Decoding digital transformation and resilience: Insights from ADAPT’s 2024 top industry panel discussions

With over 30 years of experience in the ICT industry, Craig Scroggie is the CEO and Managing Director of NEXTDC, an ASX 100-listed technology company and Asia’s most innovative Data Centre-as-a-Service provider. He leads a team of experts in delivering the critical power, security, and connectivity for global cloud computing providers, enterprise, and government across Asia.

Craig is passionate about building the infrastructure platform for the digital economy, leveraging his knowledge and skills in business development, key account management, and process improvement. He has a strong focus on sustainability, security, networks and operational excellence, achieving global recognition for the design, construction, and operation of Australia’s only network of Uptime Institute certified Tier IV facilities. He also serves on the board of AUCloud, and is an Adjunct Professor and Chairman of the La Trobe University Business School Advisory Board. He holds an MBA, a Postgraduate Diploma in Management, and a Graduate Certificate in Information Technology.

As an Executive Director within KordaMentha, he leads efforts to provide advisory and support to organisations seeking to manage the ever-changing risk that is cyber security. Augmenting the firms forensic, financial tech, corporate advisory and restructuring services with a suite of cybersecurity related risk advisory, incident response, business continuity and operational resilience services, his team listens to the challenges being faced by organisations and government and co-creates solutions which increase resiliency, reduce risk, optimise performance and organisational efficiency.

Kylie Watson is an experienced executive in the Information Technology Infrastructure, Apps, and Services Industry. Driven by a strong client focus, she supports large-scale business and technical transformation, leveraging her expertise in change management and behavioural economics. Kylie excels in leading large sales and delivery teams across multiple disciplines and regions, driving the adoption and embrace of new technologies. She is adept at growing capabilities and skills to meet market demand across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, and at building partnerships and alliances to solve client challenges.

Kylie has extensive experience working across all industries and is well-connected with key C-suite stakeholders in federal, state, and local government, as well as in retail, mining, oil and gas, utilities, distribution, health, and financial services. She has a proven track record of driving cultural change and embracing diversity and inclusion, earning awards in coaching, mentoring, and innovation.

With over 25 years of executive leadership experience in technology and consulting, spanning multiple industries, international geographies, and platforms, Kylie is well-versed in Google, AWS, IBM Cloud, and Azure. Her solution experience and qualifications include cybersecurity, data, AI, cloud, and change management. Additionally, she is an AI ethicist with some quantum computing capability.

Kylie is also a media spokesperson, keynote speaker, and author on technology topics, and serves as an advisor to universities and government agencies on cyber, technology research, and education.

Dayle joined Telstra in July 2021 with nearly 30 years’ experience in the technology industry. She has held notable executive leadership roles in technology at companies such as NAB and AGL. Today Dayle leads Telstra’s Data & AI function.

Outside of Telstra, Dayle is a non-executive director at Beyond Blue, Australia’s most well-known and trusted mental health organisation, and a member of the IT Advisory Committee at Trinity College, University of Melbourne.

Dayle has long championed diversity in STEM across industry and age group boundaries, both through her own work and with global organisations aimed at encouraging women and girls to participate in STEM such as Robogals and Girl Geek Academy.

Dayle’s work has been recognised with multiple industry and professional awards, including being named in the CIO50 list of the best CIOs in Australia, the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence, and being awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her services to information technology and to women. 

Based in Sydney, Australia, Yvette joins Proofpoint from Qantas Airline Group, where her main role was the CISO for Jetstar Group of Airline companies (Jetstar Aus/NZ, Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Japan and Jetstar Vietnam).

Prior to Qantas she was the CISO at the freight and logistic company Asciano, as well as having built up the security function at Atlassian before they went to IPO.

In her role as Resident CISO, APJ, Yvette will focus on driving Proofpoint’s people-centric security vision, strategy, and initiatives amongst its customer base.

She brings hands on experience, knowledge, and perspective in managing risk and improving cyber security posture across complex enterprises. She provides trusted cyber advice and insight advisory services for our customers.

A contagious optimist, energiser and entrepreneur, welcomed into the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2023 for service to business, Angela thrive’s helping others as a co-founder and executive director, author, holder of registered IP and copyright, and partnering with exceptional leaders as a Managing Director within Accenture. Enabling people and business to grow and succeed is her legacy.

As a co-founder of Leadonera Pty Ltd and the registered IP of Leadonera®, Angela created new concepts, frameworks and identified unique career pathways that combine to accelerate our next generation of leaders whilst remaining focused on her gender diversity purpose to advance and retain more women in leadership.

As a former MNC Executive CIO & Executive Director Business Transformation, Angela has deep commercial experience in Strategy, Governance, Organisational Design and Risk coupled with the pace of being a Technology Executive balancing the P&L with growth, innovation and experimentation.

As a Managing Director with Accenture, leverages her vast experience in technology, leadership and diversity to partner with c-Suite and Board’s to support organisations to accelerate their digital ambition and reimagine their business models for sustainable growth. Supporting not-for-profits, public and listed companies (ASX100), Angela navigate’s the balance of short-term requirements and long-term goals to accelerate the digital journey to unlock value, deliver improved employee and customer experiences and reimagine organisations for better outcomes.

