Uma Oldham has been promoted to head of marketing and media at SBS Australia. This is a new role reporting to SBS's Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, Jane Palfreyman and sits alongside colleagues in the SBS marketing leadership team.

The new role and remit sees Oldham leading a multidisciplinary team of 40 people including the teams from Marketing, Publicity and Social to drive audience growth, engagement and positive sentiment around SBS's key content, products and services. Examples of this include, bringing blockbuster shows like Alone Australia to market, driving always on lifecycle marketing for SBS on Demand, highlighting key NITV content during NAIDOC week or relaunching our Australia Explained portal which is an information service for new migrants in multiple languages.

"There is so much variety in this role and SBS has such a unique role to play in the Australian media landscape it keeps life interesting," she said.

"We have some interesting and broad appeal content coming up over the next six months which we can test some of this on. There is a lot in the FY25 calendar to get excited about from a marketing perspective. We have the best content slate we have ever had with Alone, the last season of The Handmaid's Tale, The Tour De France, Rogue Heroes and lots more.

"We also have our 50th birthday next year in June where we will be celebrating 50 years of SBS as an important part of the success of multiculturalism in Australia. And finally, we also have the men's FIFA World Cup in 2026 - the largest single sporting event in the World, and something we're thrilled to be bringing to Australia again."

It's been seven-and-a-half years since Oldham first joined SBS as head of audience marketing. Among her highlights so far is working with the team and Jack Nimble to create an Alone Cologne for the launch Alone Australia Season 2.

"I always enjoy trying new ways to bring content to market and this was a unique way to encapsulate the raw and real conditions the participants faced in a fun and engaging way to drive earned media.

"How the team has evolved in-line with market dynamics to include lifecycle marketing, CRM, marketing automation, search. We are also working on how we can best capitalise on earned media function via the Social and Publicity teams, lead by the awesome Sean O'Byrne and Jo'an Papadopoulos.

"My work as the co-chair of SBS multi which is the advisory group charged with driving a more inclusive workplace for multicultural staff. One of the key highlights was introducing policy which allowed people of multicultural backgrounds to swap out the traditional public holidays for something with more cultural significance to them. And, of course, the FIFA World Cup how we work as an organisation is always a proud moment. I've worked on 2 now and am looking forward to 2026."

Prior to SBS, Oldham was group business director for Sydney as well a strategy director for Sydney and Melbourne at Zenith. Beginning her career agency side, she's also worked at Initiative in media planning as well as strategy, communications and business management.