innovation Day | 24 July 2025 | invites | 9 July | longlist
Your role as a technology and digital leader in a tight economy
The Crown Towers, Sydney
Hosted by Factor
- 150 attendees
- 8 hours
Overview
Economists are predicting that the developed world is heading for a recession this year, which means that budgets will be tight and technology and data teams will need to do more with less. Enterprises that make the best use of their available data to provide real solutions to customer problems and are able to effectively secure that data, will have a real competitive advantage.
Agenda
- Registration and welcome coffee(CIO/CISO Sit-Down)
- Registration and welcome coffee(CDO Sit-Down)
- Welcome address and introduction(CDO Sit-Down)
- Welcome address and introduction by Sit-Down(CIO/CISO Sit-Down)
- Why data security is essential in cyber resilience and ransomware recovery(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Cyber criminals have found opportunity as Australian organisations digitise their businesses. Their major prize? Your data. Our enterprises are highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to increasing vulnerabilities across their existing technology infrastructures. With the rise of the ransomware economy, cyber warfare, and software supply chain attacks, enterprises face a growing gap in their ability to secure data and ensure business continuity. Cyber attackers know when they take out your data, they take down your business. During this session, Ian Morris, ANZ channel director and technology evangelist at Rubrik, will discuss why simply doing backups is not good cyber policy, how you can replace cyber fear across your organisation with ‘cyber confidence’, and why your data really is the crown jewel inside your organisation. He will also talk about how data resilience, data observability, and data recovery are three key pillars that you need to strengthen your security posture, protect your data and your business.
- Why data security is essential in cyber resilience and ransomware recovery(CDO Sit-Down) Cyber criminals have found opportunity as Australian organisations digitise their businesses. Their major prize? Your data. Our enterprises are highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to increasing vulnerabilities across their existing technology infrastructures. With the rise of the ransomware economy, cyber warfare, and software supply chain attacks, enterprises face a growing gap in their ability to secure data and ensure business continuity. Cyber attackers know when they take out your data, they take down your business. During this session, Ian Morris, ANZ channel director and technology evangelist at Rubrik, will discuss why simply doing backups is not good cyber policy, how you can replace cyber fear across your organisation with ‘cyber confidence’, and why your data really is the crown jewel inside your organisation. He will also talk about how data resilience, data observability, and data recovery are three key pillars that you need to strengthen your security posture, protect your data and your business.
- Kate Romanova: Tales from a 'war time CIO'(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Kate Romanova is a CIO who delights in fixing toxic and dysfunctional IT environments and turning them into high performing departments. Her passion is dealing with the complexities of IT projects, particularly core systems – fixing, uplifting, optimising and modernising. At the Sydney CIO Sit-Down, Kate will talk about her career as a ‘war-time CIO’, detailing how past roles working on a core banking system modernisation at the Commonwealth Bank and a $2.5 billion global technology program at HSBC fuelled her fire. More recently, Kate has lifted the technology capabilities of Greyhound Racing Victoria, the statutory body that regulates greyhound racing in the state. Kate will discuss: Why being a ‘war-time CIO’ is so appealing and the key technology and business lessons she has learned along the way. The methods that she uses to transform underperforming tech groups and turn them into high performing departments. Why some technology staff are in the wrong roles; how you can identify these staff and shift them into roles that they are more suited to. The best ways to gain the backing of your CEO and the board to give your technology projects the best chance of success.
- Kate Romanova: Tales from a 'war time CIO'(CDO Sit-Down) Kate Romanova is a CIO who delights in fixing toxic and dysfunctional IT environments and turning them into high performing departments. Her passion is dealing with the complexities of IT projects, particularly core systems – fixing, uplifting, optimising and modernising. At the Sydney CIO Sit-Down, Kate will talk about her career as a ‘war-time CIO’, detailing how past roles working on a core banking system modernisation at the Commonwealth Bank and a $2.5 billion global technology program at HSBC fuelled her fire. More recently, Kate has lifted the capabilities of technology teams across a broad range of industries. Kate will discuss: Why being a ‘war-time CIO’ is so appealing and the key technology and business lessons she has learned along the way. The methods that she uses to transform underperforming tech groups and turn them into high performing departments. Why some technology staff are in the wrong roles; how you can identify these staff and shift them into roles that they are more suited to. The best ways to gain the backing of your CEO and the board to give your technology projects the best chance of success.
