Michael McNamara, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Victoria
Michael McNamara leads Digital Victoria which was established in November last year to centralise and simplify the Government’s IT services – reducing the costs and improving the delivery of services to Victorians.
Prior to this he was the Chief Information Officer for Services Australia where he led he led the agency in delivering online services to millions of Australians during the covid pandemic.
Michael has experience leading complex digital change, both within Australia and globally. He has worked in the financial services and energy sectors, including leading ANZ’s workplace experience transformation.
Tim Hogarth, Chief Technology Officer, ANZ Bank
Tim is a senior technology professional in financial services with a strong track record of thought leadership and delivering pragmatic, value-added IT strategy and solutions. Tim possesses a global perspective and a deep understanding of current and emerging technologies, with the ability to understand key implications of complex problems and opportunities to empower decision-makers and drive superior outcomes.
Prior to joining ANZ, Tim held senior roles at TD Bank in Canada, where he was Vice Presiden of Innovation Frameworks and Strategies and before that was the Head of Customer Engagement Architecture at Commonwealth Bank.
Karsten Højberg, Account Director, Pegasystems
Having worked with some of the world’s most innovative companies, Karsten’s passion lies in helping customers and partners transform business. He is currently helping CBA improve the customer experience and grow business using the Pega Platform.
Prior to that, he was at Autodesk Europe where he had the opportunity to advocate for and work alongside start-ups and entrepreneurs in the manufacturing space. His role involved frequent presentations on the future of manufacturing, and today Karsten remains excited about issues such as clean tech and social entrepreneurship and the opportunities these present.
Luke McCormack, Regional Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan, Unqork
Luke is charged with overseeing the APAC and Japan operations for Unqork – a company providing the leading enterprise no-code platform and pioneering a codeless architecture. He is responsible for building successful software and consulting operations across the region, and leading a team that has already built a stellar client list and continuing to make inroads into the market.
Luke has a proven track record of opening new markets and verticals among a new clientele and forging global solutions in the most challenging of market segments. He thrives on solution development, vision creation, and leading teams that thrive within a ‘thought leadership’ culture.
Prior to joining Unqork, Luke was the Vice President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific, of Pegasystems and has also held roles at Accenture and Citibank.
Zoe Chilton, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Oracle Red Bull Racing
Zoe leads a team managing key relationships with all of Oracle Red Bull Racing Honda’s key Partnerships, including premium lifestyle brands and strategic technical partners. The recent addition of the Oracle Red Bull Racing Esports Team partners to the roster creates a broad and diverse portfolio of brands – spanning the realms of cutting edge technology, luxury goods, fashion, consumer brands and services. After completing a law degree with honours from Leeds University, Zoe attended University of Warwick to study for an MSc in Engineering Business Management. Graduating with a distinction, Zoe then spent 6 years working in the motorsport and high performance engineering sector in a range of Marketing and Business Development roles, including collaborative experience in NASCAR, IndyCar, rally and historic racing.
Zoe joined Oracle Red Bull Racing in 2015, initially responsible for liaising directly with the team’s key technical partners, and also engineering stakeholders within the business, to ensure the perfect fit in both product and culture. Since then, expanding on this experience in the Partnerships team, Zoe has built a strong team of Partnership Managers who aim to both be the expert in their Partners’ product and also immerse partners in the Red Bull culture to create outstanding storytelling and activations.
Sandhya Iyer, Chief Data Officer, Lattitude Financial Services
Sandhya is an experienced data leader who is passionate about enabling businesses to convert data into strategic assets to deliver outstanding customer experience and exceptional commercial growth.
Having worked at GE Electric and Lumo Energy, Sandhya is a customer-focused, commercially aligned analytics and data science executive with 15 years of multifaceted experience at leading brands including GE Electric and Lumo Energy. Her in-depth insights in driving data-led decision making in fast-paced and innovation-led organisations provided her with a proven track record in leading and developing teams to drive business results through advanced analytics, insights and Machine learning.
Tracy Moore, GM - Data Strategy, Evangelism and Governance at Xero
Tracy is a firm believer that data has the power to make every aspect of our lives either better or worse, and the results are determined by the teams that build these decision-making systems.
Her priorities at Xero include building more ML-powered experiences to give small business customers access to the automation, and personalised insights normally only available to larger companies. A big part of this is building programs to embed data literacy and ethics into the daily rhythms of all our busy teams – so everyone is empowered to contribute to our data transformation journey.
