Industry Experience & Selected Work
Different industries. Familiar challenges.
For more than twenty years, through Icon Visual Marketing and now Two Icons, Joe Papadatos has worked alongside founders, chief executives and leadership teams to understand markets, strengthen customer relationships, develop commercial strategies and help businesses grow.
The industries are different, but many of the challenges are familiar: changing customer expectations, disconnected commercial functions, leadership capability and opportunities that are difficult to recognise from inside the business.
Industry experience
Property Development & Construction
Places that take years to bring to market.
Long-term CMO-level strategic marketing leadership for major residential developments, connecting market intelligence, buyer understanding, marketing planning and sales.
Illustrative photograph. Calistemon, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Manufacturing & Industrial
The next growth opportunity may not be another product.
Commercial leadership, sales and marketing transformation, business systems and organisational capability across manufacturing, importing and distribution.
Illustrative photograph. Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0.
Explore manufacturing and industrial
Creative & Marketing Services
When production becomes cheaper, commercial thinking becomes more valuable.
Strategic marketing leadership, customer relationships and commercial direction through the transition from traditional advertising to digital marketing and AI.
Illustrative photograph. Clay Banks, Unsplash Licence.
Explore creative and marketing services
Professional Services
Trust takes time to build. It's what makes the relationship valuable.
Strategic marketing and business development experience across professional services, connecting market positioning, client acquisition, relationship development and commercial growth.
Illustrative photograph. LingLass, CC0.
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Selected work · Manufacturing & Industrial
Rebuilding the commercial and leadership engine.
During a short-term General Manager engagement with an Australian manufacturer, importer and distributor, Joe led changes across marketing, e-commerce, sales leadership, business systems and management capability.
The work included restructuring commercial functions, rebuilding sales leadership, supporting ERP implementation, introducing AI capabilities on the website, developing the management team and establishing clearer leadership and meeting structures.
Sales increased during the engagement, alongside changes to the organisation's commercial and management capabilities.
Some of the businesses we've worked with.
Across Icon Visual Marketing and Two Icons, our work has brought us alongside businesses and organisations in different industries, markets and stages of growth.
Businesses and capabilities developed.
Alongside helping other businesses grow, Joe developed new businesses and commercial capabilities in response to changing markets, customer needs and technology.
Icon Visual Marketing
A strategy-led marketing business founded and led by Joe Papadatos. The business worked with organisations across property development, industrial, professional services and consumer markets. Joe led the business until its sale in 2023. Much of the client experience on this page was developed through Icon Visual Marketing.
Orange Canvas
An e-commerce and marketing production business established in 2016. Its capabilities included digital commerce, marketing production and print on demand. The business was included in the 2023 sale.
Odee
A subscription-based digital marketing planning platform established in 2019. Odee used guided questions to help businesses capture the information and thinking required to develop a marketing plan. It was developed before generative AI and was included in the 2023 sale. Odee was an earlier generation of the thinking that later informed Sentio. Sentio is a separate, emerging platform.
Changing industry value, AI and what comes next.
AI is changing how businesses produce work, understand customers and use the knowledge within their organisations.
The opportunity is broader than automation and cost reduction. It raises new questions about what customers value, where commercial opportunities emerge and how people and technology can work together.
When AI can produce the work, what makes your expertise valuable?
AI is changing the economics of professional outputs. As production becomes easier, judgement, interpretation, verification, trust and accountability become increasingly important.
Explore When AI can produce the work, what makes your expertise valuable?How much value is lost between the people in your business?
Customer conversations, briefs, decisions and knowledge often become disconnected between teams. AI may help connect that information, while people remain responsible for judgement, relationships and outcomes.
Explore How much value is lost between the people in your business?
Book
OVERSIGHT: Leadership Architecture for Founders
A way to see what the business is asking of you.
Drawing on real business experience, OVERSIGHT explores founder dependency, leadership responsibility and the challenge of building organisations that can grow beyond their founders.
Several anonymised manufacturing examples featured in the Experience section are explored more deeply in the book.
Read Oversight