Charles Parry- Okeden | Chairman | OMA

Charles commenced his media career in radio before moving to the world of out of home advertising, a sector which has become a life long passion.

Charles spent 11 years at Buspak Advertising Group, ultimately holding its most senior sales position – Sales Director ANZ. In 2003 Buspak merged with three other wholly owned APN News & Media companies (Cody Outdoor, Australian Posters & Captive Media) to form APN Outdoor. At that time Charles was appointed the Sales Director (NSW) role across all brands, and was managing Australia’s largest outdoor media sales team with more than 50 sales executives.

In 2005 Charles’ entrepreneurial spirit saw him co-found Executive Channel (ECN).

ECN’s early rapid growth was recognised with BRW’s Top 100 Fast Starters in 2010 and 2011.

In his role of Global CEO Charles has overseen two successful capital raising’s, the sale of the Australian ECN business in 2016 (to oOH! Media), and the continued expansion of ECN across Europe, with operations today in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.

In 2008 Charles established a highly successful B2B business model with the launch of Australian Media Channel Pty Ltd (Media i & MI-3). Today Media i is Australia’s most consumed trade media channel amongst media agency planner/buyers with more than 200 screens deployed in 70 offices across Australia. Charles is also President of Media EYE France a joint venture between ECH and Offremedia.

In 2017 Charles was the first media owner to be inducted into the Media Federation of Australia Hall of Fame.

Today Charles continues, in his capacity as Global CEO of Executive Channel Holdings Pty Ltd (ECH), to manage and drive growth of the ECH group of companies and investments. He also serves as the Independent Chair of the OMA and has a number of advisory and directorship roles.