Agenda

Jim founded ADAPT with a vision to help Australia thrive commercially, now and for the future.  To enable that, Jim leads ADAPT’s mission to connect, inform and equip our local business and tech leaders.

Leading the development of ADAPTs agenda’s and content strategy whilst also advising executive leadership teams from global technology service providers, Jim is uniquely experienced to be the voice of the end-user, the customer and the vendor.

Bringing his deep knowledge of the local market, Jim regularly presents “Know your Customer” webinars and guides the world’s largest vendors with their G-T-M and content strategies.

Through entrepreneurial product development and a servant leader mentality with his team and clients, ADAPT grows annually with clearly differentiated value for all stakeholders.

Joey leads ADAPT’s Strategy & Growth function, working closely with business and technology leaders to help build more agile, innovative and resilient organisations.

Joey has led key client engagements including:

Kyndryl, Executive Dinner: AI & Global Resiliency with CIOs & Chief Data Officers, co-hosted with Kyndryl CEO Martin Schroeter
ServiceNow Vivid Experience: AI Enabled Customer & Employee Experience with Heads of Strategy & Customer Experience - customer and VP interview and panel
AWS, Redhat & Apptio Executive Lunch: Controlling Cloud Costs, Enabling Efficiency & Unlocking AI with Heads of Cloud & Infrastructure - event moderation
Led Roundtables for: Rimini Street, Octopus Deploy, LivePerson, Redactive, Netskope, MicroStrategy, Diligent, Akamai and more.

Prior to ADAPT, Joey led strategic and technology implementation initiatives at Accenture, focused on financial services clients and Generative AI. 7 years in strategy, research and product roles at Gartner Australia and the UK and held business service analysis roles at Bain & Co.

Richard Holden is the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Professor, Chief Societal Economist, and Director of the Manos Institute for Cognitive Economics UNSW. He is also President Emeritus of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Prior to that he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He received an AM and a PhD in economics from Harvard University.

Professor Holden has published in leading general interest journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, and Nature.

His research has been featured in press articles in the New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, and The New Republic. Professor Holden appears regularly as a media commentator, has published opinion pieces in outlets including the New York Times and The New Republic, and is a weekly columnist for the Australian Financial Review.

Prior to graduate school he worked in private equity for several years, and he continues to advise in the corporate sector.

He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and the Royal Society of New South Wales.

His most recent books are From Free to Fair Markets: Liberalism after COVID-19 (Oxford University Press), Money in the Twenty-First Century: Cheap, Mobile, Digital (University of California Press), and Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race (UNSW Press).

André Freilinger is an accomplished Chief Financial Officer and strategic finance executive with more than 30 years of international leadership experience across financial services, technology, manufacturing / wholesale distribution and consumer products. He partners with executive leadership teams to improve business performance, strengthen governance and lead large-scale finance and technology transformation.

Most recently, André served as CFO, Technology and Data, Digital & AI at Westpac Group, leading the finance function supporting one of Australia’s largest technology organisations. During his almost 18-year career with Westpac, he held senior positions including CFO Technology, Head of Finance for Customer Solutions & Technology, Acting Chief of Staff to the Group Chief Operating Officer, Head of Transformation (PMO), and Group Head of Enterprise Project Finance. He worked closely with the Group CIO and executive leadership to shape technology strategy, optimise investment portfolios, improve financial transparency and strengthen financial governance across multi-billion-dollar technology and transformation portfolios.

Before Westpac, André held senior international finance leadership roles with Stora Enso, including Director Finance & HR for Global Corporate IT in Helsinki and Düsseldorf, where he advanced service-based IT costing and cost transparency. He later led the company’s Australian timber distribution business as Managing Director. Earlier roles included CFO of WIV Australia and software development roles with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency and Die Erste Bank in Austria.

André is a CPA Australia member and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and Computer Sciences from the University of Vienna.

David Walker was appointed Westpac Group’s Chief Technology Officer in August 2019. Since then, he is leading Westpac through its technology transformation - simplifying and merging the bank, building 4th gen cloud-native applications, establishing and operating evergreen platforms, leading Westpac’s AI technology, and building a culture of passionate and forward-thinking tech and emerging talent.

