Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder and chief executive of the world’s largest marketing communications group WPP, will be a keynote speaker via video conference at this year’s Future Forum, hosted by The Newspaper Works. Raju Narisetti, senior vice president, Strategy for News Corp (US), has also been confirmed as a speaker.
Themed ‘Influencing a connected world’, the two-day event will be held on September 10 and 11 at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. Sir Martin and Narisetti will speak at the plenary session on September 11, while the Newspaper of the Year Awards will be held that evening, at the conclusion of the forum.
The annual conference convenes newspaper media executives from across Asia-Pacific with more than 600 delegates in attendance at last year’s series of events.
Sir Martin founded WPP in 1985 and the group now employs more than 188,000 people in 111 countries. Its key companies include MEC, Group M, J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, Y&R and Mindshare. In 2014, WPP had billings of £46.2 billion and revenues of £11.5 billion.
In a recent interview at the Cannes International Advertising Festival with The Australian, Sir Martin said that newspapers were more engaging for their readers.
“It maybe that old-style felling trees and distributing newspapers and magazines is more effective than we think. There’s certainly data in the UK, Canada and Australia that demonstrates consumer engagement with newspapers is better than we think. The average person who reads The Times of London newspaper spends 40 minutes … newspapers readers are so much more engaged (and) it may be that we’re under evaluating,” he said.
At News Corp, Narisetti’s role sees him primarily involved with new ventures and acquisitions that drive digital growth. He was previously managing editor of Washington Post Co and was founder/editor of India’s Mint newspaper. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007.
“We have attracted a world-class speaker line-up at the Future Forum this year, which is testament to the influential role news media continues to play in the advertising and communications industry and society in general, and will see the Future Forum once again be the preeminent news media industry conference in the Asia Pacific region,” The Newspaper Works CEO Mark Hollands said.
Further international and Asia Pacific speakers will be announced soon and will include leaders from iconic media brands discussing strategy, design, mobile, sales operations and much more.
The Future Forum will feature three workshops, including master classes for editorial, advertising and marketing, and print and production, plus a full-day plenary and separate gala events for the Advertising & Marketing and The Newspaper of the Year Awards. This year’s Future Forum is once again sponsored by Norske Skog.
Future Forum is a free event for members of The Newspaper Works. To register, visit the event site here. Non-members wishing to attend should contact kyliehannah@thenewspaperworks.com.au.