The Hon Victor Dominello MP, Minister for Digital & Minister for Customer Service, NSW Government
Victor is a senior Minister in the New South Wales Government. He has held various portfolios over the last decade including Aboriginal Affairs, Innovation and Finance. In 2019, he was appointed the inaugural Minister for Customer Service. With a key focus on digital transformation.
Victor firmly believes that the use of real-time data and technology are the most powerful ways to improve quality of life and reduce suffering. Victor is a member of the crisis cabinet that has led the NSW response to Covid. He has had a particular focus on delivering digital solutions such as the Service NSW check in feature and real time data analysis to inform the state’s response.
During his time in the portfolio Victor has been the driving force behind the roll out of the Digital Driver Licence, the establishment of the $1.6b Digital Restart Fund and the rapid expansion of Service NSW app, including the introduction of new functionality such as QR code check in’s and notification of Covid test results.
Stela Solar, Director, National Artificial Intelligence Centre, CSIRO
Stela Solar is passionate about removing barriers to positive technology adoption and engagement. Over the past 15 years, Stela has cultivated expertise in capturing new revenue opportunities presented by emerging technologies, particularly through business model transformation.
With most recent experience as Global Director of AI Solutions Sales and Strategy at Microsoft, Stela’s experiences across business development, strategy, ecosystem development, marketing and product management inform her insights surrounding cross-organisational factors affecting an organisation’s ability to capture an advantage.
Stela has returned to Australia after seven years in the US to join CSIRO and lead the National AI Centre.
Matt Zwolenski, Chief Technologist, Google Cloud Australia & NZ
Matt joined Google in 2020 and is the Chief Technologist for Google Cloud in Australia & NZ. He leads a large team of cloud technologists and architects who are responsible for the cloud transformation journeys for many of the organisations, startups and Government agencies within this region.
Matt’s team consists of AI and machine learning specialists, cloud architects and application and infrastructure modernisation consultants who help customers on their digital journey. He has expertise in analytics and AI, as well as a background in software development and agile culture transformation.
Prior to joining Google, Matt was the Vice President for Presales across the Asia Pacific & Japan region at Dell Technologies, CTO for EMC in Australia & NZ and Technology Architect at IBM. He is author of the book “Enterprise Hybrid Cloud for Dummies” which has helped organizations shift their traditional IT systems to Cloud first models.
Tim Roberts, Executive Manager Digitisation, CBA
As the Executive Manager Digitisation Tim develops and drives the strategic plan for the digitisation of Commercial Lending processes. Tim led the implementation of DocuSign for Commercial Lending during the COVID Pandemic. As DocuSign Product Owner his team expanded the scope and enhanced the solution to drive adoption to 97% of all Commercial Loan document envelopes. Digital documents now provide the foundation for further automation of the upstream document preparation and downstream document upload and verification.
Ed Knott, Area Vice President, Sales ANZ
Ed is the Area Vice President for ANZ at DocuSign. Ed leads all aspects of the Sales and GTM functions and is passionate about technology transformation and partnering with customers to deliver seamless digital experiences. Ed brings over 20 years of experience in technology and leadership to his current role at DocuSign. Prior to this Ed was Head of Sales at Google Cloud, a business he started back in 2014 and held multiple executive leadership roles at Oracle. Ed has been recognised for his customer focus and is an advocate for equality in the workplace, having recently judged the Gender Equality Awards.
Natalie Piucco, CTO Office, Google Cloud Engineering, APAC
Natalie is a Born in the Cloud Digital Leader and for the better part of a decade, has been a trusted advisor to Start up & Enterprise Technology Leaders building for where the world is going with Google Cloud with a focus on AI, data and growing cultures of innovation.
As both an engineer and business leader, Natalie embodies a unique combination of customer centric skills and has supported the delivery of business & cloud technology strategy and large scale enterprise transformation, living in Europe and Asia, across a broad range of industries.
Natalie represents APAC on the board of Capital G, Google’s Independent Investment arm, and was named one of Australia’s leading women in technology by CISCO and ARN.
Dr Vahid Behbood, Principal Data Scientist, Domain
Dr Vahid Behbood has more than 10 years experience in Data and AI field working in various industries including Finance, Telecom, Cyber Security, Retail, Insurance, Technology, etc.
He has been leading multiple AI and Data transformation projects for companies with different sizes from startups to big corporations. Vahid received his PhD degree in machine learning from UTS and has published more than 20 articles in journals and conferences.
He has recently been interested in the responsible AI field and ethical principles of building data products.
David Siroky, General Manager AI, Data Analytics & HPC, Asia Pacific & Japan, Dell Technologies
David Siroky has been with Dell Technologies in a variety of leadership roles across the Asia Pacific region for 10 years. David leads a team of Data Analytics, AI & HPC solution architects & data scientists focused on helping organizations accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.
