Arul Arogyanathan, CIO, Village Roadshow
Arul is a transformational tech and business leader with a mission to empower businesses by harnessing IT innovations and data-driven digital strategies, fostering sustainable growth and uncovering new revenue streams. With extensive expertise in developing outcome-driven technology strategies and integrated operating models, Arul optimises cost, minimises risk, and maximises value and agility. He has a proven track record in delivering successful complex transformation programs, leading change, fostering collaboration, and instilling a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.
Charles Gillman, CISO, SuperChoice
Charles has 20 years hands-on experience across multiple security disciplines including Security Consulting, Ethical Hacking, Cybercrime Research, Security Architecture, Security Operations and Security Leadership. He has also held a role as a part-time lecturer in the Masters of Information Security course at RMIT. Charles has built and led security teams at two of Australia’s big four banks, before moving to senior roles in the Cloud & Managed Services spaces. His diverse experience has given him the technical understanding of the current threats faced by organisations, as well as the knowledge on how to uplift the security posture of the organisation in a pragmatic way to address those threats.
Sam Fariborz, CISO, David Jones
Sam is a seasoned cyber security expert and thought leader with over fifteen years of experience in technology and security. She excels in both technical and business discussions, making her a key asset for organizations aiming to enhance their cyber resilience. Throughout her career, Sam has led diverse teams, managed complex cyber programs, and implemented robust security frameworks. She thrives in dynamic environments, consistently achieving remarkable results by fostering a culture of trust, collaboration, and open communication.
Sandeep Taileng, CISO, State Trustees
With over 18 years of experience in complex technology risk environments, I am a results-oriented leader skilled in proactive risk management and stakeholder engagement. I excel in leading diverse teams, designing data-driven analytics, and ensuring compliance with international standards such as ISO27001/2, the Australian Privacy Act, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, and PCI-DSS. My expertise includes developing and maintaining comprehensive ISMS frameworks, including policies, standards, processes, and artifacts. I am passionate about fostering a robust and integrated risk culture within organizations.
Vijay Narayan, CISO, Mercy Health
Vijay Narayan is an accomplished information security professional with extensive experience in the field. Currently, he serves as the Chief Information Security Officer at Mercy Health Australia, a role he began in 2023. Previously, Vijay was the Chief Information Security Officer at the Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) from 2020 to 2023, where he also briefly acted as the Chief Technology Officer. From 2011 to 2020, he was the Head of Information Security at the Australia Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), where he established a comprehensive information security program. Vijay’s earlier roles include Manager of Information Security & Systems at VicRoads, Information Security Consultant at Wipro Technologies, and Information Security Manager at CRISIL Global Research & Analytics. He began his career as the Head of IT at RndSoftech Private Limited in 2000.
Sandro Bucchianeri, CSO, NAB
Sandro serves as NAB’s Chief Security Officer, and is an award-winning, globally experienced Security Executive with over 20 years of security experience. He has managed globally dispersed teams and successfully delivered strategic, transformational programmes virtually for large multi-national organisations. Sandro is an innovator and strategically-minded leader at heart. He is an advocate of continuous learning, and as such, holds a list of Cybersecurity and Risk Management qualifications, including an MSc in Information Security. Sandro is able to inspire the confidence of both technologists and Business stakeholders equally, whilst bridging the divide between CIOs and CISOs through his pragmatic approach to risk management. As a recognized thought & transformational leader in Security, Sandro is called on as a speaker and collaborator across the world, and plays an integral role in the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity and the Payment Card Industry’s (PCI) Board of Advisors.
Indika Wimalasiri
An Information Security Leader with enthusiasm and passion for Information and Cyber Security Management and Delivery. Over 18 years of experience working in IT/IS and recent 10+ years specialising Information and Cyber Security. Experienced in the full spectrum of Information and Cyber Security domains. Strong relationship building ability to drive success both within technical and business aspects.
Deniz Molokov, CISO, Downer
Deniz is a seasoned cyber security, IT operations, and risk management executive with over 20 years’ experience working in large, complex environments. Deniz’s career is built on delivering strategic, customer-centric transformations, outsourcing, and technology initiatives. He partners with executives and business leaders to secure organisations from emerging threats while ensuring alignment with roadmaps, strategies, standards, and regulatory compliance.
