Audience growth director at News Corp’s The Australian, Elyse Popplewell has been named among INMA’s fourth round of “30 Under 30” rising stars.

She was previously News CorpAustralia’s content strategy director and social media editor, as well as the editor of theoz.com.au.

With a talent for finding new audiences, she rolled out a paid and organic social media strategy that yielded a 123 per cent increase in referrals from Facebook and 406 per cent increase in Instagram followers.

“Not surprisingly, that led to a rapid rise through the ranks, and today, as the content strategy director, she has led the newsroom’s digital transformation,” says INMA ideas blog editor Paula Felps.

“Her vision included restructuring the existing teams and personally training more than 160 staff members in digital best practices. As a result, the newsroom has seen a 52 per cent increase in Google referrals.”

Felps says among Popplewell’s favourite things to do is bring together the experience of different departments and create cross-functional teams that can work together toward a common goal. She believes the success of the industry depends on breaking down the silos and starting to work together:

“Regularly, marketing, editorial, and technology departments are not aligned on KPIs, and it allows too many disparate streams of work to occur, creating disharmony and inefficiencies,” Popplewell said, adding that, ideally, media companies must learn to operate in cross-functional teams. “This will allow for true collaboration.”