Our Speakers Include

David Avrin, CSP, GSF is one of the world’s leading Customer Experience speakers and consultants. He helps CEOs and organisations better understand and serve their changing customers and clients to help future-proof their businesses by becoming ridiculously easy to do business with. David’s the author of seven books: It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You!, Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back) and his newest book: Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With: A practical guide to giving customers what they want-when and how they want it. His business insights have been featured worldwide.

Marek Kowalkiewicz is a Professor and Chair in Digital Economy at QUT Business School. Listed among the Top 100 Global Thought Leaders in AI by thinkers360, Marek has led global innovation teams in Silicon Valley, was a Global Research Program Lead and Founding Research Manager of SAP’s Machine Learning lab in Singapore, and a Research Fellow at Microsoft Research Asia. His newest book, “The Economy of Algorithms: AI and the Rise of the Digital Minions”, is an international bestseller, recently released as an audiobook.

Business technology leader and trusted adviser to Exec teams and Chief Transformation Office, with expertise across strategy, innovation, and emerging technologies. Deep technical background and broad solution experience.

My super power is a natural ability to understand- and translate the use of- technology into business outcomes for Executives and business leaders, connecting the “why, how and what” of transformation to inspire and lead change. Blend of engineering mindset with creative and disruptive thinking, keynote speaker, author, podcaster and award winning blogger.

Stephen Hardy is a member of Bain & Co’s Advanced Analytics practice and has more than 20 years of experience building and deploying AI and machine learning across financial services, government, retail and consumer electronics. He works extensively to deliver practical solutions embodying responsible AI principles to clients across the Asia Pacific.

Stephen’s career has spanned the technology areas of customer experience optimisation, causal modelling of programmatic impacts, image and video recognition algorithms, and privacy-preserving data analytics.

He has published articles across a number of different fields and is a co-inventor on more than 15 US patents across multiple technology domains.

Prior to joining Bain, Stephen was formerly the CEO of Ambiata, a Sydney based data science services company and was also previously SGM of Canon Information Systems Research Australia Image and Video R&D Lab.

He holds a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Sydney and a BSc (Hons) with a university medal from the Australian National University.

Dawid Naude is a trailblazer in business, disruption, and innovation, shaping the future by translating AI’s potential into real world impact. Committed to making AI exciting, accessible, and impossible to ignore, he helps organisations to make every employee more productive, reimagine what’s possible, and achieve breakthrough innovation.

With a dynamic CV spanning consulting and leadership roles across digital, technology and innovation, Dawid is the proud Founder & CEO of Pathfindr. Named one of AFR BOSS’ Most Innovative Companies in its founding year, Pathfindr’s is now the fastest growing AI Accelerator in Australia.

An advisor to Government and industry bodies across APAC, Dawid is one of the region’s foremost AI innovators, educators, and implementers. With an infectious energy and a gift for making the complex feel simple, his keynotes have built a reputation for exciting audiences into action.

I am the Head of Industry Advisory and Centre of Excellence at SAP, where I lead a team of experts who provide strategic guidance and best practices to our clients in various industries. With over 25 years of experience in FMCG, consulting, and technology, I have a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing businesses today. I am also certified in Prosci change management methodology, which enables me to facilitate effective and sustainable change initiatives.

My mission is to help our clients achieve their goals by leveraging SAP’s innovative solutions and my expertise in business transformation, operations management, process improvement, and R&D. I have a proven track record of delivering results in areas such as sales growth, sustainability, product portfolio development, and cost reduction. For example, I was voted Employee of the Year at Cerebos, led a transformation program at Goodman Fielder that covered multiple functions and delivered significant value, and reported to the Board to re-inspire a stagnating start up and grow it to one of the top brands in the retail chiller.

Leading the Architecture function for an ASX 200 agribusiness and processing company with a history spanning more than 100 years, helping to chart the course to a future focused technology landscape. 

Simon is an experienced global retail leader with extensive commercial, communication, and planning skills. He has a strong track record of delivering market-leading results for large multinational organisations and is highly skilled at driving meaningful change that delivers both financial and cultural benefits. 