With his experience across several industries, including rail, road, telecommunications, power and gas, renewable energy, water, defence, mining, and facilities management portfolios. He understands the challenges businesses face and uses his knowledge to build high-performing teams, communicate his vision to the C-suite and board while driving operational efficiency and cyber security resiliency. Deniz’s mantra is to embed partners into his organisation’s ecosystem, enabling the business to consume IT and cyber security services transparently. He believes that service excellence is driven by a customer-first mindset and that service quality is shaped by customer expectations
Steven Bonnici, CIO, Ford Motor Company
A Global Technology and Business leader with more than twenty years of experience applying technology to transform business performance and customer experiences, with roles in Australia, United States, Thailand, and China. Named one of Australia’s top 50 senior technology and digital executives for achieving record business results, through digital modernisation and improved customer experience. Recognised as a strategic thinker, with an extensive technical background, who engages with executive leadership and builds purpose driven teams, across large and complex organisations and geographies. Passionate about working with teams to deliver outstanding business outcomes.
Muhammad Usman, Head of Quantum Systems Team, CSIRO Data61
Dr Muhammad Usman is a Team Leader and Principal Staff Member at CSIRO’s Data61 which is Australia National Research Organisation. He has over 15 years of research and teaching experience in the field of quantum computing with a track-record over 100 research papers in high-impact international journals. At CSIRO, Dr Usman is leading a team of over 20 researchers working at the forefront of quantum algorithms, quantum software engineering, and quantum security. He is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics and serves on the executive editorial boards of two international journals, a committee member of Standards Australia to help in standardisation of quantum technologies and have honorary Associate Professor positions at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. Dr Usman is the chair of organising committee of International Conference on Quantum Techniques in Machine Learning 2024, has delivered numerous invited talks in international conferences and has been invited on several panel discussions at national and international meetings. His work was the Winner of the State of Victoria iAward 2024, Innovative of the Year 2023 Award by Defence Industry, Winner of the Australian Army Quantum Technology Challenge in three years in a row (2021, 2022 and 2023), Rising Stars in Computational Materials Science by Elsevier in 2020, and Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research (Early Career) at the University of Melbourne in 2019. Dr Usman is a recipient of prestigious international research fellowships from Fulbright USA (20005-2010) and DAAD Germany in 2010. Dr Usman is a passionate quantum educator and has been promoting quantum education among school children as part of the CSIRO’s STEM Scientists in Schools program.
Jamie Rossato, CISO, CSIRO
Jamie Rossato, has served in CISO roles for over a decade across a range of industries. He has served as a non-executive director at the Information Security Forum – a not-for-profit dealing with information security and risk management solutions and currently serves on the board advisory panel of the Australian Information Security Association. He has also served on academic panels, most notably the development of the Certificate IV in Cybersecurity curriculum, now taught across most Australian states.
Lachlan Bakewell, CIO, Melbourne Water
With over 16 years of experience as a CIO, Lachlan has driven enterprise transformation, enhanced cybersecurity, and fostered a culture of collaboration between technology and business teams. Lachlan’s journey in the tech industry has been marked by a commitment to delivering strategic initiatives that align with organizational goals and significantly improve operational performance and customer experiences.
Lachlan has successfully led large-scale IT functions across multiple sectors, including utilities and healthcare, managing teams of up to 180 staff and overseeing budgets of up to $80 million annually. His expertise spans the creation of innovative digital strategies, the execution of complex ERP transformations, and the implementation of robust cybersecurity frameworks. Currently, at Melbourne Water, he is redefining the IT strategy while building a culture of transparency, trust, and high performance within his team.
James Ng, CISO, Insignia Financial
With over 15 years of experience in technology and information security roles across several prominent organizations, including Telstra, Belong, Tabcorp, and Deloitte, James brings a wealth of expertise to his new role. Most recently, he served as the General Manager of Security Operations at AARNet (Australia Academic and Research Network), where he led teams in establishing cyber governance and managed a security operations center dedicated to protecting the education and research sector, particularly Australian universities.
Sinan Erbay, CIO, RMIT University
Bio coming soon..
Phil Chan, Head of Advanced Analytics and AI, Australia Post
With over 10 years of leadership experience and hands-on technical expertise in the telecommunications, advertising, and logistics sectors, Phil has a proven track record of designing and delivering innovative solutions that leverage machine learning, cloud technologies, big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.
Phil’s core competencies include building and managing high-performing teams, developing and deploying machine learning platforms, introducing and adopting new technologies, driving digital transformation, and managing change and complexity. At Australia Post, Phil built the MLOps platform from scratch, using Dataiku DSS as the main tool for data science collaboration and productionisation. Phil enabled the use of big data and cloud technologies across the organisation, serving as the acting GCP Platform Manager and the Data Engineering Manager.
Suzanne Hall, CIO, Baptcare
Suzanne is an experienced technology leader having worked across government, not-for-profit and corporate sectors. She has four-times (2024, 2023, 2022, 2017) been named in the CIO50 list recognising Australia’s top 50 technology leaders influencing technology-driven change and innovation. Suzanne is passionate about working in values-based organisations and leading diverse teams to make long-term customer-centric improvements.