In the rapidly evolving world of technology, executive leaders across diverse sectors consistently choose to attend ADAPT’s Edge Events.

Featuring insightful presentations, dynamic roundtable discussions, and unique networking opportunities, our events provide unparalleled value for those steering their organisations through the complex landscape of digital transformation.

Across our invitation-only events, we gather over 1,000 C-level executives from the ASX200, top government bodies and high-growth organisations to discover industry best practices.

But, why do executive leaders keep coming back?

Let’s delve into their testimonials to understand the driving force behind the popularity of ADAPT’s Edge Events.

A Robust Platform for Knowledge Sharing and Learning

ADAPT’s Edge Events bring together a community of forward-thinking leaders, industry experts, and technologists, making it an excellent platform for knowledge sharing and learning.

Technology leaders like Sandip Kumar, Executive Director & CIO of Gold Coast Health, appreciate how ADAPT “grounds that network in research” and highlights issues relevant to the Australian and New Zealand context.

Executive leaders come for the case studies, best practice frameworks, and market trends broken down by ADAPT’s Analysts.

As Rowan Dollar, CIO at Catholic Education, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, points out, the content is always relevant, fresh, and thought-provoking. It stimulates deep reflection and offers real-world strategies to apply back at work.

Unparalleled Networking Opportunities

For many attendees, such as Bernard Wansink, CTO at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, and David Heacock, former Chief Digital Innovation Officer at DXC Technology, networking is a key highlight.

Echoing this sentiment, Damon Rees, Former CEO of ServiceNSW, lauds ADAPT’s focus on community and collaboration.

The events present a unique opportunity to connect with peers, build relationships, discuss shared challenges, and formulate solutions within a community that understands the complexities they face.

Building Strong Relationships with Vendors

ADAPT’s Edge events also offer an efficient way to engage with technology providers.

Leaders like Steve Hodgkinson, CDO at Victoria Police, Peter O’Donoghue, CIO at South East Water, and Praveen Miranda, Head of Enterprise Delivery at UniSuper, value the chance to discuss future trajectories with key executives from vendor organisations, forging crucial relationships that support their strategic initiatives.

Exclusive Insights into ANZ Market Trends

The Australian focus of ADAPT’s Edge Events is also a major drawcard.

The discussions and research presented are tailored to the local market, making the insights immediately applicable to the challenges and opportunities executive leaders face in their organisations.

Michael Fagan, CTO at Village Roadshow, appreciates the quality of ADAPT’s research and the invaluable peer insights he gains at our events.

The Power of Face-to-Face Engagement

While the digital world offers various forums for conversation and learning, nothing compares to the richness of face-to-face engagement.

David Heacock, for instance, highly values the in-person roundtables, where shared experiences and solutions to common problems become hugely valuable learning opportunities.

Time-Efficient Value Delivery

Lastly, ADAPT’s Edge Events deliver powerful insights, relationships, and connections in a concise and time-efficient manner.

The structure and pacing of the events ensure that every moment is filled with valuable content, as highlighted by Imran Merchant, Group Enterprise Architect at Bega Cheese Limited.

ADAPT’s Edge Events continue to be a beacon for executive leaders seeking to navigate the intricate world of enterprise-wide modernisation.

The compelling blend of in-depth knowledge sharing, peer networking, vendor interactions, and the unmistakable power of in-person engagement makes our events an indispensable part of their calendars.

With every event, leaders leave with fresh perspectives, actionable insights, and stronger connections, continually reinforcing the value of their return.

What Australia’s top executive leaders have to say about ADAPT’s Edge Events:

“So I’ve been coming to the events here in the Hyatt in Melbourne, CIO Edge, I think since 2010 every year.

I originally was supporting Jim’s work as an analyst and I’ve become a CIO in 2014 and have attended this event every time since 2010.

It always has high quality content and it’s a good opportunity to meet vendors, the vendor community in a relatively efficient way and then to consider content from local and global sources.

