What’s Hot in Tech: Thriving in the AI Era - Skills, Strategy & Staying Ahead

Lineup

• More details about Katrina Ablett

  Katrina Ablett

  With over 30 years of experience in the tech industry, Katrina brings a rare breadth of perspective shaped by roles spanning software development, sales and sales operations.  Her career has crossed both large, established enterprises and fast-paced software startups giving her a unique perspective on how careers and cultures are built from the ground up.  She has developed a deep understanding of how organisations grow, adapt and innovate at every stage. Currently serving as Chief of Staff to the President of Asia and Japan at Adobe, Katrina operates at the intersection of strategy, execution and leadership.  She partners closely with senior executives to drive regional priorities, align teams and deliver impact across diverse markets. With a career defined by adaptability and impact, Katrina brings a real world lens to topics such as leadership, transformation and thriving in complex environments.  She is a passionate advocate for women in the tech industry, known for her honesty, insight and ability to turn real experience into meaningful advice.  Katrina brings a powerful and practical perspective on what it takes not just to enter the industry, but to grow, lead and stay relevant over time.

• More details about Dave Phung

  Dave Phung

  Dave is a specialist in transforming enterprises through emerging technology and human-centred design. He has delivered digital innovations for the likes of the Fidelity Investments, Australian Open, Cathay Pacific, US Golf, Sony PlayStation and many others. In 2022, Dave and his team received a Cannes Lion for innovative use of technology in sport one of the highest honours in the creative industry. Currently, as the founder and Director of Melbourne-based Truescale, Dave helps organisations figure out how to use AI and data to achieve their goals.

• More details about Dr Mahtab Ameri

  Dr Mahtab Ameri

  Dr Mahtab Ameri is a neuroscientist, AI Enablement and Transformation Lead, and the founder of NeuroAIQ® – the Neuroscience of AI Adoption®, helping organisations overcome the single biggest barrier to AI value creation: human readiness.

• More details about Jenny Junkeer

  Jenny Junkeer

  Jenny Junkeer is a global scaling strategist, technology entrepreneur, and sought-after keynote speaker known for helping organisations translate ambition into operational reality. As Founder of Intent Scaling and Co-Founder of AI SaaS platform Decise, she works at the intersection of business strategy, operations, and emerging technology, guiding companies to optimise performance and scale sustainably across industries such as property and construction, education, retail, and professional services.

• More details about Liz Fagan

  Liz Fagan

  Liz Fagan is a Strategic Change and Learning Specialist working across financial services, retail, health, and complex operational environments. She focuses on helping organisations navigate large scale transformation in a way that is practical, people centred, and sustainable. Her work brings together change management, learning design, and digital transformation, with a strong focus on building capability, improving adoption, and enabling new ways of working to take hold. She has led transformation initiatives spanning ERP and SaaS platforms, operating model shifts, and regulatory change, partnering closely with leaders and teams to embed outcomes that last. More recently, Liz’s work has expanded to the impact of artificial intelligence on how people learn, work, and find their place in a changing world of work. She is particularly interested in how AI can support more inclusive and personalised learning, and how this can inform reskilling, job design, and future capability development.

• More details about Maya Zerman

  Maya Zerman

  Maya Zerman is a strategist, advisor, and founder of Dialectical Consulting. Her work starts from a simple observation that most of the real problems inside organisations live in the gap between how systems are designed and how people actually function within them. Strategy, technology, leadership they all collide in that gap. And that's where she works. Maya brings a rare combination of executive leadership, organisational and system design, workforce transformation, and clinical training in mental health. She works with leaders across public and private sectors navigating complexity, accelerating change, and the very human question of what happens to organisations and the people inside them when technology arrives faster than the conditions are ready for it. She has developed original frameworks on AI and human capability at work, and has co-facilitated industry conversations on AI, emerging technologies, and service design with Microsoft, major Victorian public hospital networks, and senior leaders across a range of private sector organisations. If you've ever felt like the problem you're trying to solve keeps moving, or that the real issue is somewhere underneath the one on the table then Maya is probably the person you want untangling it with you.

• More details about Natalie Matthews

  Natalie Matthews

  I’m a transformation leader with 15+ years’ experience spanning logistics, technology, eCommerce, and the creative industries. My focus: aligning strategic ambition with human adoption, ensuring change delivers measurable cultural, economic, and community outcomes. I’ve led global and state-wide rollouts across APAC and Europe, advised executives and boards, and worked with brands including Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Australia Post, Toll, and eBay. My approach blends governance-level strategy with human-centred frameworks that embed adoption, resilience, and long-term impact. Entrepreneurship has been a second classroom. I founded Height-Of-Fashion, an international brand for tall women, and created Human Fundamentals™, a framework for leadership, emotional intelligence, and enterprise change. I’ve also contributed directly to Victoria’s creative sector, producing a VAMFF runway show, delivering national recognition campaigns with the National Australia Day Council, and leading projects that promoted tourism and cultural engagement. I thrive at the intersection of culture, commerce, and human behaviour. Whether in the boardroom, on stage, or in transformation programs, I bring a rare interdisciplinary perspective, one that shapes transformation not just as change, but as progress for people, organisations, and communities.

• More details about Olivier Reuland

  Olivier Reuland

  Olivier Reuland has spent over 20 years designing, building, and securing enterprise systems across four continents. From seed-stage startups to multi-billion-dollar enterprises, from banks and government agencies to SaaS platforms and fintech, he has built and led security programmes that enable growth rather than hinder it. As Founder and CISO of WHC Services, he partners with organisations as Principal Security Architect, Fractional CISO, and DevSecOps Lead. His engagements span board-level governance, hands-on architecture, AI security governance, and cultural transformation, helping teams strengthen their security posture, navigate regulatory complexity, and harness emerging technologies without compromising resilience. A New Zealand citizen with Swiss roots, Olivier holds a Master of Science in Communication Systems from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), alongside CISSP, CISM, and CRISC certifications. He achieved the highest score in the Oceania region on the December 2013 CISM examination and scored in the top 5% globally for CRISC. A compelling and direct communicator, Olivier draws on real-world experience to make complex security and technology topics accessible, whether speaking to a technical audience, a boardroom, or a general conference stage.

• More details about Steph Ryan

  Steph Ryan

  Stephanie Ryan is an HR Lead at Activision with almost 15 years’ professional experience across corporate roles, including strategy, people analytics, organisational design, policy development, performance and learning in complex, often technology‑led and engineering-based organisations. She focuses on practical, data‑informed people solutions, systems thinking, inclusive leadership practices, and the application of emerging technologies such as AI to improve efficiency, decision‑making, performance systems, and how teams work at scale.

• More details about Suzanne Lawrence

  Suzanne Lawrence

  As a Transformation Lead currently working at Nutrien Ag Solutions, Suzanne specializes in SAP S4/Hana, SuccessFactors, Employee Central, Employee Central Payroll and Workforce Solutions, delivering business change.  With over twenty years of expertise in managing large-scale change initiatives, She is dedicated to fostering organisational readiness and leveraging technology to enhance employee experiences and drive success. Her work is defined by a commitment to delivering results through strategic planning and transformation.