Content · Communications · Sydney
The right story in the right hands changes everything.
I translate what engineers build into stories that move markets. 25+ years finding the human truth inside complex work and giving it a voice loud enough to matter.
25+
Years B2B Experience
$1B
Acquisition Outcome
15M
Australians Reached
21→35%
Email Open Rate Lift
About
Hello. I'm Matt, a Sydney-based content and communications professional who believes the best ideas fail in silence — and that the right story, told well, changes everything.
For over 25 years I've worked at the intersection of B2B marketing, technical communications and complex sales — helping brands across telco, retail, technology and public sector translate what they build into narratives that move sophisticated buyers and earn long-term trust.
I work best close to engineers, close to subject matter experts, and always close to the customer — interviewing technical teams to extract what makes their work genuinely remarkable, then shaping that into case studies, thought leadership, proposals and sales enablement that directly contribute to pipeline growth.
I bring commercial acumen to content strategy. I understand how regulated environments shape what can and can't be said. And I've spent a career asking what makes a sophisticated buyer trust before deciding how to earn that trust.
"The gap between what a company has built and what the market believes about it — that's where I work. Closing that gap isn't a content problem. It's a commercial opportunity."
Matt Allison / On Technical Content Marketing
Skills
Technical Content Strategy
Building content frameworks that close the gap between what a company has built and what the market believes about it. Thought leadership, case studies and proof points that earn trust with sophisticated buyers.
Stakeholder Interviewing & Narrative Extraction
Getting to the real story through the quality of the questions asked. Interviewing engineers, executives and clinicians to extract the insight that turns capability into compelling commercial narrative.
B2B Positioning & Messaging
Defining how complex products and services show up in market. Messaging frameworks, value propositions and competitive positioning that give sales teams the language to open the right conversations.
Sales Enablement & Pipeline Support
Creating the content that shortens sales cycles — proposals, one-pagers, battlecards and presentations that help buyers understand and believe before they get in the room.
Regulated Content & Compliance Communications
Writing in environments where every word is accountable. Annual reports, regulatory submissions, investor communications and compliance content — accurate, credible and commercially sound.
Cross-functional Alignment & Content Leadership
Bringing product, engineering, sales and marketing teams to a shared narrative without authority. Building the consensus that makes content more effective before a word is written.
Experience
2022 – 2026
Symbio
Content & Communications Manager
- Owned the full content and communications function across a scaling B2B telco platform — product launches, thought leadership, sales enablement, investor relations, and tone of voice governance across all external channels.
- Translated technically complex products into commercially effective narratives, working directly with engineering, product and sales teams to surface the stories behind the technology. Moved TaaS division email open rates from 21% to 35% in year one. Contributed to an Innovation of the Year nomination at the Australian Telecommunications Awards.
- Led content strategy for multiple product launches simultaneously — including new product go-to-market and the managed decommission of legacy systems — aligning competing stakeholder priorities around customer need and commercial outcome before a word was written.
- Authored regulatory and compliance communications in partnership with legal, including submissions to telecommunications regulators across APAC markets. Content required CEO and SLT sign-off and had to be simultaneously accurate, compliant and commercially credible.
- Produced two annual reports under ASIC and ASX scrutiny — narrative aligned to audited financials, reviewed by the Board prior to publication.
- Coordinated a materiality assessment across five stakeholder groups and synthesised competing priorities into a published three-pillar ESG framework aligned to GRI and SASB reporting standards.
- Led internal and external communications strategy through the acquisition of Symbio by Aussie Broadband — designing and delivering content across four distinct stakeholder groups with different priorities, timelines and risk profiles. The merged entity is now a $1B ASX-listed company.
2020 – 2022
Independent
Director of Home Affairs
- In February 2020, a contract role evaporated three weeks after starting — and the world changed completely. With my wife stepping into a new Directorship, I stayed home to run the most demanding cross-functional operation of my career.
- Two direct reports with competing priorities, zero interest in the roadmap, and a daily standup that started whether I was ready or not. Agile stopped being a methodology and became a survival strategy.
- Returned to the workforce in 2022 sharper, more patient, and significantly better at managing stakeholders.
2019 – 2020
City of Sydney
Technology Team Leader — Creative City
- Accountable for the product roadmap, technology strategy, and delivery for one of Australia's most active public library networks.
- Led product discovery across patron and staff user groups to define the self-serve opportunity. Designed and delivered a patron self-serve suite across five-plus touchpoints — mobile app, inline catalogue search, branch diversion, self check-in, and self check-out.
- Resulted in a platform handling over two million check-in and check-out transactions annually. Patron wait times fell. Service hours extended beyond staffed hours.
- Identified a critical data capture gap and led a cross-functional team to replace a fully manual paper process with a Power BI application — scaling data capture from hundreds of entries to tens of thousands.
- Owned BAU product roadmap across the full network, including sprint planning, backlog prioritisation, and multi-vendor coordination across four-plus vendors.
2016 – 2018
IKEA
Communications & Retail Design Manager
- Led the product experience and communications strategy for IKEA Rhodes through its transition to an omnichannel retail model. Delivered customer journey definition and touchpoint design, and drove change management across hundreds of staff.
- Conceived and briefed IKEA + you — an organisational first and the first fully integrated multichannel initiative of its kind in market. The programme reached 15 million Australians and won the IKEA Global Home Furnishing Award in FY18, beating 40-plus markets worldwide.
- Drove a 67% increase in inspiration traffic to IKEA.com.au.
- Took the store's Global Commercial Review benchmark from 8% in FY16 to 67% by FY18.
- Rebuilt team retention from 67% to 100% and held it for two consecutive years through structural changes to recruitment, onboarding, and development.
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Get in touch
Open to senior content marketing and technical communications roles. Available for freelance writing, positioning and messaging work, and interesting conversations.
matt@matt-allison.com