David offers insights, sharing and experience from working with customers from Australia, through Singapore, South Asia & India. Prior to working at Dell Technologies, David worked for Microsoft for 15 years, based in Redmond, Washington, on multiple business including Office 365, Microsoft Azure and Windows.
David holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and business, with experience working with software development teams, application architecture, IT infrastructure and multiple software languages.
Sarah Kummerfeld, Director of Data Science and Associate Professor, Garvan Institute of Medical Research
Associate Professor Sarah Kummerfeld is the Scientific Head of the Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics. She uses genomics to understand human disease and translate findings into clinical diagnostics and treatments. Sarah completed her PhD in Computational Biology at the University of Cambridge, working on protein structure and function prediction. Her postdoctoral research at Stanford University studied the molecular basis of human ageing.
Sarah has worked both in academia and industry, including 10 years as a Scientist at Genentech, based in the San Francisco Bay Area. At Genentech, she used large-scale genomics approaches to understand why only some patients respond to treatment and to identify diagnostic biomarkers that predict response to particular drugs. Sarah is dedicated to bringing applying advances in genomics research to benefit patients.
Cameron Pitt, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte
Cameron is a Partner in the Human Capital Consulting, and leads the Human Capital Canberra Office, whilst taking responsibility for Deloitte’s Workforce Centre of Excellence across Australia.
Cameron is an expert in aligning the workforce with organizational outcomes and community / customer expectations by building capability, reducing cost and increasing workforce productivity.
Pooyan Asgari, Chief Data Officer, Domain Group
As Chief Data officer, Pooyan oversees Data, Analytics, BI and AI for Domain group, Pooyan has over 20 years’ experience in the Business Intelligence, Data Science, Advanced Analytics and Machine Learning fields.
Pooyan’s team is dedicated to providing seamless access to data and analytics across the business and supports teams to solve their complex problems, as well as providing cutting edge AI and BI solutions to internal and external stakeholders.
Pooyan is passionate about what data can bring to help a customer-centric organization to get a ‘proper’ understanding of micro details of its customer needs.
Mel Faeghy, Director at ServiceNSW
Mel joined Service NSW in 2017, having played major roles in the development of the Service NSW App with responsibility for Digital Channels, Digital Products, Digital Licences, and Conversational AI.
With over 15 years of experience leading digital transformation, innovation, strategy and operations for global organisations, Mel takes the great pride in merging communication with technology, marketing, and PR with IT.
Heidi Badgery, Managing Director, Alteryx ANZ
Heidi is responsible for company strategy, business activities and operations for Alteryx in ANZ. Under Heidi’s leadership and extensive experience in enterprise software business development, as well as passion for customer centric technology, Heidi is zealous to accelerate Alteryx’s growth strategy and empower more organisations to use their data to make decisions at pace and scale, to achieve business outcomes.
With more than 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, Heidi has worked in the United States and across Asia Pacific, building businesses and accelerating organisational performance in software, SaaS and consulting services. Prior to joining Alteryx, Heidi led Adobe’s Professional Services Go To Market team across Asia Pacific, with a focus on ensuring Adobe’s customers realise their digital ambition and achieve measurable business outcomes through their digital transformation.
Heidi has also spent 13 years with Symantec, leading the Company’s global accounts, the Norton business in Greater China and developing new strategic services offerings for the global business.
Dan Jermyn, Chief Decision Scientist, Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Dan is an experienced leader in both technology and analytics, with an established record of building award-winning, global teams in digital, big data and customer decisioning. Dan joined the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2017, where he has responsibility for ensuring they harness specialisms in AI, data science, experimentation, and behavioural economics to drive decisions that help improve the financial wellbeing of CBA’s customers and communities.
After gaining master’s degrees from both Oxford University and Cardiff University, Dan first plied his trade as a strategy consultant and then Head of Analytics for an agency in the UK, where he led engagements with a host of major corporate and governmental organizations. He followed this up by co-founding a successful digital technology startup. Dan joined CBA from the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he held various roles including Head of Digital Analytics and Head of Big Data & Innovation.
Annie South, Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer, Telstra
Annie has a distinguished career specialising in creating Data & AI teams in both Australia and the UK. She is noted for her pragmatic approach and ability to deliver impactful business outcomes by leveraging a disciplined approach to governance.
A passionate people leader, Annie returned to her career earlier this year from a two year hiatus spent caring for a member of her family.
Prior to this, Annie was at RMIT University as Director, Data Management CoE, ME Bank as the inaugural General Manager for Data, and a number of other roles across different specialisms of data and analytics.
Sharmila Tsourdalakis, Chief Innovation, Marketing and Technology Officer, Stockland
Sharmila has over 24 years’ experience working in senior executive roles across technology, innovation, customer and digital. Recognised for her expertise in driving transformational change and commercial outcomes, she is currently the Chief Innovation, Marketing and Technology Officer at Stockland. Previously, Sharmila held roles including Executive General Manager of Banking and Wealth Technology at Suncorp, and Chief Information Officer at GPT Group.