David began his technology career in 1987 as a software engineer, focusing on coding complex systems. After a decade of evolving his software engineering craft, David founded a data science consulting. Over the following decade, it became the number one expert data insights company in Australia and Southeast Asia.

For the last 15 years, David has held executive roles in large, complex organisations across the APAC region. Prior to joining Westpac, David was part of the leadership team of Singaporean bank, DBS. In his ten years there, David helped transform DBS from a traditional bricks and mortar bank with little brand presence or recognition outside Singapore, to being recognised as the ‘Best Bank in the World’ and the ‘Best Digital Bank in the World’ by leading global financial publication Euromoney.

Wayne is a seasoned management accountant with a broad background in Oracle, encompassing various business domains such as Support, Consulting, Presales, Applications Architecture, and Development. His professional journey has spanned across Europe, the US, and JAPAC regions, accumulating a wealth of 23 years of industry acumen, predominantly centred around EBS and Fusion (ERP). Notably, 20 of these years were dedicated to his impactful contributions at Oracle Corporation.

Jon joined the Opera House in 2017 as the CFO and Executive Director Corporate Service. He is currently responsible for the finance, payroll, rostering and technology teams at the Opera House. Jon has more than 40 years’ global experience in the financial, property and professional services sectors. After starting his career at Price Waterhouse, he moved into financial services with senior roles at Macquarie Bank and was later CFO for Lloyds Bank businesses in Asia. Most recently, he was the global CFO at a family-owned global design and build services business.

Matthew Chun is the Executive General Manager - Finance, Broadcast and Infrastructure at the Australian Football League (AFL). In this role, he is responsible for the AFL’s financial performance and long-term financial sustainability, as well as overseeing key operational areas including broadcast, and infrastructure assets.

Matthew leads the finance function across the AFL and plays a central role in strategic planning, commercial decision-making, capital investment and risk management. His portfolio includes responsibility for major infrastructure projects, stadium operations and broadcast-related activities that support the delivery and growth of Australian football nationally.

With extensive executive leadership experience, Matthew works closely with the AFL Executive and Commission to ensure the organisation maintains a strong financial position while continuing to invest in the growth of the game. His responsibilities span revenue optimisation, cost management, capital allocation and operational performance across critical AFL assets and venues, including Marvel Stadium where he is also Chair of the Board (Melbourne Stadium Limited who manage the stadium)

Matthew is focused on balancing financial discipline with strategic investment to support the AFL’s long-term objectives, enhance fan experiences and strengthen the league’s position as Australia’s leading sporting code.

Peter Hind has spent the last 25 years as an analyst and commentator on the ICT industry. He says his primary areas of interest are the potential of technology to transform the way organisations operate, the change management obstacles executives encounter in realising this potential and the tactics and techniques leaders have deployed to overcome these difficulties.

Peter now takes on multiple roles within ADAPT including the moderation of private events and roundtables, interviewing business executives about the strategies they are pursuing and assisting with the structuring of our delegate surveys and the interrogation and analysis of ADAPT’s treasure trove of end-user and C-level data

Tal Nathan is Rimini Street’s Regional Chief Technology Officer for Australia and New Zealand. With more than 20 years’ experience across technology, artificial intelligence, innovation, commercial leadership and business transformation, he helps organisations connect technology strategy with measurable business outcomes. Based in Melbourne, Tal works with customers to modernise, unlock greater value from existing enterprise systems and confidently navigate the shift toward agentic AI and business-led transformation.  

As Director of Strategic Research at ADAPT Matt Boon, is responsible for directing and developing ADAPTs research content and positions. In his role at ADAPT Boon advises C-Suite executives across the end-user and technology provider landscape. Boon is also responsible for bringing together groups of C-Suite leaders to discuss and prepare for the myriad of challenges and opportunities they face.

ADAPT host’s numerous industry leading IT focused events annually and Boon is responsible for hosting, chairing and delivering ADAPT independent content and positions to help attendees make informed IT decisions.