Six emerging media industry leaders with fewer than eight years' experience will deliver four-minute Inspiration X presentations at MFA EX 2026 across Melbourne and Sydney in September.
Selected through a competitive curation process, the presenters will explore topics including impostor syndrome, AI's impact on journalism, risk-taking, resilience and storytelling.
Presenting in Melbourne September 9 are Taleah Brown, client director at Spark Foundry, on rethinking impostor syndrome through the lens of Barbie; and Jas Kaur, planning manager at PHD, challenging the industry to rethink how it defines value in an AI-powered world where click-based metrics undervalue original content creation.
Presenting in Sydney September 24 are Tania Teurquetil, strategist at Havas Media, drawing on behavioural economics and Monopoly Deal to explore risk and growth mindsets; Dillon Gibbs and Matt Kuchel, both client executives at Spark Foundry, sharing lessons from a 3,700km road trip across Australia in a car they describe as a shitbox; and Olivia Hawkes, associate strategy director at Wavemaker, presenting a storytelling framework for presentations drawn from films including Jaws, Titanic and Romeo and Juliet.
Sophie Madden, MFA CEO, said Inspiration X had become one of the most anticipated parts of the MFA EX program.
"This year's presenters are funny, insightful and unafraid to question the status quo. I have no doubt they'll leave audiences inspired and seeing our industry through an entirely new lens," she said.
MFA EX attracts more than 2,500 attendees across Melbourne and Sydney. Grand Prix sponsor is Seven, with platinum sponsors Meta, Reddit and SBS.
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