Matt Malady, General Manager, Data and Decision Science, CBA
Having some 20 years experience in financial services, Matt’s passion of decision science has helped design and implemented some of the biggest transformation programmes in Retail banking at CBA.
His deep insights into CBA’s highest performing branch and lending teams has been integral to the change program that transformed the bank’s branch network in the ‘Branch of the Future’ program.
Matt was also one of the foundation leaders of the Customer Relationship Banking Program which has resulted in the creation of the multi-award winning Customer Engagement Engine (CEE). He credits his team as the driving force behind some of the most impactful Next Best Conversations capabilities in CBA’s technology stack.
Chris Chelliah, Senior Vice President, Technology and Customer Strategy, Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific
Chris Chelliah is responsible for driving digital transformation for Oracle’s customers in the Japan and Asia Pacific region. He’s accountable for the organization’s hypergrowth in cloud infrastructure and autonomous database. Chris leads cloud specialist sales teams, industry architects, and the Oracle Insight team to bring together the expertise needed to provide a collaborative, consultative approach to help customers achieve their objectives.
Chris has nearly 30 years of experience across a variety of portfolios in Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America. Previously at Oracle, he focused on customer success with consulting and implementation services in global projects in the telecommunications, financial services, and government sectors, implementing disruptive and innovative software solutions.
Chris holds a post-graduate degree in computer science and mathematics from the University of Western Australia. He’s a frequent industry speaker and contributes regularly to trade and industry journals and opinion pieces on applications for emerging technologies.
Grant Wright, Director of AI and Platform Services, Seek
Grant leads a global team of over 120 Data Scientists, Software Engineers, Ontologists and AI Product Managers who deliver AI Services to online employment and education platforms across Asia Pacific and the Americas.
With the support of his leadership team, Grant has established a new global AI function including defining and embedding a new operating model, culture and rituals; built, deployed and continuously improved 30++ AI products and services, including a bespoke AI Search Platform; and established new capabilities including developing and implementing a leading AI Ethics and Bias framework and governance process.
Dylan Smith, CEO, RUBIX
Dylan is the Founder and CEO of leading Australian Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology company RUBIX who provide emerging technology solutions to some of Australia’s largest and most successful businesses.
For over 20 years, Dylan has utilised his Electrical Engineering background and extensive experience in large corporate organisations to form and grow highly successful technology companies.
Ross Campbell, Modern Workplace Advisory Lead & COE – Asia Pac, Middle East, Brazil, Avanade
Ross has a passion for delivering value through a holistic view of ‘workplace experience’ – combining technology, culture & behaviours, process, operating model and even physical spaces. He has a specialisation in the ‘Future of Work’, Modern Workplace, Employee Experience strategy and re-thinking key elements of work for the frontline and others.
Prior to joining Avanade in 2020, Ross spent 12 years at PwC in the Management Consulting team, leading multiple, significant transformations.
Dr. Kellie Nuttall, Artificial Intelligence Lead, Australia, Deloitte
Kellie leads Deloitte’s Artificial Intelligence offering and is passionate about working with organisations to turn complex data into rich insights, as well as embedding AI and cognitive technologies into business and government to deliver a better world. Kellie is a leading expert in understanding how to best use AI, digital twins and other emerging technologies to optimise complex operational systems and value chains.
She also works extensively with organisations to design their AI operating models to best deliver high value business benefits and outcomes. Kellie is a faculty member at Singularity University, where she helps to create better transport systems through exponential technologies.
Kellie previously worked at the Department of Transport and Main Roads (QLD) where she led transport planning and the application of advanced analytics to support evidence-based decision making. She has a PHD in consumer decision making and nudge psychology.
Michelle Sherwood, Executive, Digital, Personal Bank, National Australia Bank
As the Digital Executive for Personal Banking, Michelle Sherwood is responsible for Digital Channels, Digital Sales and Commercialisation, Digital Customer Engagement and Customer Experience.
Before joining NAB in October 2018, Michelle held senior executive positions at Qantas, IAG and Telstra, where she led several large high-performing sales, digital, product and marketing teams.
She has broad expertise across a range of industries and disciplines, including customer experience and advocacy, human-centred design, digital strategy and management, data commercialisation, business transformation, brand and marketing communications and CRM.
