you are sure, go in and test through an experience. University degrees in marketing have little correlation with the actual marketing roles available.