In 2019, Sharmila was awarded the Chief Executive Women’s scholarship, attending the Disruptive Innovation course at Harvard Business School. Sharmila has a strong belief in continuous learning, championing STEM, diversity and inclusion and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
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.
Kimberlee Weatherall, Professor of Law, University of Sydney Law School; Co-chair, Advisory Committee on AI Ethics, Australian Computer Society
Kimberlee is a Professor of Law at the University of Sydney Law School, focusing on the regulation of technology and intellectual property law, and a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, where she works on projects targeting questions of data-sharing across public and private sectors, data governance, privacy, and fair automation and datafication across a number of industries, including healthcare and insurance and consumer markets.
She is a Fellow at the Gradient Institute, a research institute developing ethical AI, and a research affiliate of the Humanising Machine Intelligence group at the Australian National University, and a co-chair of the Australian Computer Society’s Advisory Committee on AI Ethics
Jim Edwards, AI and IOT Lead, Director Data and AI, Avanade
Jim is the AI & IOT lead for Avanade in Australia. He specialises in assisting clients in the adoption of machine learning and advanced analytics leveraging the plethora of new data sources that are being generated from our increasingly automated and connected industries. A key part of his role involves working with several global financial services clients implementing advanced analytics and machine learning operations models, allowing domain experts to leverage data capabilities against real datasets in complex regulated environments.
Jim is currently working with global partners on the ethical and regulatory adoption of machine learning models relating climate risk and sustainability data in financial services.
Luke McCormack, Head of APJ, Unqork
Luke McCormack is the Head of Asia Pacific & Japan for Unqork, where he is responsible for building successful software and consulting operations across Australia, Asia and Japan; leading a team that has built a stellar client list and continuing to make inroads into the market.
Not afraid of a challenge – Luke has opened new markets, new verticals, new clients, and new global solutions in one of the most challenging market segments. He thrives on solution development, vision creation, and leading teams that have a ‘Thought Leadership’ culture.
Luke brings over 25 years of successful technology experience to Unqork, having driven growth across the APJ region with organizations such as Pegasystems, Accenture and Citibank. Earlier in his career, Luke served as a software engineer in the Australian Banking Industry.
Luke holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and a Graduate Diploma in Business from the University of New England.
Probir Dutt, Automation Evangelist, IAG
Probir Dutt is a seasoned technologist with a focus on applied AI, hyper automation and data analytics.
Being a member of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers, the Australian Writers Guild and the Royal Society, he has a passion in using creativity to drive good science and develop pragmatic AI solutions leaving humans to do what they’re best at, bringing art into existence.
He is also a writer, multi-instrumentalist musician and composer having penned scores for over 70 films and written 4.
Aurelie Jacquet, Chief of Standards Australia Committee, OCED.AI
Aurelie is an independent consultant who advises ASX 20 companies on the responsible implementation of AI. She also works as Principal Research Consultant on Responsible AI for CSIRO-DATA61, she is a member of the NSW Government AI Committee and the co-chair of ACS’ AI Ethics Committee.She also leads global initiatives for the implementation of Responsible AI, including as chair of the standards committee representing Australia at the international standards (ISO) on AI; the co-chair of the first accredited global certification program for AI developed by the Responsible AI Institute for the World Economic Forum; and an expert on AI Classification and Risk for the OECD.ai Group.
In 2021, she was also appointed by the European Commission as an expert as part of their international outreach initiative, which helps promote the EU’s vision on sustainable and trustworthy AI. Also in 2021, she won the Australia-New Zealand Women in AI and the Law award, she was recognised by Women in AI Ethics (WAIE) as one of the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics globally, and the Responsible AI Institute Leadership Award.
Mark Drasutis, GM, Digital & Customer Technologies, ASX
Mark has 25+ years of experience working in the digital landscape across IAG, News Corp Australia, Yahoo!, AOL., The Economist, and more. A transformational business leader, he brings inspiring blend of strategy, product management, technology, customer experience, data/analytics, organisational culture, operating models & corporate innovation insights spanning over nearly three decades across global digital natives, media/entertainment & financial services organisations.
Mark is passionate about unleashing the potential of people, data, platforms, operating models and products to make a difference in peoples’ lives and driving organizational change in systematic, scalable and profitable ways.
Nicole Reid, Chief People Officer, Xero
Nicole is a senior HR leader with excellent leadership skills in the design and delivery, adding value to organisational people solutions. Currently leading Xero’s people experience function globally, she has spent over 20 years in human resources strategy development and execution, delivering people solutions and transformational change programs across the financial services, technology and telecommunications industries for companies including AMP and Microsoft.
