Louise Cummins, the former CMO of World Vision Australia, doesn’t shy away from making bold decisions.

For her, marketing isn’t just about hitting short-term targets, it’s about creating something that lasts. One of the most significant calls she made as CMO was shifting a company’s focus from immediate performance wins to long-term brand building. It wasn’t easy, but for Cummins, it was necessary to establish a foundation for sustainable growth.

With a degree in Applied Mathematics, Cummins approaches marketing with a unique blend of data-driven insight and creative vision. “Data first,” she says, “to uncover the insights, then unleash creativity to make it unforgettable.” For her, the best marketing is about striking the perfect balance between “brain, heart, and commercial impact.”

Her leadership style? Bold, insightful, and deeply human. And when it comes to what modern marketers need, she’s clear: adaptability. “The ones who thrive aren’t just reacting fast; they’re rewiring how they think, learn, and lead in real time,” she notes, always ahead of the curve in how she shapes her teams and strategies.

Effective marketing strategy 

As World Vision Australia’s CMO, Cummins faced a significant challenge, addressing a decline in brand awareness that had plagued the organisation for over seven years. 

“Between 2015 and 2022, World Vision Australia faced challenges due to inadequate brand investment. Tasked by the CEO to reverse this trend, I collaborated closely with the CFO to develop a robust band investment and ROI model, establishing a sustainable investment structure to support growth.”

To overhaul the marketing strategy, Cummins recruited a new head of brand, built a world-class in-house agency, and secured engagement from the executive leadership team (ELT), CEO, and board on the new brand direction. 

“We launched a new brand reset campaign titled ‘This Means the World,’ which achieved strong staff engagement,” she shares. The new campaign, paired with an enhanced social media strategy, helped the organisation see a significant turnaround.

“We arrested the decline and saw consistent year-over-year growth,” Cummins says. The revamped strategy also saw social media success, including the addition of over one million followers across all platforms and a new TikTok strategy that gained over 200,000 followers within just two months.

A major part of the strategy overhaul was repositioning World Vision’s brand. Cummins explains the key to revitalising the brand was understanding its relevance to Australians. The shift wasn’t just about aesthetic changes, but about connecting the organisation’s mission with the hearts and minds of its supporters.

In addition to the brand campaign, Cummins implemented a complete digital transformation. “When I joined World Vision Australia, I identified a critical gap in digital capabilities, with only two team members connected to digital initiatives. Recognising the need for a full digital transformation, I led initiatives to modernise our marketing and supporter experience [and take the board, exec, and marketing team on the journey].” 

One of the key milestones in this transformation was the implementation of a new CRM system, the creation of a new digital strategy and optimisation team, and the launch of a new customer-first website. Additionally, she led the team through the introduction of a new customer portal and new Child Sponsorship app, enhancing engagement, conversion, NPS and retention. 

“These improvements provided better data insights, allowing us to optimise supporter journeys more effectively.” 

These initiatives didn’t go unnoticed in the industry. Cummins and her team received accolades including: Fundraising Institute Australia 2025 Winner (State) and National Finalist for Best Supporter Experience; AGDA Awards 2024 - Finalist for Redesigned Digital experience; and the Good Design Awards 2024 - Winner for Digital Design.

Building on this success, in 2024, she identified the need to integrate AI to further enhance efficiency. After completing herself, she put key memes of the leadership team through the RMIT AI in Marketing course - and later implemented department-wide AI training. She later set up an AI Champion Group and began rolling out AI-driven pilots to optimise marketing performance, setting the foundation for continuous innovation. 

“This transformation not only modernised our marketing approach, but also embedded a data-driven, customer-first, and AI-enabled culture, driving long-term growth and support engagement.” 

Discerning decision making 

One of the most significant strategic trade-offs Cummins made as CMO at World Vision Australia was reallocating investment from a performance marketing-heavy approach back into  brand building. “Over time, the organisation had become overly reliant on direct response campaigns, neglecting long-term brand equity,” she explains.

To shift this mindset, Cummins knew she needed to take a data-driven and research-backed approach. “I conducted extensive research on global best practices, incorporating insights from Mark Ritson’s brand-building frameworks,” she shares. Armed with this knowledge, she partnered closely with the CFO to make the case for brand investment, aligning both the executive leadership team and the board with her vision.

