Past 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.

Simon Bowker is Area Vice President of CRM & Industry Solutions in Asia Pacific for ServiceNow. He is responsible for managing sales, strategy and customer success for ServiceNow’s Customer and Industry Workflow Solutions that drive fierce customer loyalty with connected digital workflows. Simon and his teams’ partner with ServiceNow’s customers on their digital transformation journey. They help leading organisation’s in the region deliver ‘next generation’ customer experiences, increase productivity, reduce complexity and significantly improve customer satisfaction.

Before joining ServiceNow, Simon led Financial Services and Strategic Accounts at Adobe, helping the largest brands in Australia build world class experiences. He also served as the APAC AVP of Marketing Applications at Teradata, where he launched the Marketing Resource Management, Campaign Management and Digital Marketing Solutions in the region. Prior to moving to Australia, he was the UK Managing Director of European SaaS start-up, eCircle. There he managed over 100 digital marketing professionals to become the leading digital marketing platform in the UK, before successfully leading the integration of the eCircle and Aprimo businesses following acquisition by Teradata.

Simon was an elected member of the UK Direct Marketing Association Council from 2010-2013. He has consulted on digital transformation strategies for clients including Sony, Asda, Argos, Lloyds Banking Group, Bank of America, Qantas, ANZ Bank & Telstra and continues to speak publicly around Customer Experience and Digital Transformation.

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.

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.

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’.

Jesse Arundell leads the new Emerging Artificial Intelligence function in the Artificial Intelligence Division at one of Australia’s largest telecommunications, media, entertainment and technology companies, Optus.

In his role, Jesse is responsible for accelerating the discovery, delivery, embedding and scaled adoption of Artificial Intelligence within the Corporate Services, Enterprise & Business, IT & Security and Networks divisions at Optus. To achieve this, Jesse’s teams design, build, deploy, integrate, validate and scale new Artificial Intelligence systems, products, platforms and experiences to Optus’ people and customers.

Outside of Optus, Jesse is a mentor, advisor and angel investor to technology start-ups and scale-ups. He has participated in the last three cohorts of StartMate as a Mentor and has developed an extensive, independent portfolio of 10+ angel investments, where he has invested alongside the world’s largest VCs.

In addition to his work in the start-up community, Jesse led the formation of Australia’s proposal to participate in the development of international standards for innovation management. He is now a member of the Australia Technical Committee (MB-279) and the corresponding International Technical Committee (ISO/TC279) for innovation standards. The intent of these committees is to standardise the terminology, tools, methods and interactions between businesses, governments and academics to enable innovation at scale.

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.

Dr. Michael G. Kollo is recognised as an accomplished executive leader and educator within the realm of artificial intelligence’s significance in business strategy and product development across various sectors including financial services, technology, and public services. Holding a portfolio of leadership roles, Michael has contributed his expertise to renowned institutional investors such as Blackrock, Fidelity, Renaissance Asset Management, Axa Investment Managers, and HESTA. Additionally, he served as a non-executive director for Clime Investment Managers, an ASX-listed entity.

In the entrepreneurial sphere, Michael has been involved with AI and software companies, notably as a key figure at Faethm Pty, an Australian AI software company that was acquired by Pearsons in 2021, and at the Blockchain company Clanz. Beyond entrepreneurship, he actively participates in mentoring and supporting fintech and cybertech startup ecosystems in London and Australia.

In the realm of academia, Michael boasts a PhD in Finance from the London School of Economics, coupled with extensive lecturing experience at esteemed institutions such as the LSE and Imperial College. He has also been invited as a speaker at TedX events, focusing on the responsible utilisation of AI. With publications addressing machine learning’s application in investment management and contributions to the World Economic Forum’s AI/Fintech panel, Michael’s expertise is widely recognised. Moreover, he has cultivated a global audience through educational podcasts like “Curious Quant.”

As well as Director of AI at ADAPT, Michael is also the CEO of Evolved AI, a distinguished executive education and software development firm dedicated to empowering individuals through effective and responsible AI usage, thereby fostering resilient, transparent, and rapidly evolving enterprises.

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

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.