A lifelong learner, in 2023 submitted her thesis for the award of Doctorate by Research (UniSQ) for an industry-first empirical study to examine the Technology Leadership Context in Australia with findings applied to improving gender diversity in executive teams. Angela’s research answers the matter of competency and capability complement and the model of the future technology leader, discovering a new pathway for the Australian Technology Executive. Leaning into academia, Angela expanded her intellectual curiosity in Leadership & Digital Transformation, studying at international faculties with MIT and Oxford.

Fulfilling her passion for Women in Leadership, Angela support events, charities, and programs to continue to advance the next generation of leaders. An advocate for advancing leaders, mentoring, coaching talent, and delivering inclusive programs, Angela volunteers her time aligned to purpose as a speaker, regularly contribute to publications, and enjoy’s audiobooks and walking for wellbeing.

A visionary and value-oriented Chief Information Officer with extensive global experience in planning, developing, and implementing cutting edge technology strategies that digitise, transform and enable business differentiation, optimisation and sustainable growth. As an executive leader collaborates with executive teams to align technology strategy with businesses and the wider corporate vision.

With a career spanning leading financial institutions globally, including Credit Suisse, CBA, Westpac, Macquarie, and NAB, has extensive experience in design and delivery of cost-effective technology solutions to address complex business problems, embed robust operational risk management, digitise and drive customer experience. This is combined with business intelligence, commercial acumen, and cyber security to enable market-attuned growth, future-proof businesses, and innovation with deep expertise in all aspects of project lifecycle, from feasibility analysis and conceptual design, through to implementation.

A track record of building and leading large teams high performance teams that are industry-leading, multidisciplinary, and geographical dispersed with deep skills across IT and businesses that are engaged and focused with vast experience in insourcing and outsourcing models. A strong advocate for and fosters inclusive, diverse and continuous learning cultures.

With over 25 years of experience in technology architecture and engineering in banking and financial services, I am a proven leader and innovator in my field. I have successfully led large-scale transformations, delivered cutting-edge solutions, and built high-performance teams across Wall Street, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

As the Group Chief Architect at NAB, I am responsible for our global technology strategy, product roadmap, architecture, and engineering acceleration. My mission is to redefine our products and platforms with a modern technology lens, and to create a customer-centric and agile culture. I leverage my expertise in cloud, data, AI and software development to enable our

Maryam Bechtel is the Chief Information Security Officer at AGL Energy. With over 17 years of vast experience in information security, Maryam is responsible for the Cyber protection of one of Australia’s most critical infrastructures, essential for the nation’s energy supply and ensuring over 4 million customers energy and telco needs are met.

Maryam’s career has consisted of two phases: ten years of consulting with Deutsche Telekom and Deloitte, working with C-levels and executives in large international companies to define an overarching and achievable cyber security strategy. Her consulting engagements led her to gain industry wide experience across various cyber security domains in multiple countries such as Germany, UK, USA and Australia.

She was named the “AISA Cyber Security Professional of the Year” by Australian Information Security Association in 2022 for her outstanding leadership, integrity, mentoring and coaching in the industry.

Anna has been working for over 25 years in a variety of roles, primarily with government and in national security/cyber security related areas. Her introduction to cybersecurity was in 2011 when she was in the Cyber Command in the Serious Organised Crime Agency (UK) as the UK started to take the cyber threat much more seriously. Those years were spent helping understand the cyber threat landscape more fully, engaging in disruption planning and activities and building up capability and capacity across the agencies.

She has spent a considerable amount of time in intelligence agencies, law enforcement and other various bits of government in the UK and Australia, and is really enjoying the Higher Education sector which she joined February 2021 when she joined UTS as CISO.

Don has built a reputation as a versatile leader who delivers results by building high performing and resilient teams. He is passionate about developing people and organisational culture to improve customer satisfaction. His experience in large and complex environments demonstrates an ability to sell and implement company-wide strategic programs often within a framework of competing divisions and agendas.

Don has strong commercial acumen and the ability to simplify complex business and technical problems to build understanding and consensus. He relishes the opportunity to delivery technology solutions to address business opportunities through strong collaboration and partnering.

Don has worked across all aspects of IT Strategy, Planning, Delivery and Operations in both startups and multi-nationals and has gaining a deep understanding of many industries including Retail, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, Utilities and Telecommunications.

Corporate finance and corporate strategy specialist. Adviser to leading companies and governments on strategy, transformation, risk, capital management and M&A.

Well regarded for strategic thinking and leadership. Recognised in the Westpac/Australian Financial Review 100 Women of Influence Awards. Representative at the B20 Leaders Summit.

Direct experience in the following sectors: healthcare, energy and resources, financial services, engineering and construction, automotive, property, infrastructure and utilities, technology, services, consumer and retail.