The challenge wasn’t just about convincing leadership but also managing the short-term sacrifices that would be necessary to build a stronger, more sustainable brand. “This required making tough calls, cutting smaller, low-impact initiatives to fund a more robust brand strategy,” she admits. “We also developed clear brand metrics and improved our reporting framework to better track conversion, retention, and overall ROI.” 

Working with finance, Cummins and her team also introduced quarterly campaign reviews, strengthening alignment between marketing spend and business outcomes. 

“By balancing brand and performance marketing, we created a more sustainable growth model, driving stronger engagement and long-term retention while ensuring financial accountability and strategic impact, resulting in 10-year revenue highs.” 

Business influence 

As a member of the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), Cummins has played a pivotal role in shaping the organisation’s strategic direction. One of her key contributions was retiring the previous five-year Strategic Priorities framework and leading the development of a new, more focused five-year organisational strategy.

“This work ensured greater clarity, alignment, and impact across the organisation,” she says, underscoring the importance of strategic coherence in driving long-term success.

Certainly, her influence extends far beyond Australia. Cummins is also a member of the Global Marketing Leadership Council (RDLC), where she has had a significant impact on shaping World Vision’s global marketing strategy. “My involvement in these strategic processes led to improved alignment between local and global priorities,” she notes, which in turn strengthened brand consistency and operational effectiveness worldwide.

One of the most tangible outcomes of this clearer strategic framework was a transformation in the organisation's emergency response capability. “Previously, emergency response and fundraising campaigns took weeks to activate,” she says. 

Through optimising workflows, embedding agile processes, and enhancing cross-functional collaboration, World Vision significantly reduced response times in critical situations. When the war in Ukraine began, World Vision’s response was activated within two days, raising $3 million in Australia alone. Similarly, following the Türkiye and Syria earthquakes, the team mobilised fundraising efforts aligned with field response plans in less than six hours, raising $1 million in Australia alone. 

These quick responses were the result of seamless collaboration between marketing, communications, and field teams, ensuring that media coverage, donor engagement, and fundraising efforts were all efficiently coordinated.

“By driving a strategically aligned, agile, and impact-driven approach, I influenced initiatives well beyond marketing,” Cummins says. “It enhanced World Vision’s ability to deliver critical support when it mattered most.”

Beyond marketing, Cummins also served as the Executive Sponsor for World Vision’s Climate (FMNR) initiatives, driving awareness and funding efforts to regreen communities. Her leadership helped secure high-profile exposure, including a TEDx appearance. Additionally, she played an instrumental role as the Executive Sponsor for the Australian First Nations Peoples (AFNP) programs, supporting the growth of Young Mob, an initiative empowering Indigenous youth. 

Through these efforts, Cummins demonstrated her ability to influence organisational priorities and champion initiatives that have far-reaching societal impact.

Data-driven decision making 

When Cummins joined World Vision Australia, it became clear the organisation was facing significant gaps across all stages of the marketing conversion funnel, particularly in terms of retention. Certainly, a big challenge was the lack of connected data to drive informed decisions. 

“We identified critical issues across all stages of the marketing conversion funnel, including retention challenges, but lacked connected data to drive informed decision-making,” she explains. 

To address this, Cummins led the organisation in partnering with Bain & Company to conduct a comprehensive data deep dive. This partnership uncovered key insights and system gaps that ultimately empowered World Vision to prioritise its efforts more strategically. One of the primary outcomes of this analysis was the creation of a more agile, test-and-learn environment. 

“We leveraged an Agile working environment to run rapid test-and-learn retention initiatives, including bounceback campaigns and improvements in our child sponsorship customer experience,” Cummins notes. The result? A remarkable turnaround in retention, with 2024 marking a 17-year high in Child Sponsorship retention. It’s a clear testament to the effectiveness of data-driven decision-making.

But it didn’t stop there. To further enhance World Vision's marketing capabilities, Cummins and her team overhauled their reporting systems and processes. The goal was to bring greater transparency and accountability, ensuring that every decision was backed by reliable, up-to-date data.

