Author: Events Team

Mitra Bhar, Chief Information Officer at NSW Education Standards Authority, delivered a workshop around “Emerging technologies and its applicability to education”

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, blockchain, conversational platforms etc are having an impact on various aspects of our lives. The presentation focused on its impact on Education in general with a focus on K-12.

About Mitra Bhar
Mitra Bhar has been working in IT in the Public Sector for around 30 years covering all aspects of IT. She started her career in IT as an Analyst Programmer in the NSW Department of Agriculture. Mitra’s current role includes providing strategic direction for NESA in the midst of a fast changing technology landscape. One of Mitra’s objectives is to research new technologies and how they can be applied for the delivery of NESA services to its customers and stakeholders.

Jai Thampi, Head, Digital Transformation & IoT at Electrolux Asia Pacific, delivered a workshop around “Transforming a 99-year-old appliance maker: the digital paradigm shift”

What if you were tasked to transform a market leading century-old corporation that is anything but digital-first? Where would you start, and how would you go about it? Jai Thampi discussed how Electrolux has embarked on a consumer-centric transformation strategy that is showing tremendous potential within just months of initiation.

About Jai Thampi
Jai Thampi is head of digital transformation & IoT at Electrolux Asia Pacific where he is reimagining the company’s future through launch of IoT-enabled connected appliances, digital innovation roadmap including new business models and services, M&A and partnerships, startup acceleration, partner engagement etc. Prior to Electrolux, Jai held senior leadership roles at Cisco, Belkin, and Philips.

Josh Gow, Head of Analytics, Commercial & Group at Commonwealth Bank, delivered a workshop around “Commonwealth Bank – Analytics at Scale – Way of Working”

Josh shared insights into his global team’s way of working to deliver and run analytics at scale across Australia’s largest publicly listed company, Commonwealth Bank.

About Josh Gow
Josh Gow is the Head of Analytics – Commercial and Group, Commonwealth Bank. In this role he leads analytics & information delivery change and run support to the group and commercial business units. He has 15+ years’ experience leading and delivering value in technology, analytics and platform operations and transformation programs, predominately in the financial services sector.

Steve Church, Head of IT at Pandora, presented a workshop around “Digital strategy and the changing role of the CIO”

This session addressed:

• Digital strategy health check for your organisation including:
  • Framework for digital strategy and
  • Are you thinking about these trends on the horizon and how they impact your business?
• Opportunities these presents for CIO’s and their changing role

About Steve Church
Steve Church is a Senior Business and IT leader with broad generalist and specialist experience across diverse industries and roles including; eCommerce, Digital, FMCG, Operations, Project Management, Strategy, Retail Sales, Technology and Procurement.

GitHub and IAG discuss IAG’s move of their talent pool to this model and the positive results they have seen.

Kieran Clulow from IAG joined Sam Hunt from GitHub to share how IAG transformed their previous siloed talent pool into an integrated, high performing talent team using the Innersourcing model. They discussed the challenges they needed to overcome and Kieran shared how the team saw an instant increase in velocity.

About Kieran Clulow
Director Data Engineering, IAG bio not provided despite all attempts made.

About Sam Hunt
Sam Hunt joined GitHub in 2015, bringing 18 years of local IT industry experience. He specialises in business efficiency applications with a focus on better collaboration. Prior to GitHub, Sam worked for organisations such as Progress Software, Alfresco, Intelledox, Hitachi Data Systems and Corporate Express, specialising in business solutions driving efficiency, transparency and cost reduction.

Brian Hay, Co-Founder of Cultural Cyber Security, moderated a panel discussion around “Visibility into the modern threat landscape: A people-centric approach to defending against cyber-security attacks”. 

Panelists included:

– Tim Bentley, Vice President APJ, Proofpoint

– Hai Tran, Chief Information Security Officer. WA Police Force

– Susie Costa, Senior Vice President, Head of Security Operations, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation

This panel discussed how we can protect the way your business works today.

Human factors can demolish your cyber-security defenses at any time but, if you understand these new threats, you can defeat them, well before a siren sounds. In this panel discussion, the audience got to know the full menu of socially-engineered attacks, learned the who, where, why and how behind these new threats and tactics and what are our security leaders’ priorities in the current cyber threat landscape?

