Past Agenda

Uncle Allen Madden, Gadigal Elder

Sarah Bankins, Associate Professor of Ethical AI and Work, Macquarie University

• The latest breakthroughs in AI and what they signal for industries, societies, and the future of work

• Emerging roles and new skills: what leaders, organisations and individuals need to cultivate now to stay relevant

• The imperative of designing AI integration responsibly and ethically, and what that means for Australia

• How to seize the opportunity: practical strategies for businesses, governments and communities to prepare for the next wave of change

Jessica Wilson, Co-founder and CEO, Women Making Waves and Waves Tech Ventures, Global Grand Finalist of TV series 'The Next Unicorn', Leader within the Tech Industry

• What does effective AI leadership look like? Who should own the AI agenda – HR, IT or a cross functional team?

• Prioritising the right use cases, creating safe “AI sandboxes” to test and scale, and fostering a culture of adoption

• How leaders role-model AI usage to build workforce confidence, accelerate skills uptake and close capability gaps.

• What’s next as organisations move from experimenting with generative AI to scaling agentic AI and autonomous systems across the business?

Moderator: Benjamin Morris, Group General Manager, HR Culture & Capability, Mirvac

Brett Reedman, CIO, Catholic Healthcare; CIO50 2023 & 2024

Luke Fleming, Chief People Officer, International Convention Centre Sydney

Organisations are embracing AI, but momentum doesn’t always translate into real workforce outcomes. This keynote explores how leaders can cut through the noise and focus on what matters most: trusted workforce insights, clarity on skills and capability, and meaningful AI adoption.

• Why AI momentum in organisations often fails to translate into measurable workforce outcomes

• The importance of clarity on skills, capabilities, and gaps to ensure technology drives real impact

• How organisations can move beyond “running to stand still” and make AI work for their workforce

Anne Tosky, Chief People Officer, ELMO

Explore how Culture Amp practically integrated AI to increase employee AI fluency and dramatically improve the efficiency and quality of their performance review cycles.

• Learn how to measure and boost AI confidence across your organisation.

• Discover how to use AI to elevate and streamline performance cycles.

• Explore how HR leaders can responsibly scale AI across their own organisations.

Jacqui Pooley, Organisational Development Lead, Culture Amp

• Embedding AI across the organisation for workforce optimisation and productivity forecasting

• AI-enabled planning and tools across HR and operations

• Lessons in governance, risk and aligning with global AI regulations

Darren Fewster, Executive Wellbeing & Employee Services, People, Culture & Communications, Telstra

• Practical use cases that lifted productivity, recruitment, retention and engagement

• Turning AI Pilots into real workforce value

• Redesigning roles in an AI-augmented workplace

• Balancing efficiency gains with employee morale and wellbeing – is AI reducing burnout or creating new pressures and complexity?

Chelsea Shaw, Global Strategic Workforce Planning & Skills Manager, QBE Insurance

Nick Farhan, Director People, Culture & Talent, Infrastructure Australia

Marc Starfield, Executive - Colleague Systems & Experience, NAB

In this session, we examine how organisations can design employee experiences that reduce complexity, strengthen alignment, and support productivity in an AI-powered environment. The focus shifts from technology alone to the systems, narratives, and experiences that help employees understand what matters most:

• The Reach Reality: Why proactive, multi-channel infrastructure must replace the passive "employees will find it on the intranet" logic

• Personalization vs. Culture: How to use AI to tailor the employee journey without losing the "shared story" that binds the organization together

• The New Mandate: Elevating your role from a distributor of messages to a steward of meaning in an automated workplace

Ramak Salamat, Vice President APJ, Staffbase

• Extending educator reach with an AI-powered “stunt double” that scales personalised support

• Enhancing learning outcomes by providing 24/7 guidance and tailored feedback to students

• Reducing repetitive tasks to free staff capacity for higher-value teaching and mentoring

• How organisations can scale expertise, personalise learning, and ease workload with AI

Professor Danny Liu, Professor of Educational Technologies, University of Sydney, Winner of the AFR 2025 AI Awards in the Research and Education Category

Topic A: Planning the AI-Enabled Workforce

• How is AI influencing the way your organisation approaches long-term workforce planning?

• Which roles or functions do you expect to change the most as AI adoption accelerates?

• How are organisations balancing automation with the need to maintain meaningful human work?

Topic B: Building an AI-Ready Workforce

• What skills are becoming most critical for employees working alongside AI technologies?

• How are organisations creating internal pathways for employees to reskill or transition into new roles?

• What strategies are working to retain talent during periods of rapid technological change?