It’s also got good social and networking events, as you’d expect, and really high quality content. So it’s always a good opportunity to see a lot of content in a very time-efficient way.”

— Steve Hodgkinson, Chief Digital Officer at Victoria Police attending CIO Edge

“The first great thing about ADAPT events is catching up with my peers.

So I spent a lot of the time while I was here actually in the outer area rather than in the vendor meetings.

I evaluated the vendor meetings, but I catch up with people from my former industries and from where I’m going and I make those new connections.

And to me, that networking and that peer discussion is the primary driver and the secondary one is catching up with the vendors because it gives me a chance to ask questions but not in a formal manner.

And by that, I mean I’ll be talking to some people that I know and we’ll have a conversation and then an hour later or I’ll be doing something at work in the last week or two, I’ll meet with the vendor and it becomes very much a question that I can ask at that point in time and move forward. And I think that’s right.

And I’ve got some great relationships with the vendors and it’s great to meet them and catch up with them in this type of form.”

— Bernard Wansink, Chief Technology Officer at Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine attending CIO Edge

“I love that ADAPT always have a great programme, lots of really interesting speakers with interesting topics.

But I also love all of the networking and also some of the vendor chats have been quite good too.

A lot of other events don’t give me that all around value.”

— Kate Carruthers, Chief Data & Insights Officer at the University of New South Wales attending Data & AI Edge

“For me, and I think I talked about this earlier, it’s a very rare opportunity to be amongst peers.

I get the most value actually out of the roundtables to be hearing from people who have many of the same war stories and scars, but from different organisations and hearing about their challenges, their priorities, what they’re looking forward to, what they’re afraid of what’s hurting them, but also how they’re solving problems is hugely valuable.

And for that alone, doing it in person is is is great. I’m sure we can everyone can do it online. But being in person gives it a really different edge.”

— David Heacock, Former Chief Digital Innovation Officer at DXC Technology attending CIO Edge

“I’ve been lucky to attend multiple ADAPT events, and the reason why I come back is two-fold.

The first one is the speakers. I really find that very informative and they’re talking about the future and I’m always thinking about the future.

The second one is I really enjoy the one on ones. I think it’s a great opportunity.

Rather than talking to salespeople, you talk to really some of the key executives of those organisations and you gain real insight where they’re heading within their product sets and how do I apply that back into South East Water.

And it’s always great catch up with your peers and networking with people.”

— Peter O’Donoghue, Chief Information Officer at South East Water attending Digital Edge

“I think the quality of research that ADAPT provides is excellent.

The way it’s tailored to an Australian audience and the way I can gain insights from my peers is superb.

The second thing I like is being able to network with like minded peers, both at the roundtables, at the meeting tables, at the way the whole event is constructed, and to get such powerful insights, relationships and connections in such a short space of time is excellent.”

— Michael Fagan, Chief Transformation Officer at Village Roadshow attending CIO Edge

What I love about ADAPT is it’s localised to the industry that I work in.

There’s so much similarities in the Australian New Zealand environment where faced with similar contextual cultural challenges and what this network really brings us is together.

And what it realises is that we’re all facing similar challenges.

Sometimes it’s quite hard to be an executive leader. It’s quite isolating.

You’re the person leading the team and it’s nice just to network with people that are facing similar challenges.

I love that that ADAPT brings that network together.

And it’s quite a powerful network. It’s a network of futuristic leaders and it’s a network of people that are really trying to change their industries.

I love that ADAPT not only brings those networks together, but kind of grounds that network in research. It’s relevant to our context, and that’s the difference for ADAPT for me.”

— Sandip Kumar, Executive Director & CIO of Gold Coast Health attending Digital Edge

“I attend ADAPT events as two things as part of the role I do, I really need to have a good feel for the future of the cloud and demand for data and development of data infrastructure.

And I get a real sense of that from the discussions during the day and obviously all the keynote sessions that we go to. That’s the primary thing.

