Game Changer Profile

Mark Drasutis, Head of Innovation at News Corp Australia Read insights

You would think the newspaper industry would be the last place to look for cutting edge innovation strategies. Yet content giant, News Corp, is executing the kind of ideas that match the boldest initiatives in Silicon Valley. Today, Sydney commuters are encountering news through a computer game offered on buses; surfers are finding a new content “stoke” through unique drone video footage of a point break; and junior staffers are fearlessly pitching out-there ideas that reach the C-suite. Just last month – February 2015 – News Corp became the first Australian media company to launch on Snapchat’s new content portal, Discover. This opened a teen market which even newspapers in their heyday struggled to access.

For Mark Drasutis, the company’s head of Innovation, it’s about recombining people with great content and new processes, not paper or distribution – and his job is not, as he puts it, “is trying to put out a fire on a burning oil rig.” Rather than finding the environment limited by declining newspaper revenues, the CIO found three existing factors which accelerated the needed change at News Corp: staff who, as professional journalists, were already curious and experimental by nature; external technology platforms perfectly suited for innovative story-telling; and a brand which 85% of Australia’s population already encountered on a daily basis.

As a former executive at AOL and Yahoo, Drasutis became an established business leader and digital expert with 20 years of media and digital product experience. He is focused on defining and delivering digital leadership and innovative and creative user-centric solutions within market leading, global digital businesses.

Delighting all customers of digital products is a passion Drasutis brings to his teams and organizations. He has continually driven the creative vision and customer focus of his teams. He has implemented innovative and strategic thinking, as well as thought leadership, internally and externally, within all his roles and evolved customer perceptions of the businesses.

This passion and focus is aligned with strong multidisciplinary team leadership, disruptive thinking and action, clear and concise decision-making and communication. All this, alongside an excellent technical understanding across platforms and devices, is why he is seen as a customer and product evangelist.