• Using personalised AI portals to help staff work smarter, find answers faster, and stay compliant

• Leveraging AI to enhance employee productivity and workforce capability

• Insights on fostering trust, transparency, and responsible AI adoption across global teams

Vimoj Patil, Digital Project Leader, IKEA

Lauren Pendergast, Leadership & Competence Leader, IKEA

• Addressing AI anxiety and bridging generational divides to drive adoption

• Leveraging learning platforms and AI tools to gather feedback, measure ROI, and link training to performance, engagement and retention outcomes

• Driving organisation-wide reskilling, upskilling, and cross-skilling to build an adaptive and agile workforce

Jan Roden, Head of Organisational Development and Learning, Endeavour Energy

Samantha Fernando, Learning & Leadership Development APAC Leader, Aurecon

Kate Booth, Head of Learning and Development, MinterEllison

Dr Pat Norman, Manager, Research and Development, Sydney Executive Plus

Marc Starfield, Executive - Colleague Systems & Experience, NAB

• Lessons from government and industry on piloting and scaling AI responsibly

• Building trust and transparency through clear guardrails on ethics, privacy and data use to accelerate adoption

• Leading the culture shift and redefining HR’s role in an AI-augmented workforce, with practical steps to build AI literacy and curiosity across teams

• Ensuring a fair workforce transition through reskilling, transparency and trust-based leadership to minimise anxiety and resistance

• Navigating regulatory, legal and workforce risks without slowing down innovation or business outcomes

Lucy Poole, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Strategy, Planning and Performance, Digital Transformation Agency

Lee Hickin, Executive Director, National AI Centre

Shruti Ganeriwala, CHRO, Unilever ANZ & APAC

Leah Mooney, Data Privacy & AI Governance Lead, Wotton + Kearney

• How to transform scattered individual experimentation into shared organisational capability through AI fluency upskilling

• Why Generative AI training should go beyond individual efficiency to consider work at the team and system level

• Practical approaches to building learning infrastructure that turns hesitation into productive play

• How to help leaders integrate AI tools without fragmenting meaningful work or eroding expertise

Dr Pat Norman, Manager, Research and Development, Sydney Executive Plus

• How HR can lead organisations through rapid change and take ownership of AI-driven workforce transformation

• How Workday is enabling adaptability and scalability through innovation and human–machine collaboration

• Practical steps to build an AI-ready workforce equipped for continuous learning and future upskilling

Shan Moorthy, Chief Technology Officer, Asia Pacific, Workday

• How AI is being used to screen, shortlist, and match candidates faster

• Designing recruitment processes that minimise bias and strengthen fairness, transparency and compliance

• Improving candidate experience with AI-enabled assessments, chatbots and interview support tools

• Lessons learned from pilots – where AI in recruitment has delivered value, and where caution is needed

Peter Elkhuizen, Talent & Learning and Development Manager, Starbucks

How to use workforce data and AI to predict skills gaps and attrition early and turn insights into action.

Dr Philip Gibbs, Co-Founder, Agile HR Analytics

Iman Eftekhari, CEO & Founder, Agile HR Analytics

Breckon Jones, Board Advisor, Agile HR Analytics

• How AI is reshaping core HR systems – from recruitment to performance to workforce insights

• Moving beyond dashboards: predictive analytics, digital assistants, and automation in practice

• Streamlining HR operations with AI-powered tools while keeping the human in the loop

• Aligning HR tech strategy with business goals to deliver measurable outcomes

Melissa Dorey, Head of People Digital Experience, AGL

Anne Cavalieros, General Manager, Reward and P&C Digital Transformation, nbn

Jacqui Pooley, Organisational Development Lead, Culture Amp

• Creating new career pathways in data, analytics, and AI through immersive reskilling

• Redeploying employees from claims, contact centres, and operations into growth roles

• Combining technical training with coaching, mentoring, and on-the-job learning

• Building workforce agility, retention, and trust by investing in people’s futures

Jennifer Catterall, Executive Manager Talent Leadership & Capability, Suncorp

• What does the workforce of tomorrow look like as automation scales?

• Using future workforce scenarios to anticipate emerging roles – from AI supervisors to prompt engineers

• Embedding creativity, empathy, and problem-solving as human differentiators

• Designing future workforce structures to retain talent while enabling productive human-AI collaboration

Moderator: Chelsea Shaw, Global Strategic Workforce Planning & Skills Manager, QBE Insurance

Peter LePage, Director Workforce Capability & Learning, Sydney Trains

Lauren McGinley, Employer Branding Leader, International, Schneider Electric

Vinod Bhatt, Director, Workforce Transformation, Westpac

Jane Weir, Global Executive Development Lead, ANZ

Work through practical AI rollout scenarios and benchmark your organisation’s readiness against peers. Leave with clear strategies to lead change confidently.

• Hands-on scenarios of AI implementation, from introducing new tools to redesigning workflows

• Practical guidance on communicating purpose, building trust, and addressing job anxiety

• Techniques for upskilling staff, creating “AI champions,” and embedding feedback loops

• Benchmarking exercise: assess your organisation’s AI change readiness and compare approaches with peers

Amber Johnson, Head of AI, Workforce Optimisation, MYOB