Merkle appoints Simon Doukas at chief experience officer

Customer experience management company Merkle has appointed Simon Doukas as the newly created chief experience officer.

This role was created to place the company at the forefront of the customer experience space. In this role, Doukas will lead the strategy, design and commerce teams.

Doukas was a founding member of PwC’s Experience Consulting practice where he has spent over a decade with the firm in various leadership roles. He 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.

Doukas said, “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 for 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,” he said.

John Riccio, CEO at Merkle said, “Doukas’ proven leadership in strategy, innovation and transformation sets us up to seize the opportunities emerging in the customer experience space post-pandemic. I know Doukas has the right skills to take us to the next level as we position ourselves as leaders in this market.”

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

The appointment follows the earlier announcements of Dr Catherine Lopes as chief data and analytics Officer, Steve Yurisich as chief growth officer, and John Riccio as CEO, Merkle ANZ and President, Merkle APAC, and forms part of a growing executive team, with further appointments to come.