 “We also integrated AI-driven solutions to enhance responsiveness, embedding Azure with our data scene team to optimise customer modelling.” The impact was immediate: By embedding AI, it reduced model development time by 50 per cent and improved accuracy by 25 per cent, “allowing us to deliver more precise, personalised engagement strategies at scale,” Cummins explains.

These strategic, operational, and technological investments transformed World Vision’s approach to marketing, fostering a more data-informed, agile, and effective ecosystem. By strengthening the organisation’s data capabilities, Cummins has set a strong foundation for ongoing growth, driving stronger retention, faster insights, and more meaningful engagement with supporters.

Commercial delivery 

Cummins would be the first to reveal that Child Sponsorship, a cornerstone of the organisation’s fundraising model, was in trouble. After 17 consecutive years of decline, even internal confidence in the product had waned. The challenge was clear: How do you breathe new life into a legacy product when the organisation itself is losing faith?

“The solution: I repositioned and revitalised Child Sponsorship by embedding it into thematic campaigns, making it more relevant, engaging, and emotionally compelling for Australian audiences. By aligning sponsorship with causes Australians care about, we transformed it from a static offering into a dynamic movement.” 

To reinvigorate the supporter base and drive acquisitions, the team launched a series of powerful thematic campaigns. 

A standout was The Wiggles – This Means the World, a culturally iconic partnership that brought a burst of joy and nostalgia, leading to a 34 per cent year-on-year increase in acquisitions. 

The Green Child Sponsorship campaign aligned the brand with climate action, resonating strongly with environmentally conscious Australians and delivering a 25 per cent acquisition uplift in 2024. 

Another impactful initiative was the Disability Campaign, developed in collaboration with Paralympian Dylan Alcott and featuring an in-house produced documentary. It deepened emotional connection and expanded media coverage around disability rights in developing nations. 

Perhaps most striking was 1000 Voices for 1,000 Girls, which mobilised prominent Australian women to champion gender equity. The campaign achieved a 200% lift in acquisitions within two years and exceeded 2024 targets by 400%, becoming so effective it was adopted globally.

The impact was transformational, Cummins notes. Child Sponsorship acquisitions hit a 10-year high as Australians rediscovered a deeper connection to the mission. Internally, the shift reignited belief in Child Sponsorship, re-establishing it as a central pillar of our fundraising strategy. 

Externally, the work was recognised across the industry, earning accolades such as Finalist for Fundraising Excellence at the Third Sector Awards 2024.

“By reshaping the narrative around Child Sponsorship and embedding it into contemporary issues, we reignited donor interest, drove acquisition growth, and restored belief in its impact, both internally and externally.” 

People leadership 

But perhaps the true highlight of her time at World Vision Australia wasn’t  just the commercial success the team has achieved, but it was the people.

“People and leadership have been the highlights of my time at World Vision. With high churn of CMOs prior to my tenure, stabilising the team and fostering a high-performing, engaged culture was crucial to achieving our goals.” 

Rebuilding trust, stability, and a high-performing culture was not just important, it was essential for delivering lasting impact.

That’s why she made it her mission to foster a marketing culture defined by responsiveness, adaptability, continuous learning, and genuine connection. To do that, she introduced a series of practical, people-first initiatives designed to unleash the full potential of the team. 

Headspace Wednesdays created a meeting-free day each week to allow space for deep work, learning, and innovation. The Culture Club, a grassroots initiative, boosted morale and connection through regular, team-led events. Innovation was celebrated through the annual Kaizen Awards, with winners earning the chance to visit field programs and see their impact firsthand. 

Regular Fortnightly All-Ins and Biannual Team Days fostered open communication and continuous learning, with a focus on future-fit skills such as AI, inclusion, and leadership. Targeted development efforts upskilled the team across Agile, AI, digital marketing, compliance, and project management. 

She also restructured the team through a Structured Agile Release Train, aligning people to clear acquisition and retention priorities for sharper focus and faster delivery. Meanwhile, a Ways of Working Scoreboard made team performance transparent, helping identify and address operational bottlenecks early.

The impact of this approach was profound. “We transformed our marketing team into a more engaged, strategic, and high-performing unit” – one characterised by learning, agility and shared purpose. 

“This approach increased marketing team engagement by double digits during my tenure, showcasing the power of a growth-focused, cohesive team in driving success.”