Peir Lai, Industry Lead – Financial Services, SAS Australia & New Zealand
Peir is a seasoned business leader with 25 years’ of delivery and management experience across the financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications industries. Peir’s experience is complemented by extensive international exposure, having managed large teams in 10 different countries and across four continents, and mentored a number of emerging business and technology leaders.
As a trusted advisor at SAS, Peir spearheads major initiatives within the financial services industry, while also providing leadership in broader domains including reference architecture and commercial acumen. Prior to joining SAS, Peir was Program Director at NAB, presiding over a $150m annual program for Critical Technology Risk Remediation, consisting of 120 projects and leveraging his expertise in Technology Infrastructure, Human-Centred Design and Scaled Agile.
Kathryn Gulifa, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Worksafe Victoria
A passionate and experienced Analytics executive and SAFe Agilist specialising in Digital and Data Transformation – setting data and analytics strategy, modernising analytics architecture, building and leading teams, engaging broad stakeholder bases, and delivering on analytics programmes to create business value.
Kathryn has spent more than 15 years in government and banking and financial services combining analytics, innovation and customer-first thinking in a variety of analytics leadership roles. Having begun her career as a practitioner in Advanced Analytics, Kathryn brings an appreciation for the technical capabilities required to generate insight out of data.
Kathryn is Vice-Chair of the IAPA Advisory Committee and brings to IAPA the same drive, enthusiasm and uber-cool nerdiness she has injected into industry roles for the past 15 years. She holds the Deakin Data Analytics Credential at an Advanced Level and is an active assessor of candidate credentials.
Leonie Valentine, Executive General Manager, Customer Experience and Digital Technology, Australia Post
Leonie Valentine joined Australia Post in January 2022 as the Executive General Manager of Customer Experience and Digital Technology.
Leonie is a digital industry leader with 30 years’ experience in general management, sales, marketing and operations, including 20 years in digital technology and telecommunications.
Prior to joining Australia Post, Leonie was Managing Director at Google Melbourne & Government after serving as Managing Director of Sales and Operations Google Hong Kong for 4 years.
Over the years Leonie has been an active member of a number of boards including Not For Profits and currently serves as a board member for Pro-Pac Packaging Limited (ASX: PPG) and Save the Children Australia.
Leonie holds an Executive Certificate in Business Administration from the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship of Swinburne University, a Master’s Degree in Communication Management from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a Bachelor of Science from Melbourne University.
Nick Dean, Head of Technology Strategy and Transformation, Westpac
Nick Dean is an accomplished technology and transformation executive who has spent his career making complex things simple and enabling people who thought they couldn’t do it – do it.
With more than 20 years of experience spanning three continents, Nick was the Chief Technology Officer at ANZ Bank and has also held senior technology roles and shaped the technology agenda at KiwiBank, Maybank and RMIT University.
Andrew Cresp, Chief Information Officer, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
As the Chief Information Officer at Bendigo and Adelaide a bank Andrew Cresp is leading a the Australia’s 5th largest retail bank’s shift to the cloud. Proving to be a great innovation enabler, the bank went live with its open banking program.
Prior to this Andrew held technology leadership roles at NAB and IAG.
Kshira Saagar, Head of International Data, DoorDash (Global)
Kshira oversees the data teams of online food ordering and food delivery platform, DoorDash, in 26 countries. He was previously Chief Data Officer of Latitude Financial Services and has spent 24.7% of his life helping key decision-makers and CxOs make smarter decisions using data, and strongly believes that every organisation can become truly data-driven.
He has been consecutively recognised among the Top 10 Analytics Leaders in Australia, for 2019,2020 and 2021. At every place he has worked, working and will work – he likes to go back to the fundamentals, asking people to ask more questions of data and being a tough taskmaster on getting actionable outcomes from data, on all possible occasions.
Outside work, Kshira spends a lot of time on advancing data literacy initiatives for high school and undergrad students.
Jade Haar, Head of Data Ethics, National Australia Bank
Jade is a legal practitioner of almost 20 years’ experience, having worked in indigenous land rights, protection of vulnerable people litigation as well privacy and equality law in New Zealand, UK and Australia.
She has worked with the world’s oldest national broadcaster and now proudly works for NAB. As a data ethics and privacy professional, Jade leads her team to embed a data ethics culture at the bank where innovation is supported but balanced with critically assessing benefits, impacts and harms.