About Brian Hay
Cyber Security evangelist; thought leader; mentor; public speaker; executive roundtable facilitator; CISO advisor.

Jo Kelly, Chief Marketing Officer at UBank, opened the CIO Summit Australia with a presentation around “How we taught a robot to talk like a UBanker”.

Leveraging AI according to Jo Kelly and how UBank is changing the way customers apply for a home loan and creating a simper, better, smarter experience.

About Jo Kelly
As UBank’s CMO for the last three years, Jo’s team has focused on disrupting the banking industry by offering an alternative to customers. As a fintech with a banking license, UBank is delivering a simpler, better, smarter experience. Today, she’s going to talk to us about AI has played a critical role in what UBank is doing for its customers.

Andrew Oldaker, Chief Technology Officer at Melbourne Health presented the session: Under Attack – What do you do?

• I have a plan, now what do I do?
• Communicate – everyone is talking but no one is listening!
• All clear – are you sure?

ABOUT ANDREW OLDAKER
Andrew has extensive project management experience in complex health service projects across operational, clinical and strategic portfolios. Proficient resource management capability demonstrated through the successful delivery of numerous and concurrently managed projects; within budget, quality, scope and time frames.

Chary Chigurala, Head of Information Technology at Laminex Australia and New Zealand, presented the session “Funding for emerging technologies”.

Most senior IT executives realise the role played by emerging technologies (eg, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning) in enabling the business strategies. However, the challenge lies in convincing the senior business executives on the need to invest in emerging technologies to stay ahead of the market. Given the competing business priorities for funding, it can be pretty hard to get the emerging technologies on the funding short-list. How to articulate the value of emerging technologies in a compelling manner and introduce a sense of urgency for investment is the focus of this session.

ABOUT CHARY CHIGURALA
A strategist and business partner with proven business technology experience in Tier 1 companies such as HP, EDS and ANZ Bank. Driven by passion for business value, Chary strategises and implements large transformation programs. With 25 years experience in finance, telecom and distribution industries, he maintains trusted advisory status with C – Level business executives to deploy technologies intelligently and achieve business outcomes. Based on Harvard Business School training along with CXO level experience across 13 countries, he brings exceptional credibility. His transferable skills include: 1. Strategic: Helps companies achieve ‘higher purpose’ and competitive advantage through digital technology solutions 2. Business Partner: With customer interests at heart, Chary helps business win 3. IT Management: Based on human synergy principles, he designs IT organisation structures and models to achieve superior IT service delivery Chary led large transformation programs in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, China, India, Singapore, Thailand, HK, Korea and Japan, which helps him to draw upon the best practices in a practical manner. As an adviser to Harvard Business Review Council and McKinsey Quarterly along with presentations at industry events across Asia Pacific, he has gained a deep appreciation for advances in technology. With this background, Chary helps business leaders take advantage of emerging technologies and create sustainable competitive advantage.

In this session, “Risk appetite becomes very real”, Matt Mueller, Chief Information Officer at Iluka, explored the perspective of a CIO who recently transition from a CRO role.

Previously reporting to the Board on broad risk matters (including cyber security) along with internal audit and insurance, the broad commercial background is providing a unique perspective to the challenges and opportunities leading the technology group in a global resources business. Matt talked about this journey so far from working on the risk appetite of the business with the Board, to the appetite for risk it takes in being accountable for cyber security and developing a holistic technology strategy that will support (and protect) Iluka’s business. He also provided the audience with a brief view of mineral sands and how the IT group in Iluka is moving to deliver bottom line value in addition to services for end users.

ABOUT MATT MUELLER
Matt started his career in technology mainly in software development for online platforms and commerce systems, moving into data analysis – including starting a software company. Matt later worked for Deloitte, then starting a IT advisory business in a BRW Fast 100 firm. In 2008 Matt moved to risk, becoming the head of risk for a large electricity distribution and transmission company, and then moving onto group level roles at Origin Energy in Sydney and working across Asia Pacific at EY. Matt has worked with Boards and Executives across Singapore, Australia and New Zealand on a range of technology and risk matters, is a Fellow and State Councillor of the Governance Institute of Australia, was a guest lecturer at Curtin University, and presented on developing and leading high performance teams at the UWA MBA Programme.