AXIS Speaks

Dr. Marcus Collins is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator. He is the former chief strategy officer at Wieden+Kennedy, New York, a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the author of the best-selling book, For The Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want To Be.

Marcus is an inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement and a recipient of the Thinkers50 Radar Distinguished Achievement Award for the idea most likely to shape the future of business management. His strategies and creative contributions have led to the launch and success of McDonald’s cultural resurgence, Google’s “Real Tone” technology, the “Made In America” music festival, and the Brooklyn Nets move from New Jersey to New York, among others. 



Before his advertising tenure, Marcus worked on iTunes + Nike sports music initiatives at Apple and ran digital strategy for Beyoncé. He writes a column for Forbes’ CMO Network, and contributes to business scholarship.

Elle Bullen is a part time Creative Partner at Hellions, sometimes copywriter and all-the-time mum.

She's founded two independent advertising agencies, navigated life at the networks, and in 2022 she returned from two rounds of maternity leave and two battles with breast cancer to help steer indie agency Bullfrog to Victorian and Independent Agency of the Year.

Her work has been awarded at every major award show including a Cannes Grand Prix for Good, and in recent years she’s repositioned the Australian F1 Grand Prix, co-created a residency for female founded start-ups and received accolades for Dineamic’s ‘Made Honest’ radio and Epijoint’s ‘Blacksmithery’ campaign.

She brought to life Slurpee BYO Cup Day and Bonds 'BOOBS', and this year was recognised for the fourth time as B&T’s Women in Media Creative of the Year.

Andy is a fearless creator, serial innovator, Amazon US Top 100 author, triple Cannes Grand Prix winner and former World’s Most Highly Awarded Creative Director. While at Meta, he was Executive Producer of the award-winning documentary Losing Lena, which challenged gender bias in algorithms and technology, and which is now held in the Australian film archive. Losing Lena, the campaign, was a finalist in Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas (2021), and won the Webby for Diversity (2021).

He is an Industry Fellow at Media Design School and a sought-after speaker on the subject of Creativity in the era of AI. In 2025, he made not one, but two appearances at SXSW Sydney the first, when he convened, hosted and led a panel titled: ‘There is no algorithm for Creativity’, and second, as a special guest speaker on a panel entitled ‘Creativity that can’t be coded: Standing out in an AI crowd’.

Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Sāmoan descent working and living in Sāmoa. Her work seeks to challenge dominant and singular historical narratives by exploring the intersectionality between identity politics, decolonisation and ecology through mediums including performance, sculpture, photography, film and curation. In 2022, Kihara represented Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale to critical acclaim.

Her work is featured in over 30 permanent collections internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Kihara is an affiliate of Ecological Art Practices – a research cluster led by THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice. Kihara is a co-founder and co-director of Talanoa Arts Forum – a curatorial agency that platform artists across all disciplines from Sāmoa and the Moana Pacific.

Of Samoan and Niuean ancestry, Tau’ili’ili Alpha Maiava (b. 1980, Upolu, Sāmoa) is an ab origine storyteller and business entrepreneur. He is also a music composer, vocalist, and content creator with an emphasis on Tagata Moana Pasifika people’s cultural revival and preservation. Tau’ili’ili is the co-founder and co-director of Talanoa Arts Forum, alongside internationally reknown multidiciplinary artist, Yuki Kihara. Talanoa Arts Forum is a not-for-profit organisation registered and headquartered in Sāmoa.

Tau’ili’ili is also the co-founder of Mahi Moana Inc., a non-government organisation set up to support Tagata Moana Pasifika people composers and creatives in Aotearoa New Zealand. He is also part of the operation team supporting the Pacific General Assembly - an organisation set up in May 2024, made up of Tagata Moana Pasifika people to champion the causes and movements of the Kīngitanga or Māori tribal leadership and Tangata Whenua or Māori as Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand. Tau’ili’ili’s successful docuseries entitled Instruments of the Moana (2024) which focused on the origin narratives of 8 sound producing instruments from Sāmoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Niue, Solomon Islands and Fiji stems from a podcast series entitled Sounds of the Moana (2023) which won Gold in the Music Podcasts category at the 2022 New York Festivals Radio Awards (NYFRA). Tau’ili’ili lives and works in Sāmoa.