Jennifer Rebeiro, Chief Information Officer, Greater Western Water
Jennifer Rebeiro has led teams across a wide range of industries and functions, challenging and transforming each one to respond to the evolving business environment and changing community expectations. She was named as one of the Top 50 CIO’s in Australia in and 2021 and 2020 by CIO Magazine.
Jennifer has over 20 years across diverse industries where she has gained excellence in transformation, project management and change management across a wide range of industries including industries, from Banking and Finance, Transport, Manufacturing, Property Services, Telecommunications and Government.
Mithran Naiker, Chief Technology Officer, Transurban
As the Chief Technology Officer for Transurban, Mithran is responsible for providing cutting-edge technology and keeping Transurban’s mission critical platforms operating 24/7 for their 9 million customers.
With a passion for creating exceptional experiences for customers, clients and employees via industry leading technology solutions and capabilities, Mithran is responsible for creating, designing, and delivering Transurban’s Strategic Technology Roadmap across Architecture, Data & Analytics, Infrastructure & Cloud, Security, Networks and Workspace Technologies.
Prior to Transurban, Mithran was the IT Director at SEEK, where he led the Operations and Enterprise Applications teams.
Nonna Milmeister, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, RMIT University
Nonna Milmeister is an award-winning leader in data quality, customer experience and the productivity of Australian businesses. She has spent the past 2 years at RMIT building a data and governance strategy.
She partners with business stakeholders, vendors and IT to drive data strategy, develop enterprise data governance framework and deliver large, complex data related initiatives, significantly improving business bottom line. During her career Nonna has worked across Banking, Insurance, Government, Agriculture, Telecommunications and Utilities.
Sven Bluemmel, Information Commissioner, Victorian Government
Sven Bluemmel was appointed as the inaugural Victorian Information Commissioner in September 2017.
Prior to his current role, he served as Western Australian Information Commissioner for eight years. Before 2009, Sven held senior positions in the Western Australian Public Sector Commission, the Department of the Premier and Cabinet (WA) and the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department in Canberra.
He previously practised law in the private sector in Melbourne and Perth in the areas of information and privacy law. In addition he is a regular contributor to Australian and international publications, particularly in the areas of information law, technology law and administrative law.
Steve Argiriou, Chief Engineer, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank
Steve Argiriou is an accomplished technology who is passionate about delivering tangible business outcomes focused on customer value, promoting innovation, digital transformation and organisational agility.
He has over 22 years of experience delivering business value across the advisory, banking, insurance and e-commerce industries having held positions at Gartner, Cover-More, IAG, CGU, NAB and Infosys prior to joining Bendigo and Adelaide Bank as Chief Engineer in 2019.
Linda Craven, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Defence Bank
Linda Craven became Chief Digital & Information Officer in August 2018. She brings with her more than 20 years’ experience in technology and consulting within the financial services sector.
Linda holds a Master of Business Administration, graduating with distinction from the New York Institute of Technology. She also holds a Graduate Diploma in Computing, a Bachelor of Science and is a graduate of AICD. Her previous work history saw her successfully lead teams and projects at ANZ, NAB, Ernst & Young Consulting and IBM Global Services delivering significant transformational outcomes.
Linda leads the Defence Bank’s technology strategy and platforms with a goal to making it easier for our members to bank with us, improving efficiencies and driving technology innovations.
AI 'rock star', Professor Toby Walsh of University of NSW (and former spokesperson on AI at the United Nations)
Toby is a world-renowned professor on artificial intelligence and is Scientia professor at the University of New South Wales and Digital Think-tank Data61. He was named by the media as a “rock star” of the digital revolution and included on the list of the 100 most important digital innovators in Australia. He is a fellow of the Australia Academy of Science and of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, a Humboldt award winner and recipient of the NSW Premier’s Prize for excellence in engineering and ICT.
He has played a leading role at the UN and elsewhere on the campaign to ban lethal autonomous weapons (aka “killer robots”). Toby is a sought-after keynote speaker on how artificial intelligence influences business, education, warfare, personal development, and finance, among others. He regularly appears in the media talking about the impact of AI and robotics on society.
Toby is the author of the books ‘IT’S ALIVE’, ‘Android Dreams’, ‘Machines That Think’ and ‘2062: The Year that AI Made’.