Experience in international markets having lived and worked in China, South Korea, North America, the Middle East, Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

University medal awardee and valedictorian for undergraduate and post graduate degrees.

Joanna Gurry is a commercially focused technology executive with 25 years’ experience in banking, insurance and telecommunications. Building and leading large data and analytics teams at NBNCo, IAG, Commonwealth Bank and KPMG, Jo has led successful transformations of culture and capability in large, complex businesses. Aiming always to strike the right balance between risk and compliance with strong commercial outcomes, Jo targets strategic relationships with great partners to propel an innovation agenda – driven by advanced analytics practices and underpinned by mature information management foundations.

Entrepreneur, CEO and board director with 20 years’ experience in strategy, technology leadership, and innovation. Claudine is the Managing Director of O&O Consulting, co-founder and CEO of HivePix, and a Non-Executive board Director for Cuscal and Scyne Advisory. Claudine was awarded Top CIO50 in Australia in 2016. She has expertise in data, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cyber security governance and risk management.

Previously, Claudine was a Non-Executive board Director for Youi Insurance. Claudine led the Digital and Data businesses and innovation for Compass Group Asia Pacific, and was the Group Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Jetstar Group of Airlines (Jetstar’s Branded Airlines include Singapore, Japan, Vietnam, ANZ businesses & JVs), and Ridley Corporation; She led Consumer and Industrial Markets (CIM) at KPMG; and broad industry experience in sales, marketing, and product management.

She is a 2015 graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD). She has completed a Quantum Computing course at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia (B.Bus) and a Diploma of Business Management from the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce Reims, France (Dip.Mgnt).

Claudine is also an advisor and coach to innovative and bold leaders from a variety of industries. She is a champion for diversity, inclusion, ESG and the role it plays in business and leadership effectiveness.

Global executive. Eglantine is a versatile global executive. She has delivered complex projects and led teams in 20 different countries in Europe, the US and Asia-Pacific in consulting and manufacturing.

In-house transformer. Eglantine is a catalyst for innovation and business transformation, She has a demonstrable track record in projects as diverse as a new operating model with supporting ERP systems implementation, transformation through technology, mergers and acquisitions and introduction of new ways of working (introduction of Agile, flexible working arrangements).

Strategist. Eglantine has expertise in co-designing business strategy with executive peers, transforming business objectives and challenges into an IT strategy through leadership, collaboration and influence, and enabling executive peers to leverage IT effectively.

Inspiring leader. Eglantine takes leadership seriously. She is able to articulate a clear vision, and her strategic clarity and understanding of human nature equip her to lead and mobilise even teams struggling with change. She is strongly committed to inclusion and has built teams that balance gender, age and background diversity.

Coach and mentor. Eglantine provides informal coaching to her peers on how technology contributes to business transformation, cultural change or operational efficiency through curated articles, conferences, organised sessions with thought leaders and individual conversations.

Startup founder. In her spare time, Eglantine is building Boomerang Factory, a startup that helps employees develop new skills and competencies through designed experiential learning happening via internships in other organisations.

John Hunt was appointed Chief Information and Replenishment Officer on 1 September 2021. John initially joined Woolworths Group in 2017 as Chief Information Officer. John spent over 25 years at Woolworths Holdings, South Africa where he held a range of senior IT and core retail leadership roles, including CIO and Senior Executive for Food Planning and Value chain.

A graduate from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, John is a retailer through and through and is passionate about how information technology and technology innovation is being optimally used in enabling the business to support both the front line team members as well as ensuring our customers have the best shopping experience.

Information technology is the backbone of any business and it is my role to ensure that technology supports the customer experience, delivering the best possible outcomes through making the complex simple for the entire organisation.

I pride myself on being the supportive and calm person in any situation, and my career has provided ample opportunities to rise to challenges and continue learning. This includes leadership roles in six mergers/acquisitions throughout my professional life.

As a proven technology executive, I have extensive experience partnering with business leaders to deliver technology-enabled organisational transformation. I am passionate about my team and our work to leverage end-to-end IT processes, data, and advanced technologies to solve business problems and create new opportunities.

MBA educated senior IT manager with exceptional track record in leading and managing small and large teams in complex IT environments. Possesses 25 years in IT with 15 years in strategic, project and operational leadership capacity. Fosters a culture of teamwork, innovation and continuous improvement to drive reductions in costs, improve IT service levels and deliver new business services. Excels in ensuring organizations have the right data, business processes and systems to run efficiently.

With over 20 years of work experience across three continents and a multitude of industries, I am currently the Chief Technology Officer for Enterprise Commercial at Microsoft, where I lead the technical strategy, vision, and execution for our largest and most strategic customers. I have a strong background in business strategy, analysis and development and I am also a certified Prosci change practitioner.

I currently serve as the co-chair of the Military Employee Resource Group Board at Microsoft, where I support the recruitment, retention, and development of veterans and their allies. I am passionate about delivering innovative and impactful solutions that enable digital transformation, empower customers, and drive business growth. I am always looking for new opportunities to learn, collaborate, and contribute to the technology community and beyond.