Our Speakers

John has more than 20 years’ experience in a career that has covered the breadth of financial services (banking, payments, insurance, wealth, and markets) retail, government services and logistics.

Prior to joining Coles, John spent five years at Australia Post, as CIO and EGM for Transformation and Enablement with accountability for Strategy, Technology, Communications, Government Relations, Data Science and Transformation office. He spent eight years at NAB in a variety of roles, concluding as CIO for Banking and Markets. He started his career in Management Consulting at Accenture working on large scale business transformations in Europe and Asia. John focuses on culture to make sustainable change and innovating to create customer value.

Born in Australia, John has lived and worked in Australia, Germany, Scotland, and England and has managed teams across the globe. He is passionate about learning and the potential of education to change lives.

Melissa Bischoping is a dedicated security advocate who blends an academic background in human psychology with extensive technical expertise to address complex technical challenges for businesses and individuals. Melissa’s research focuses on creative ways to leverage telemetry and technology to improve responses to emerging threats and vulnerability trends. She excels in leveraging data-driven insights to enhance threat mitigation strategies, optimize risk and vulnerability management, and excel in digital forensics and incident response methodologies.

Mr Chris Crozier was recently appointed Chief Information Officer, leading the Defence Digital Group at Defence.

Prior to joining Defence, Mr Crozier was the Group Chief Information Officer for Orica International, the world’s largest manufacturer and supplier of explosives for mining and civil construction.

As the Group Chief Information Officer, Mr Crozier was accountable for global digital technology strategies and operations across a footprint of the organisation spanning 120 countries, covering Business (IT), Customer (IoT) and Manufacturing (OT) systems, including the governance of Orica’s digital ecosystems, architecture, data, and cyber posture.

Prior to this, Mr Crozier held executive roles within Orica as Vice President of AusPac (60% of Orica’s global EBIT), Chief Digital Officer and Global Vice President Supply Chain; and BHP as Global Chief Information Officer and Global Chief Procurement Officer.

As a 35-year veteran of the Mining and Resources Sector, having commenced his professional life with Rio Tinto as a Research Engineer, Mr Crozier has experienced the highs and lows of the commodity cycle.

Mr Crozier has a Chemical Engineering Degree (Honours First Class) and Master of Business Administration.

In his spare time, Mr Crozier enjoys endurance sports, including cycling, running and swimming.

Digital disruption has transformed the business landscape, paving the way for new business models, service offerings, and emerging products. By joining Downer, Nicola helps clients understand how Downer Digital can enhance business operations, boost performance, and deliver exceptional customer and employee experiences.

With over 25 years of experience working alongside ASX-listed companies, global multinationals, and government departments, Nicola has led strategic transformations across business, finance, and technology. As Group CIO of Downer Digital, she collaborates with clients to design and implement digital transformations. Her passion for emerging technologies, strategic vision, digital finance leadership, and operational excellence drives her to deliver exceptional outcomes for clients and strategic partners, with a focus on SAP cloud solutions.

Nicola is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Accountants (ACCA) and holds an MBA in International Finance from Oxford Brookes University School of Management. She also teaches MBA courses on digital transformation at UNSW AGSM.

As Chair of CISR at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Boston, Peter’s work centres on the role, value, and governance of digitisation in enterprises. Peter works with several of Australia’s and the world’s leading CIOs, ExCos and Boards and is a senior advisor to the New York VC firm Insight Partners.

Peter was nominated for the 2023 Thinkers-50 based on his new book, Future Ready, and was ranked by Ziff Davis as the 24th most influential person in IT and the highest ranking academic. MIT CISR undertakes practical research on how firms generate business value from digital.

Andrew is a CIO who is people-focused, engaging, and authentic. He is passionate about building strong relationships with business leaders and creating high-performing teams to drive business transformation.

With extensive experience in tackling a wide range of business challenges across all technology areas, Andrew demonstrates a keen ability to understand complexity and pursue simplicity. He thrives on the energy of challenging transformations and is committed to making impactful changes.

Andrea encourages people to be ‘future fit’ for their careers – through writing, speaking, and delivering high-impact leadership programs. She founded Future Fit Learning in 2012 – a small business that builds leaders who drive innovation, growth and cultural change by accelerating the ‘real skills’ needed to lead with impact. Through her programs, Andrea and her team have helped major businesses and global organisations (Rio Tinto, NBN, THALES, Orora & Austrade) develop leaders at all levels.

Prior to her move into learning, Andrea was a career television news reporter based in Washington D.C., covering major breaking news for major media outlets including Reuters, the Seven Network and Al Jazeera English. While in the US, she also worked across human rights; firstly helping to generate grants to rebuild Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan & Georgia with funding from USAID & the US State Department. And secondly; leading the communications team when the ‘Save Darfur’ advocacy movement lobbied the Obama administration to appoint a US Special Envoy to end the genocide in Darfur, which was achieved at the UN General Assembly in New York in 2009.

One year before the pandemic, Andrea released her first award-winning book, Future Fit: How to Stay Relevant and Competitive in the Future of Work’ – winner of the Australian Business Book of the Year 2019 and finalist in the UK Business Book Awards 2020. Andrea has been a member of the Australian HR Institute’s Future of Work Advisory Panel and is currently working on her second book, to be released in March 2025.

Nathan has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and IT industry, leading sales of high-value, complex solutions that incorporate cutting-edge technology and challenging systems integration.

By working closely with the market’s tier 1 partners and customers, Nathan has developed a strong track record of high performance in business development for complex technology and networking, as well as Big Data and IoT solutions.

Alexey Goldov is a Partner at McKinsey & Company and is a leader in McKinsey’s Technology practice in Asia.

Alexey is specialising in large scale technology transformations in service industries – financial, telecommunication companies and public sector organisations.

Jim is known for exceeding expectations in execution.His entire career has been spent connecting the right people at the right time in roles across Europe and Asia Pac. ​
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He founded ADAPT to deliver quality outcomes with integrity – 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. ​
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At the centre of agenda creation and strategic partner management for two decades, Jim is uniquely experienced to be the voice of the end-user, the customer and the vendor. ​
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He satisfies C-suite attendees with all agendas across ADAPT Edge events. He also regularly presents “Know your Customer” webinars and guides the world’s largest vendors with their GTM and content strategies.​
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Through entrepreneurial product development and a servant leader mentality with his team and clients, ADAPT grows annually with clearly differentiated value for all stakeholders.

Currently studying a Masters of Business Analytics at Deakin University, Gabby works closely with the Analyst team to identify trends in technology and business that help shape Australia. 

With a passion for statistics and data visualisation, he enables ADAPT to present the right insights at the right time to the right people. Using modern analytics techniques, Gabby provides ADAPT and their customers with confidence in the accuracy and validity of the information used for ADAPT’s Research, Advisory and Events. 

Gabby expertise extends to: 

– Descriptive and inferential statistica
– Regression techniques and forecasting
– Data Visualisation and customisation through PowerBI and Tableau  

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.

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