- Safeguarding growth and profitability in uncertain times(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Rising uncertainty and economic constraints have forced organisations to choose between profitability or growth. The challenges that the majority of c-level executives are facing include the need to reallocate IT budgets to reduce total cost of ownership and fund innovation, the talent shortage for ERP professionals, compliance problems and security vulnerabilities. Join Rimini Street's Sudhir Kumar as he discusses the strategies and tactics that tech leaders can use to overcome these challenges to maximise growth and safeguard growth and profitability in uncertain times.
- Transforming on your terms while maximising growth(CDO Sit-Down) Rising uncertainty and economic constraints have forced enterprises to choose between profitability or growth. In this environment, CIOs need to reallocate technology budgets to lower total cost of ownership and fund innovation. At the same time, they are dealing with a talent shortage for ERP professionals, as well as cyber security and compliance challenges. Join Doug Gibson, managing partner at Invictus Partners as he discusses the strategies and tactics that tech leaders can use to safeguard growth and profitability in uncertain times. He will cover: ROI-based modelling that helps organisations build digital transformation roadmaps. How vendors drive ERP upgrades and maintenance and why these strategies may not align with what’s best for your organisation. How savings on core system maintenance can be reinvested in innovative activities across your enterprise.
- Morning tea and networking(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Morning tea and networking
- Networking and morning tea break(CDO Sit-Down)
- What is the real cost of cyber security?(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) In late 2022 following some notable damaging cyber-attacks, the Australian government approved new laws that significantly increase the maximum penalties for repeated or serious data breaches. The penalties are high: a $50 million fine, three times the value of any benefit obtained through the misuse of information, or 30% of a company’s adjusted turnover in the relevant period. It’s enough to create sleepless nights for CEOs, CISOs and their boards. Although these penalties are severe, the real cost of a cyber breach is a loss of reputation as customers leave in their droves and share prices suffer. Join Andrew Philp, ANZ Platform Strategy Lead at Trend Micro as he discusses how your organisation can prepare for and respond to a breach to reduce reputational damage. The session will also cover why point security solutions and internal resourcing don’t provide the protection and payback that’s required, and why organisations are now consolidating tools and vendors they work with. In the face of swift technological innovation and the evolving threat landscape, Andrew will also discuss how organisations can benefit from adopting a platform-based approach to help better evaluate, understand, communicate, and mitigate cyber risk.
- How to use healthy data to achieve business outcomes(CDO Sit-Down) Join Ben Goreux from Talend and Mark Albert from University of Sydney discussing 'How to use healthy data to achieve business outcomes. This panel discussion will consider · how to define ‘data as an asset’ and what business outcomes organisations are looking for; · how IT can play a positive role in making data consumable; · how the CDO role can add value in the broader business strategy; and · how cultural change plays a role in in the journey to data health.
- Why your cyber response matters more than ever(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) The high-profile cyber-attacks on Optus and Medibank in 2022 brought into focus the need for organisations across Australia to take a closer look at how they are managing cyber risk. These breaches are perfect case studies in how organisations respond to the financial and, importantly, reputational damage of cyber breaches and sale of customer information on the black market. Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, and Allen’s partner and head of cyber, Valeska Bloch, as they discuss why your response to a cyber attack matters more than ever. They will discuss: - The practical steps you need to take following a serious cyber incident, including getting extensive forensic help. - The evolution of incident response plans, the responsibilities of technical and non-technical staff, and how teams need to work better together. - Why there’s a need for CISOs to understand exactly what their organisations are saying internal and externally about their security posture following an attack to ensure their narrative is not misleading. - Other ways CISOs, CEOs and other executives can improve how they communicate with stakeholders and customers after an attack to reduce reputational damage.
