Company Information
Senior Management
Tony Abrahams
Co-Founder, Director and Chief Executive Officer
Tony co-founded Ai-Media in 2003. Tony served as a Director of Northcott Disability Services from 2010 to 2018, and was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2013. In previous roles, Tony worked to establish the Oxford Internet Institute in 2001, while attending the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Tony has been a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors since 2006.
John Bird
Chief Financial Officer (interim)
John Bird joined the Company on a contract basis while Ai-Media undertakes an executive recruitment search. Mr Bird is an experienced executive and recently held the role of CFO and COO of Regeneus, an ASX-listed biotechnology company, where he worked alongside Ai-Media Non-Executive Director John Martin in his former role as Chairman and CEO of the company. Previously, Mr Bird provided financial and strategic management services to ASX-listed companies, including on mergers and acquisitions.
Mr Bird is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Chartered Secretaries Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University.
Sue Sanossian
Company Secretary, MAICD, CertGovPrac (GIA)
Sue joined Ai-Media in 2011 and is responsible for assisting the Board and company in meeting its fiduciary, compliance and corporate governance obligations. Sue heads up the People and Culture team and previously was part of the corporate development and legal affairs team at Austar United Communications Limited (an ASX listed company), and has prior experience in administrative roles with two ASX listed companies – Lake Technology Limited and Excel Coal Limited. Sue is a pivotal point of contact for the Board, investors, senior executives, staff and industry peers. She is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Certificate in Governance Practice from the Governance Institute of Australia. Sue served as a Director on the inaugural Board of the Global Alliance of Speech to Text Captioning, a US-based non-profit corporation which is dedicated to universal accessibility to the spoken word via all forms of captioning.
Philip Hyssong
Chief Customer Officer
Philip is co-founder of ACS, and PostCAP, LLC - a family of text creation companies which Ai-Media acquired in May 2020. Prior to launching ACS, Phil spent 6 years as vice president of another national captioning company. And before that, he was Executive Director of a television production company specialising in Christian media that focused on the needs of people who were deaf or hard of hearing. He holds an undergraduate degree in Education from Concordia University Chicago, a Masters’ degree in Instructional Design from Northern Illinois University, and became a Certified Manager of Reporting Services through the National Court Reporters Association. He successfully completed the Text Interpreting (TypeWell) training program and became a proficient transcriber. He pioneered remote CART Captioning bringing it into the mainstream and also was the first to offer Text Interpreting on a national level. He spent time in Washington, DC, for several years as a member of the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) subcommittee on disability. Based in Illinois, he was a founding mentor of the local business incubator program at one of the nation’s best high schools.
Megan Hemingway
Chief Information Officer
Megan is the CIO of Ai-Media. She joined in May 2020 after 4 years as the Head of IT for Seven West Media. She has degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Newcastle. Megan has more than 20 years’ experience in IT, starting as a developer, moving through project management into general IT leadership. She has worked primarily in the media, engineering and mining industries. Specifically within media, this included working as a Program Director for BCC Adsystems, after working for GroupM, initially based in Australia as the IT Business and Development Manager and then spending 3 years as the APAC Applications Director based in Singapore.
Ian Harris
Chief Product Officer
Ian has over 25 years’ experience building, delivering and managing technology and broadcast products. As part of Austar United Communications, Ian was responsible for building and running the broadcast infrastructure nationally. He has executed global product management and sales roles in broadcast companies in London and Dublin before focussing on North American customers as part of Accenture in New York. In that senior management role, Ian drove technology delivery for large tier-1 cable and satellite broadcasters in the US and Canada. Returning recently to his native Australia, Ian is responsible for product strategy and delivery at Ai-Media.
Tony Abrahams
Co-Founder, Director and Chief Executive Officer
Tony co-founded Ai-Media in 2003. Tony served as a Director of Northcott Disability Services from 2010 to 2018, and was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2013. In previous roles, Tony worked to establish the Oxford Internet Institute in 2001, while attending the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Tony has been a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors since 2006.
John Bird
Chief Financial Officer (interim)
John Bird joined the Company on a contract basis while Ai-Media undertakes an executive recruitment search. Mr Bird is an experienced executive and recently held the role of CFO and COO of Regeneus, an ASX-listed biotechnology company, where he worked alongside Ai-Media Non-Executive Director John Martin in his former role as Chairman and CEO of the company. Previously, Mr Bird provided financial and strategic management services to ASX-listed companies, including on mergers and acquisitions.
Mr Bird is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Chartered Secretaries Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University.
Sue Sanossian
Company Secretary, MAICD, CertGovPrac (GIA)
Sue joined Ai-Media in 2011 and is responsible for assisting the Board and company in meeting its fiduciary, compliance and corporate governance obligations. Sue heads up the People and Culture team and previously was part of the corporate development and legal affairs team at Austar United Communications Limited (an ASX listed company), and has prior experience in administrative roles with two ASX listed companies – Lake Technology Limited and Excel Coal Limited. Sue is a pivotal point of contact for the Board, investors, senior executives, staff and industry peers. She is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Certificate in Governance Practice from the Governance Institute of Australia. Sue served as a Director on the inaugural Board of the Global Alliance of Speech to Text Captioning, a US-based non-profit corporation which is dedicated to universal accessibility to the spoken word via all forms of captioning.
Philip Hyssong
Chief Customer Officer
Philip is co-founder of ACS, and PostCAP, LLC - a family of text creation companies which Ai-Media acquired in May 2020. Prior to launching ACS, Phil spent 6 years as vice president of another national captioning company. And before that, he was Executive Director of a television production company specialising in Christian media that focused on the needs of people who were deaf or hard of hearing. He holds an undergraduate degree in Education from Concordia University Chicago, a Masters’ degree in Instructional Design from Northern Illinois University, and became a Certified Manager of Reporting Services through the National Court Reporters Association. He successfully completed the Text Interpreting (TypeWell) training program and became a proficient transcriber. He pioneered remote CART Captioning bringing it into the mainstream and also was the first to offer Text Interpreting on a national level. He spent time in Washington, DC, for several years as a member of the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) subcommittee on disability. Based in Illinois, he was a founding mentor of the local business incubator program at one of the nation’s best high schools.
Megan Hemingway
Chief Information Officer
Megan is the CIO of Ai-Media. She joined in May 2020 after 4 years as the Head of IT for Seven West Media. She has degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Newcastle. Megan has more than 20 years’ experience in IT, starting as a developer, moving through project management into general IT leadership. She has worked primarily in the media, engineering and mining industries. Specifically within media, this included working as a Program Director for BCC Adsystems, after working for GroupM, initially based in Australia as the IT Business and Development Manager and then spending 3 years as the APAC Applications Director based in Singapore.
Ian Harris
Chief Product Officer
Ian has over 25 years’ experience building, delivering and managing technology and broadcast products. As part of Austar United Communications, Ian was responsible for building and running the broadcast infrastructure nationally. He has executed global product management and sales roles in broadcast companies in London and Dublin before focussing on North American customers as part of Accenture in New York. In that senior management role, Ian drove technology delivery for large tier-1 cable and satellite broadcasters in the US and Canada. Returning recently to his native Australia, Ian is responsible for product strategy and delivery at Ai-Media.