Simon brings deep international experience to his work. He is currently with Coles Supermarkets in Australia and previously worked in Asia with Tesco, where he developed regional strategies in collaboration with key branded business partners. Prior to this, Simon spent 10 years at Tesco UK, leading a broad portfolio of product categories within the Commercial divisions. 

David is a digital strategist and design leader known for delivering innovative, human-centred digital solutions across public and private sectors. With experience at DXC Technology, BCG, and various start-ups, he blends creativity with strategic thinking to drive transformation that is technically feasible, commercially viable, and deeply user-focused.

Samantha is a former CIO with 30+ years in tech, leading digital and IT transformations in organisation such as Tesco, Coles, and L’Oréal. She co-founded “Tech Boosters” to help businesses scale efficiently and founded “Lady Leadership” to empower women in tech through coaching and mentoring.

Strategic and dynamic senior leader with a proven track record in driving Go-To-Market (GTM) sales excellence and spearheading growth for technology businesses in global organizations and tech scale-ups across ANZ and APJ. Committed to fostering a culture of success, collaboration, and innovation, I thrive in complex, fast-paced environments, guiding teams towards impactful business outcomes and cultivating trusted client partnerships.

My expertise lies in crafting and executing comprehensive market development strategies, leading rapid business expansion, building high performance teams and managing post-acquisition integrations. I enjoy being at the forefront of innovative advancements, since the early stages of pioneering mobile technologies to driving modernization efforts and delivering enhanced digital experiences for all stakeholders across Enterprise and Government clients.

Leveraging data, analytics & AI as enablers for business outcomes.

Christina Igasto is a Digital and ICT professional with over 25 years of experience in Digital Business Transformation. Throughout her career, Christina led significant leading-edge transformation journeys to meet consumer expectations and address complex business requirements. Her expertise includes transforming customer services, governance, culture, business processes, technology, and strategic and operational management. With a PhD in Computing Science, Dr. Christina has extensive experience in various digital and analytical technologies and AI. She is recognised as a strong, innovative, transformative executive leader and for delivering pivotal innovation projects, orchestrating the digital transformation of services, and advancing technology-enabled customer and business solutions.

Christina joined Service NSW in July 2024. Under her leadership, the teams collaborate with the public and private sectors to design and execute a digital and data vision that advances digital capabilities, enhances customer experience and insights and delivers innovative digital products for partner agencies, the people and businesses in NSW. As the Chief Digital Officer, Christina is responsible for the effective and agile development, implementation, and delivery of strategic digital programs, digital transformation and easy, accessible, trusted and integrated NSW digital government services.

Dr Christina is also an honorary affiliate Adjunct Associate Professor at the Biomedical Informatics and Digital Health School of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney.

Previous experience:

Christina has held numerous senior executive positions over the years before joining Service NSW as Chief Digital Officer. Christina’s experience includes serving as Chief Digital Health Officer & CIO for one of the larger districts in NSW Health, Western Sydney Local Health District and Executive Director of Program Delivery at eHealth NSW.

Christina brings international experience in innovation and technology solutions, with a strong senior background in digital and data strategic and operational leadership roles across the public, private, and academic sectors. In 2016 and 2017, she was also honoured in her native country, Sweden, as one of Medtech’s 100 ‘Most Powerful People in the Nation’.

Tom is a seasoned digital and technology leader with extensive experience in project and line management across digital and Microsoft platforms. With a track record of success in both startup and enterprise environments, he excels in leading teams to deliver complex IT-enabled change projects while effectively engaging stakeholders.

Velvet-Belle Templeman is the Publishing Director of nextmedia’s B2B division for technology publications iTnews, Digital Nation and CRN.

She joined nextmedia in 2021 to launch Digital Nation Australia as its lead journalist, and later became group commercial editor for B2B. Velvet-Belle has also worked as a journalist at Which-50.com and as a content producer at Boardroom Media.

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.

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.​

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