- Using data analysis for school and student progress.(CDO Sit-Down) Dr Raju Varanasi, CIO and Director, Data Intelligence at Catholic Schools Parramatta Diocese and his team have successfully used data to support school and student progress for a system with over 45,000 students. They are solving one of society’s biggest challenges by triangulating data with blended sets, interactive dashboards and deployment of automated machine learning projects. Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Dr Varanasi about how data helps teachers shape personalised learning and predictive analytics to improve their final year results. They will discuss: How automation technologies provide schools and teachers with far deeper insights into the factors that influence student performance. How the system uses predictive models, with more than 93% accuracy, what a student might score. The key lessons Dr Varanasi and his team learned during the process. How data will be used in the future to support school progress and student learning in a range of areas.
- Focus on the now, not the future(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Bill Gates once said, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” Forget predicting the future, what about implementing change now? Join Paul Keen, chief technology officer at Tyro Payments who will take you through a series of practical automation and AI examples that you can use right now to help boost productivity, fix those ‘pinch points’ in your business and maybe help save your inbox.
- Transform your digital journey: Keys to enhancing enterprise data management.(CDO Sit-Down) Siloed, disconnected systems and data are a major obstacle to data-driven business success. In an environment where competition is tougher, budgets are tighter, stakes are higher and margins for error thinner, businesses can no longer afford to run on siloed and unreliable data. Join Kim Christensen, senior vice president, APAC at Stibo Systems as he discusses how connecting data silos through master data management ensures reliability, transparency and processes needed to enhance the effectiveness of your strategic business initiatives such as enhancing customer experience, ensuring data governance and validating sustainable practices.
- Getting ahead of the dark web(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Before launching an attack, cyber criminals will sometimes hunt around on the dark web, the badlands of the internet, to try and find information about the organisation they intend to hit. Asaf Ahmed, president at ISACA in Sydney believes that if enterprises can detect that something is brewing in the dark web, they can potentially get ahead of these criminals. Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Asaf Ahmed about how your organisation can cut of these attackers as early as possible before they grab the crown jewels and sell them off. They will also discuss how agencies examining the dark web are working with governments to help their teams get ahead of criminal gangs before they do real damage.
- How to build a data culture and why simply fixing data silos is not enough(CDO Sit-Down) The CDO role is not about decommissioning old systems and cleaning up data silos. CDOs need to focus on building a culture where ‘data stewards’ are teaching subject matter experts across their divisions about the best ways to manage their data before making sweeping changes to data infrastructure. This is the view of Katarina Dulanovic, general manager, data office at Allianz Australia. Join Katarina at Sydney CDO Sit-Down as she talks about how she and her team have built a good data culture across the insurance giant. She will discuss: Why building a ‘data mindset’ is not just about ticking governance boxes, it’s about making data a part of your organisation’s DNA. How to convince your data stewards to share their knowledge around what good data governance looks like and the tools that will ensure they make the best out of their available data to create a competitive advantage.
- Peer Connect(CIO/CISO Sit-Down)
- Peer Connect(CDO Sit-Down)
- Meetings and networking lunch(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Networking lunch
- Meetings and networking lunch(CDO Sit-Down)
- How digital capability can enable innovation: A case study with Certis(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Talking about innovation is easy - execution is what matters. For Certis, security is also about technology. The organisation combines advanced security, facilities management and customer experience into a single holistic service, supported and underpinned by technology. However, it wasn’t always this way. To solve a problem for its largest client, Certis moved from a company that manually processes handwritten reports to one that uses technology as a competitive advantage.
