Past Speakers

Sri Shivananda plays a critical role in shaping PayPal’s technology strategy in his role of Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Sri has driven the transformation of PayPal’s large-scale infrastructure, platforms and applications. As Sri has led PayPal through this transformation, he’s ensured the PayPal platform can grow and integrate with emerging technologies, preparing PayPal for a future of financial services that will increasingly rely on algorithms and anticipating customer needs.

In his role, Sri also oversees Technology Platforms & Experiences, leading a talented team responsible for the company’s secure, reliable, scalable and evolving global infrastructure and strategic core platform, the foundation that enables PayPal to deliver world-class services for PayPal’s consumers and merchants.

Prior to his appointment as EVP and CTO, Sri was CTO and Senior Vice President of Global Platforms and Infrastructure, directing his team of technologists to drive massive growth at scale across a completely disruptive payments platform. Sri was responsible for all core technologies covering PayPal’s data centers, internal private cloud, online and offline data infrastructure, internal developer frameworks and tools, and various platform services.

Before PayPal, Sri was with eBay for more than 15 years, working his way up from a software engineer to Vice President of Global Platform and Infrastructure. As VP, he was responsible for the company’s technology infrastructure that powered the eBay Inc. businesses, including eBay’s hundreds of millions of listings and PayPal’s millions of payments every day. Sri found his way to eBay via the acquisition of Deja.com.

Sri’s passion for technology is echoed by the emphasis he places on supporting his talent. A geek at heart, he is widely recognized as a hands-on executive with a passion for innovation. He is a leader in building high performing teams, mission-driven in his approach of nurturing high potential talent and a champion for women in technology. In addition, Sri serves on the board of F5 networks.

25 years of Internet industry experience leading disruptive innovation at scale.

In his current role he is the group CEO for Affinidi as well as a board member for GoodWorker and Trustana. Affinidi is working on decentralized trust and self-sovereign identity solutions.

Prior to Affinidi Glenn was the Chief Architect for Amazon Web Services responsible for architectural best practices and technology thought leadership.

Glenn has previously held leadership roles in OzEmail, UUNet, MCI/Worldcom and WebCentral. Glenn is passionate about the role technology has in shaping how we live, work and learn.

Alexey Goldov is an Associate 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.

Kathryn is an experienced Head of Information Technology with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry.

She has strong information technology professional with domain expertise in Cloud, Automation, Integration and Identity.

Simon Geraghty was appointed Executive Director Government Technology Platforms in the NSW Department of Customer Service (formerly Department of Finance, Services & Innovation) in January 2017.

In this role he leads the delivery of whole of government platforms and services, including the NSW Government Data Centres, digital licensing services, payment platforms, contact centre platforms and citizen facing apps such as FuelCheck and Park’nPay.

Suneethat is a multi-skilled strategic IT executive with more than 15 years of experience in delivering transformation programs and systems using industry-leading innovative solutions.

Her key achievements include delivering award-winning software-as-a-service OneGov digital platform used over 30 NSW Government agencies and delivers major benefits to the NSW Government by consolidating service delivery platforms, cutting red-tape and providing large-scale, reliable digital transactions to millions of NSW citizens and businesses.

Duncan is a senior technology executive specialising in strategy, design and implementation of mission-critical data centres and enterprise infrastructure. Heavily involved in Edge Data Centre strategy and 5G.

Experience in advising private and public sector clients on strategy and designing major change programmes.

Brendan is an experienced Business Architect and Financial Services strategist, he has 20 years experience in providing technology solutions into Financial services. Brendan is currently Chief Architect Enterprise Architecture at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Prior to CBA Brendan was a lead principal in Deloitte Platform Engineering where he would work closely with a number of the Tier 1 Banks in Australia to help them establish their Platform strategy mostly specialising in Digital, Data transformation and Cloud migration.

Prior to Deloitte Brendan was the Head of Retail and Wealth Architecture for CBA. He is focused on Integration and Data programs for Financial services. More recently Brendan has been focussed on Open banking and Bank Modernisation strategies. Relevant experience Data Ecosystem Platform Lead for Top 4 banks Open Banking strategy for Leading Australian Bank. CBA Institutional Bank Payroll strategy CBA: Led the Digital Platform establishment for Institutional Banking, Markets, Business and Private Banking. Led CBA’s Wealth Management Technology Strategy development CBA: Brendan was Head of Retail and Wealth Architecture in a complex and heavily regulated environment. Suncorp: Brendan led the technology domain for Suncorp’s Data transformation. Suncorp: Led the Personal Insurance Digital delivery. Delivering the digital customer experiences across Suncorp’s 15 brands.

Mark is an energetic business professional who has over 25 years’ experience within the IT&C industry segment with a strong speciality in data centres.

