Merkle, dentsu’s customer experience management company, has today announced the key appointment of Simon Doukas into the newly created Chief Experience Officer role.

Doukas’ appointment is a coup for Merkle Australia as the company places itself at the forefront of the rapidly growing customer experience space with its award-winning digital transformation capabilities. In the role, Doukas will lead the Strategy, Design, and Commerce teams.

Doukas is an experience pioneer and was a founding member of PwC’s Experience Consulting practice where he has spent over a decade with the firm in a range of leadership roles. Doukas specialises in helping clients reimagine their business by leveraging experience-led approaches to innovate, grow, and transform their organisation. He has worked across a wide range of industries and companies including Telstra, NAB, Australia Post, BHP, ANZ, Coles, David Jones, Bupa, and AMP.

"I am excited to join the Merkle team at such a significant time. The business has amazing talent and huge potential to scale both locally and globally.”

"In order for businesses to thrive they need to differentiate through meaningful experiences that create value to the customer, the organisation, and society more broadly. Merkle is uniquely positioned in the market to partner with our clients on their growth agenda through our diverse mix of strategic and creative thinking, design and technical expertise, and commercial execution."

In addition, Doukas is also an active Advisory Board member and mentor to a number of high growth, impact-led ventures focused on helping humanity achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
“dentsu's ESG leadership and investment in sustainable innovation is market-leading and personally aligned to my values. It is a privilege to join the company in a leadership role and I look forward to broadening my impact in this space."

Merkle ANZ CEO John Riccio said: “I am excited to have Simon join our growing team. His proven leadership in strategy, innovation, and transformation sets us up to seize the opportunities emerging in the customer experience space post-pandemic. I know Simon has the right skills to take us to the next level as we position ourselves as leaders in this market.”

Doukas will commence the role with Merkle at the end of August 2022.

This appointment follows the earlier announcements of Dr Catherine Lopes as Chief Data & Analytics Officer, John Riccio as CEO, Merkle ANZ and President, Merkle APAC, and Steve Yurisich as Chief Growth Officer, Merkle and forms part of a growing executive team, with further appointments to come.