The second thing is many of the client organisations or the ecosystem organisations in the ecosystem that I work in come here.

So it’s great to see everybody. And so they’re the two reasons.”

— Simon McFadden, Global Client Director, Data Centres & Telco at Aurecon attending Connected Cloud & DC Edge

“One of the reasons I like joining ADAPT is it’s a community that comes together, that have common experiences, common interests, and are willing to learn from each other.

I love the fact that you have academia so, be a partner with someone like MIT and then also bring industry experts who’ve gone through similar challenges that you’re going through.

It’s a very open community that would like to share. We learn from each other the data and the insights.

The case studies I think are fantastic. They’re quite relevant. And so far to every event that I’ve been, I’ve taken something that I can then implement with my team quite readily and openly, which I think is great.”

— Chaminda Ranasinghe, Chief Experience Officer at RMIT University attending Digital Edge

“The reason I return to ADAPT events is all about the content. It’s relevant, and each event offers something different yet equally relevant.

When I leave here, I find myself reflecting for days, processing the insights as I move through the next week.

Sometimes, during the hour-long plane ride home, I’ll think back on the fascinating discussions, the great moments, and all the key points that stood out to me.

Looking at the presentation later, I’ll recall those moments, remembering this and that.

I don’t take notes at these events because I want to fully immerse myself in the presentations and truly absorb what’s being said, rather than being distracted by writing notes. That’s my approach.

It’s the content that captivates me, along with the opportunity to connect with interesting people.

I had to leave a really interesting presentation to join this session, so it was a tough decision.

From morning to afternoon, the day is packed with captivating content. There’s never a dull moment with ADAPT.

They consistently deliver outstanding content throughout the day, making the experience worth every penny.”

— Rowan Dollar, Chief Information Officer at Catholic Education, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn attending Security Edge

“I’ve come to ADAPT events over a number of years, I suppose for a couple of reasons.

One: it is an opportunity to network with my peers, people from different industries playing similar roles and people who I may not bump into in the normal course of business.

Two: I think it is a good opportunity to get across research.

In many cases it’s been tailored for the Australian market rather than just a global number. I think I’ve used it on occasion to bring colleagues from ASX and CommSec when I was previously there.

That’s actually helpful when you take some of your team out of the office and spend some time to contemplate trends and opportunities that are outside of your field of vision if you just focus on the day to day.

Those are the key reasons.

There’s good quality conversations with peers, colleagues, partners, suppliers and some Australian tailored research.”

— Dan Chesterman, Group Executive, Technology and Data, and CIO at ASX attending Digital Edge

“So I reckon being a local Aussie firm, we should definitely back it up, that’s for sure. It’s great to get involved, but I reckon it brings heaps of value to the business and tech community in terms of the way you guys arrange the events.

It’s great value in terms of learning, socialising, and networking with the people.

I reckon it’s also about thinking what future-ready tech is going to come and getting the right speakers on the panel, bringing in the right suppliers and vendors, and building strong customer partnerships.

I reckon it’s the right platform for all the tech heads and business leaders to come together and learn from one another. So thank you for arranging it.”

— Imran Merchant, Group Enterprise Architect at Bega Cheese Limited attending Digital Edge

“So I always think these are very well targeted at topics which have a lot of interest to the CIO community.

To me this time that focus on value creation, which I know is one of the two real themes of today, was just absolutely on the ball.

I’m really, really interested in hearing what both the speakers have to say and also perspectives from my peers.”

— Tim Batten, former CIO at Metlife Australia attending CIO Edge

“Coming to ADAPT event is really about being connected, learning new things, sharing experiences and the ability to have conversations.

I think we we don’t really appreciate that by connecting with people, we’re actually going to enrich ourselves, learn new experiences.

And through that process, you become a better person, you become a better leader. You learn things that you wouldn’t normally get from reading a book or watching a video or something like that.