Having a diverse knowledge of the infrastructure that supports data centres, he brings a unique ability to take what is often seen as the complex and deliver solutions that resonate with his clients.

Hillery is CTO of IBM Cloud, responsible for technical strategy for IBM’s cloud-native and infrastructure offerings. Prior to this role, she served as Director of Accelerated Cognitive Infrastructure in IBM Research, leading a team doing cross-stack (hardware through software) optimization of AI workloads, producing productivity breakthroughs of 40x and greater which were transferred into IBM product offerings.

Her technical interests have always been interdisciplinary, spanning from silicon technology through system software, and she has served in technical and leadership roles in memory technology, Systems for AI, and other areas. She is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and was appointed as an IBM Fellow in 2017. Hillery is a BS, MS, and PhD graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mike is the Senior Director of Cloud, ANZ, at VMWare. Mike has a strong passion for driving business transformation through technology and has been doing so since 1996 – always maintaining a key focus on the leadership of emerging technology solutions to market and helping customers on their digital transformation journeys.

At VMWare Mike’s role is responsible for leading VMware’s cloud sales team and go-to-market efforts across Australia and New Zealand, as well as having a particular focus on the continued acceleration of VMware’s Multi-Cloud strategy and growing VMware’s Cloud Provider Program.

Prior to VMWare Mike held several leadership roles including Head of Cloud in Australia for the Singtel/Optus group, CTO for Broadreach, advisory roles at Citigroup UK, and previous roles in several IT organisations. Mike has strong experience across many different technology domains including Cloud, Digital Workplace, Security, Networks, and Applications; with core focus on leadership, driving business growth, and exceptional commitment to high quality customer outcomes.

VMware software powers the world’s complex digital infrastructure. The company’s cloud, app modernisation, networking, security, and digital workspace offerings help customers deliver any application on any cloud across any device. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is committed to being a force for good, from its breakthrough technology innovations to its global impact.

For more information, please visit here.

Robert assumes the leadership responsibility for the overall Vertiv business in Australia and New Zealand. He takes an active role in building the sales & operational capabilities required to drive Vertiv’s business transformation.

Roberts’s diverse experience in multiple countries and business sectors enables him to bring to life a leadership style that is naturally empowering, collaborative & encouraging. His fascination for all things digital enables him to easily translate technical complexity into relevant analogies using simple story telling techniques.

Recently authored articles and blogs by Robert explore the growth & speed to connect users with applications and how the demand from things like big data, IoT, mobile, social & AI is driving data centre requirements from organizations core data centre right up to the edge of network.

Based out of Sydney, Robert has worked at Vertiv (formerly Emerson Network Power) for the past 6 years. Prior to his appointment Robert held senior positions working in USA, Europe and Asia. Robert has over two decades of experience across technology driven industries, including telecoms, electronic materials and powder coating. In addition Robert has previously held board positions with CEPE, Intellect UK and EIPC.

More recently Robert is leading Vertiv business transformation into energy efficiency in the data center space. Robert and his team are focused on aligning customers ICT and business strategies to reduce energy costs in sustainable and innovative ways.

An experienced CEO and Company Director with a proven track record of leading, transforming and growing businesses through different technology and economic cycles, and regulatory environments. Chris has gained extensive knowledge with over 28 years experience both in the IT and Telecommunications industries with a proven track record gained in the US, Europe and Australia.

Chris is a visionary individual, who continuously strives for innovative solutions. He is a passionate leader, a trusted advisor, and a thought leader, who has engaged with clients including C-level executives in discussions with regards to their organisational vision, direction and strategy.

His leadership experience includes developing and growing businesses and people, general management at public companies, consulting, strategic planning and business operations.

Results driven Cloud professional who specialises in the management of technical, operational and customer service staff. A passion for building customer obsessed cultures, continually improving the service life-cycle through innovation is reinforced with a deep knowledge of the underpinning technology.

Engineering qualifications are supported by extensive international experience, strong business acumen and 20+ years’ experience in leading ICT engineering and operations teams.

A highly motivated individual, who enjoys meeting the challenges facing customers in complex and highly competitive environments.

Aparna Sundararajan leads the emerging and disruptive technology research agenda within ADAPT’s strategic advisory team. As Senior Research Strategist, her role is to create independent advice for the Australian C-Suite around emerging technologies, trends and investment priorities and developing industry leading content for the ADAPT portfolio of Edge events.

As a technology analyst and marketer, Aparna aligns the burning issues of senior executives with digital business dynamics and emerging technology capabilities to create strategic advice for ADAPT’s Members and Strategic Partners.

Aparna has had 12 years working in the IT services sector, much of it with Gartner, where she developed independent advice for senior IT managers on the emerging roles and responsibilities they face in digital technologies, digital customer behaviour, and business model 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.