Marketing AI Startup Aether Expands Australian Team to Ramp up Growth Phase

AUCKLAND/SYDNEY - 14 OCT 2025 - Aether, the AI-powered platform transforming how marketers activate institutional knowledge to deliver on-brand, ready to use presentation outputs, is accelerating its expansion with four key hires.

Aether has already seen early success in New Zealand, including such household brands as Genesis, Spark Telecom and Kiwibank, and continued Australian growth is firmly in its sights.

"We began working with a handful of leading enterprise clients in Australia during stealth mode," says Aether CEO, Carsten Grueber, "and moved quickly to secure three high-performing Enterprise Growth specialists based in Sydney who will drive adoption of marketing-focused AI there and overseas."

CTO Appointment: Tim Farland

Maintaining post-launch momentum, the trans-Tasman startup has named New Zealand-based Tim Farland as its Chief Technology Officer.

"I'm amped to join Aether at this stage," says industry veteran, Farland. "We're building a novel, non-trivial AI platform that will fundamentally change how global marketing teams operate, enabling them to work smarter and more strategically."

Farland will lead R&D, architecture and strategy to advance the company's product vision and global roadmap. 

3 Enterprise Growth Team Hires

Australia's marketing and creative sector is rapidly adopting AI, as marketers integrate generative and automation technologies into campaign, content, and analytics workflows. With a demonstrated appetite for experimentation and growing enterprise readiness, this market is an ideal launchpad for Aether's global growth ambitions.

Together, Jen Beirne, Matt Meffan and Hugo Rajotte bring deep experience in scaling high-growth businesses and driving commercial success; experience that aligns directly with Aether's ambition to replicate that trajectory globally.

Backed by more than a decade of experience leading high-performing marketing teams for global businesses including Amazon, Adobe and Telefónica, Jen is well placed to understand the pain points Aether is seeking to solve for the marketing community.

"I've seen first-hand the hours wasted building presentations and reports, attempting to find the right data pull or dashboard, tweaking narratives to suit different audiences and the rest. Seeing Aether do all of this and more within minutes was a jaw-drop moment for me," says Beirne. "We're already seeing customers win back hours and redirect them into work that is strategic, innovative and influences the bottom line."

Rajotte is equally enthusiastic about Aether's potential.

"I've been part of turning an early-stage startup into a global category leader," says Rajotte. "That's the journey I'm seeing for a disruptor like Aether: scaling fast, defining the knowledge activation category and proving the impact of AI-driven efficiency and smarts for enterprise marketing teams."

With a track record of scaling early-stage SaaS companies into new markets and setting the foundations for hypergrowth, New Zealand-born Meffan says, "This is a career-defining opportunity to help build the next generational software company out of New Zealand."

Aether has also added new hires to the customer-facing and data teams.

"These appointments strengthen Aether at every level: technology, growth and execution," says Grueber. 

Aether continues to combine technical depth and commercial expertise to position the company as a serious player in AI and marketing technology as it scales across ANZ and beyond.

- Ends - 

Media Contact: 
Richelle Gillett
Giant Squid Inc
+61 418 781 610
rg@giantsquidinc.com.au 

BIOS 

Tim Farland, CTO

Taking the reins from New+Improved's engineering team, Farland steps into the role with 20 years' experience designing and scaling digital products across startups and enterprise environments. Most recently a Principal Engineer with Datacom's AI Labs, he architected and built Datapay's legislative Payroll Assistant and Agentic Platform, and previously shipped at AskNicely and startups between Europe and San Francisco.

Jen Beirne, Enterprise Growth

Joining Amazon at launch, Beirne grew the marketing division for Alexa in Australia and New Zealand, building global partnerships with brands such as Coca-Cola, Disney and Newscorp. She has led award-winning campaigns for brands across Europe and APAC and with a clear passion for exploring the benefits of AI for marketers, she supports the Australian Centre for AI in Marketing as a Senior Industry Advisor.

Matt Meffan, Enterprise Growth

Matt Meffan has held senior roles with SaaS leaders including customer intelligence platform Vision Critical (now Alida), experimentation platform Optimizely, and mental wellbeing platform Unmind, where he was tasked with sourcing initial landmark brands and helping to drive multimillion-dollar growth YoY.

Hugo Rajotte, Enterprise Growth

Hugo Rajotte joins Aether after playing a pivotal role in scaling Australian fintech success story InDebted from a local startup into a global leader in digital debt collection. Working closely with some of the world's leading finance, telco, utility brands locally and abroad, he rose through senior growth and client success roles to Vice President of Growth. 

About Aether

Aether is an AI-powered strategic marketing platform for enterprise that transforms presentations and institutional knowledge from static files into living, connected assets. By syncing directly with live data sources, Aether eliminates wasted hours spent copying, pasting, and updating slides and allows organisations to activate the millions of dollars they invest in research and strategy. Founded in 2025, the company is headquartered between Auckland and Melbourne. Visit theaeather.co and follow on LinkedIn to learn more.