It’s start sometimes challenging of your perceptions or thoughts and ideas is what you need, and so it’s the value that you get from coming to events like this so that collective intelligence helps you have those penny drop moments to keep moving forward.”

— Damien Manuel, Chairperson of the Board at Australian Information Security Association attending Security Edge

“The sheer experience in the room, that vibe, that understanding and the questions that were flowing or the topics that were discussed.

ADAPT events allows you to rethink a lot of things because when you are in your own silo, you kind of look at it and understand from your perspective.

But seeing that other people are in the kind of in the same boat doesn’t give you comfort.

But still it allows you to say that, okay, you are on the journey and it gives you a bit of a marker and a roadmap to say that’s the way.”

— Nipun Sharma, Enterprise Data Analytics & AI Architect at Komatsu Australia attending Data & AI Edge

“Onstage today was the Peter Weill on measuring our value. How do we measure value? Value capture. Value creation.

Seeing his research was the thing that really piqued my interest and seeing what it could do to help me measure how we are going in our business of aged care.”

— Johny Ågotnes, Chief Information Officer at Bolton Clarke attending CIO Edge

“I was here to see what happens in other areas of the industry per se.

I also wanted to have a view of, yes, we are in this modernisation journey at the moment and we went through a massive RFP and I’m aware of a fair few technologies out there.

But is there something else that’s new so that I can see how it best fits our ecosystem?

I caught up with Immuta just a few minutes back, and I actually liked their product.

So I just wanted to know what else is happening in the industry, not just in the telco space, but in the other industries, in the data space overall per se.

And just get an idea of where we are at with as opposed to everyone else.”

— Kash Soma, Director – Agile Data Delivery at Optus attending Data & AI Edge

“I noticed that ADAPT has a very good collaborations with the industry leaders and a lot of organisations.

Through that, you can capture quite a lot of insights related to how the data and journey of the organisations and you can understand what are the bottlenecks which may hinder the journey of this journey.

I think ADAPT play a good role sharing the knowledge in terms of insights and empower people and leaders to drive this mission.”

— Dr Mahendra Samarawickrama, Director at Centre for Sustainable AI attending Data & AI Edge

“The value I get out of coming to ADAPT events is meeting with my peers that I don’t get a lot of time to meet with across not just education but across banking and finance where I did work and a whole range of industries where I’ve never worked.

I find that the the wave of the day is set up and the opportunity to network and meet with vendors where it’s not a hard sell, it’s a very much more relaxed.

I just spent ten minutes talking about a gym with one of the vendors. It’s pretty much all we talked about, but we built a relationship which we can both leverage in the future.

So that’s the value for me.”

— Patrick Kelso, Cloud & DevSecOps Delivery Manager at University of Technology Sydney attending Connected Cloud & DC Edge

“I really enjoyed the Service NSW session; it was very insightful to see people thinking about issues with different lenses like risk, adaptability, and usability. These are areas we all need to engage with.

Initially, I was a bit sceptical about these vendor meetings, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed some of them. They help us understand what’s new out there. As a practitioner, I don’t often have enough time for such engagements.

These sessions have been invaluable in providing a new perspective on what some of these vendors can offer.”

— Praveen Miranda, Head of Enterprise Delivery at UniSuper attending CFO Edge

“From my perspective, I love ADAPT’s focus on community. To be the best organisations we can be, to have the best country, the best economy, and the best outcomes for society, we cannot operate as islands.

The ability to collaborate and work as a network, uplifting everyone and enhancing the communities in which we live, work, and play, is crucial.

The role that ADAPT plays in bringing us together as a network is profoundly important. It’s not just about individual success but about lifting all boats to create the best communities possible.

So, a big thank you to ADAPT for fostering this sense of community and collaboration.”

— Damon Rees, Former CEO of Service NSW attending CFO Edge

ADAPT’s Edge events brings together leaders from the ANZ region’s top enterprise and government organisations, collectively representing 52% of Australia’s GDP and 2,400,000+ workforce.