Our Speakers

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.

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.

Gabby’s primary role is managing ADAPT’s overall strategy for Data Analytics. He has extensive experience in using data to identify trends in technology that help shape Australian organisations. Utilising modern Data Science techniques, he provides ADAPT and their customers with confidence in the accuracy and validity of the information used for ADAPT’s Research, Advisory, and Events.​

With a passion for creating stories with data, Gabby is consistently rated as one of the top speakers at ADAPT Events. In round table discussions, he specialises in using statistics to initiate thought-provoking discussions. Gabby is effective in translating information into insights, enabling ADAPT’s customers to become more data-driven.​

Gabby’s primary areas of expertise are: ​

• Advanced AI and ML practices, including AI ethics.​
• Building models to benchmark and predict IT performance.​
• End-user behaviour and human-centred design.​
• Cross-functional team design and value, such as DevSecOps.​

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