With a comprehensive career across financial services, technology, and telecommunications her experience includes HR strategy development and execution, HR transformational change programs and leading/developing highly proficient HR teams.
John Sutherland, Chief Information Officer, Hammondcare
John is an Information Technology executive with experience delivering strategic initiatives in large and complex international corporations. With 30 years’ experience working both in Australia and the United Kingdom, John has held various roles across aerospace, mining, construction and engineering, manufacturing and distribution, telecommunications, retail, government, life sciences and most recently, medical technology, health and aged care.
John is an advisor to the Board of the Australian Government’s peak e-health organisation, the Australian Digital Health Agency. In 2020 John received the accolade of Australian CIO of the Year.
Joanna Gurry, Executive Data Delivery, NAB
Joanna is a commercially focused technology executive with 25 years’ experience in banking, insurance and telecommunications. Building and leading large data and analytics teams at NAB, NBNCo, IAG, Commonwealth Bank and KPMG, Jo has led successful transformations of culture and capability in large, complex businesses.
Aiming always to strike the right balance between risk and compliance with strong commercial outcomes, Jo targets strategic relationships with great partners to propel an innovation agenda – driven by advanced analytics practices and underpinned by mature information management foundations.
Angela Donohoe, Group Chief Information Officer, Bpay
A lauded CIO, Angela ranked within Australia’s top CIOs by CIO Magazine in 2020 and is a sought-after speaker on emerging technology and its impact on business-enabled innovation. She is responsible for leading BPAY Group’s successful technology function including business-focused strategy, architecture, solutions, and operations through the adoption of Agile and DevOps best practices.
She has more than 25 years of experience in senior technology leadership roles at organisations including Revenue NSW, Cuscal, Societe Generale, and Bank of New York. Angela is a Fellow of CPA Australia and FINSIA, is a director of a not-for-profit childcare organisation and serves on a range of technology advisory boards.
James Kershaw, ANZ Chief Architect, Juniper Networks
James is a veteran of the telecommunications industry with a diverse range of experiences across local and global organisations at the forefront of networking technology. Adept at identifying, defining, and delivering solutions focused on maximizing customer value, James holds a PHD from Monash University and is a technology evangelist keenly passionate about applying new technologies to solve the challenges faced by organizations across Australia and New Zealand.
This includes the co-evolution of 5G, powerful machine learning, AI and post-pandemic hybrid work which is rapidly driving development of the self-driving network. In his leadership role at Juniper Networks, James gets to play with these leading technologies to deliver more reliable, more secure, more scalable network services, improving the experience for both employees and customers of some of ANZs largest organisations.
Patricia Haueiss, Chief Metaverse Officer, Web3Academy
Patricia is a metaverse, NFT, and web3 advisor and consultant based in Sydney with cross-industry experience in marketing, strategy, product and growth-hacking. As one of Australia’s leading metaverse consultants, Patricia has nearly a decade worth of experience across the blockchain and metaverse ecosystems, making her one of the earliest adopters of the nascent technologies.
She assists brands in becoming metaverse-ready and enables businesses to enter the web3, NFT and metaverse space. Patricia loves web3 and its open community around blockchain, crypto and DAOs. She co-founded Power Women, a community to empower women in business and web3. Patricia is also host and organiser of Metaverse Sydney and the largest Metaverse Conference in the southern hemisphere, MVcon. Patricia has been recognised by The Australian as one of the Top 100 Innovators and is a well-known thought leader and intelligent speaker.
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 President of Innovation Frameworks and Strategies and before that was the Head of Customer Engagement Architecture at Commonwealth Bank.
Aruna Kolluru, Chief Technologist, AI, Asia Pacific, Dell Technologies
Aruna is passionate about technology, business and exploring the new possibilities with emerging technologies. She works with organizations to help visualize the art of possible, define use cases, architect and build solutions with AI/ ML/DL, Big Data and other technologies.
She worked in various roles including Cloud Platforms Technologist, Big Data Technologist, Middleware Technologist, Java Architect and Presales specialist at IBM & Oracle before joining EMC & Dell Technologies.
She has over 20 years of experience in the industry on varying technologies including AI, Blockchain, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, IOT, Big Data & Analytics, Information Management, Middleware and Enterprise architecture.
Brendan Hopper, CIO Technology, CBA
Brendan Hopper is the Commonwealth Bank Group CIO for Technology, responsible for ensuring that the Bank has a world-leading IT engineering capability, and that we make the right technology investments and decisions so that technology becomes an accelerator, not a disruptor, for us and our customers.
Prior to this role, Brendan was the General Manager of CBA’s Cyber Security Centre, working around the clock to actively defend customers and vital bank infrastructure from cyber threats, and is a co-founder of “Sec.EDU”, CBA’s industry partnership with UNSW and other universities to grow cyber education in Australia since 2015.