Redesigning Infrastructure for AI & Rebalancing the Cloud

Belinda Dennett is a highly respected public policy specialist with more than 20 years experience at the forefront of Australia’s digital economy and technology ecosystem. Most recently Belinda was Head of Government Relations at AirTrunk and previously spent more than a decade leading Microsoft’s Corporate Affairs and Policy team in Australia. Belinda is a former Federal ministerial advisor with a focus on digital economy policy. She has qualifications in law and business.

I lead the team accountable for Australia’s largest core banking estate — evolving it without compromising stability at national scale.

As GM of Core Banking at Commonwealth Bank, I’m responsible for the systems that move billions of dollars and power millions of customer interactions every day. My focus is simple: evolve mission-critical platforms so they are faster, more resilient, and designed for adaptability.

Over the past few years, that has meant leading the large-scale cloud migration and evolution of a core banking environment that most organisations would consider untouchable. We’ve delivered significant performance uplift across both online and batch workloads, aggressively minimised recovery times, strengthened availability, and opened the core to enable richer customer experiences — all while continuing to operate at national scale.

What I’ve learned:

• There is no silver bullet core
• Cloud doesn’t fix culture
• Architecture is an operating model decision
• Momentum beats perfection

The real work of transformation isn’t just technical. It’s aligning architecture, engineering discipline, governance, and the cultural operating system so that progress becomes repeatable — not heroic.

I write and speak about:

• How to evolve a core without destabilising the bank
• Engineering discipline at enterprise scale
• Turning strategy into shipped outcomes
• Bias for action in large organisations
• Designing a lean core that enables innovation at the edge

If you’re working on hard, high-stakes transformation — especially inside a large institution — that’s the conversation I’m interested in.

Proven experience in information technology, modernising and optimising digital delivery to underpin both the customer and employee experience. Nasa always looks for opportunities where her own values feed directly back to the community “Its about making a difference and more services accessible to everyone”. She has considerable experience helping organisations move forward with a strategic plan that gives them the digital tools they need to help leapfrog the roadblocks and pitfalls that can hold them back.