- Real-time, real insights: Powering modern applications of the future(CDO Sit-Down) The world of applications is changing rapidly, and businesses must adapt to stay competitive. For modern applications, real-time data processing and analytics within the application are more important than ever. To build the next generation of applications, businesses need innovative technologies to power real-time data demands while controlling costs. Stitching together multiple, siloed legacy databases and replicating and moving data across them will no longer scale as you digitise and transform your core business processes. Thus, rethinking your data architecture is required. This keynote will explore: The factors contributing to modern applications' development include real-time interactivity and analytics. How next-generational databases are driving real-time results and powering the applications of the future. A glimpse into the future of databases and real-time analytics and how they're poised to drive innovation and transform industries in the years ahead. How SingleStoreDB has improved application performance by 20-100x and saved costs by up to 60% by minimising data movement and latency.
- Creating a risk and compliance framework that everyone understands.(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) When Vanessa Lakits landed at Grace Group nine years ago, the integrated asset moving and information management provider desperately needed to improve its compliance capabilities and better understand risk. Things have changed dramatically since then with key risk and data compliance systems automated in line with changes in recent years to Australia’s privacy and data protection laws. Lakits, who is now group manager, compliance and risk at Grace, will discuss why risk and compliance success requires a layered approach that covers technology, governance and risk, and awareness and culture. One of these aspects of compliance and risk does not work without the others, she says. Lakits will discuss: The elements that are required to create a good data governance and compliance framework. How she worked with her team to build governance and risk systems from the ground up that help people understand what their role is when it comes to protecting the personal data of its customers. How Grace shares key learnings with other organisations across its supply chain.
- Ethics in AI: Why you might be missing the point(CDO Sit-Down) Many people have conversations about ethics in AI, but they are really missing the point, according to the NSW Government’s chief data scientist, Ian Oppermann. He says that many people approach the use of AI purely from a ‘values-based perspective’ without any mechanism to connect it back to how these technologies are being used in different ways across their organisations. But when this is done properly, issues around ethics start to get connected to actions, while principals are connected to frameworks and data sets. He says organisations can talk about trust and trustworthiness, but without meaningful mechanisms to build that into systems and processes, they are only considering the principals of AI without the tools and frameworks to best put it into practice. Join Ian Oppermann at the Sydney Sit-Down for his presentation, ‘Ethics in AI: Why you might be missing the point.’
- How personalisation helps Seven West Media create a better user experience.(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) Seven West Media knows that providing a dynamic user experience by bringing personalisation to its streaming platform, 7plus, is key to increasing engagement in a market where the media company is being measured to much larger players like Netflix and Disney. Director of product solutions, Will Everitt, and his team have used a ‘test and learn’ approach, utilising automation technologies, to recommend video on demand content to its customers based on their past behaviours and propensity to view particular content. Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Seven West Media’s Everitt about how the organisation will build out its personalisation and UX strategy in preparation for the 2023-24 cricket season in Australia and other big events. He will discuss how the media organisation is delivering ‘next-generation television’ by creating an tailored experienced that is different from a traditional linear TV environment.
- You’ve decided to use AI, now what?(CDO Sit-Down) ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) model that uses deep learning to generate natural language responses to user queries, has created a lot of excitement around the potential for AI in our work and personal lives. But what are the different types of AI and how can they best be used across your organisation? What do people mean when they talk about machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI? Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Shahida Sweeney, as she chats to the University of New South Wales’ (UNSW) chief data and insights officer, Kate Carruthers, about the questions that organisations need to ask before deploying these automation technologies. They will discuss: How Kate and her data team are explaining these technologies and concepts to the wider organisation and identifying where AI can be best used. How she has spent recent years organising UNSW’s data into data lakes, which puts the organisation in a good position to take advantage of AI. The results of UNSW’s proof-of-concept activities. How ChatGPT provides the interface that is needed to drive AI. Why organisations need to take a fresh look at each team’s work practices if AI projects are going to succeed.
- How AI helps Southern Cross Austereo listen more closely to its audience.(CIO/CISO Sit-Down) In early 2021, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) launched the first combine music and spoken word platform for Australians. LiSTNR, the digital love child of SCA’s chief technology officer, Stephen Haddad, curates audio content to audiences based on their personal tastes and routines. That year, SCA also purchased a stake in AI and ML company, SourseAI, which provides content recommendations on SCA’s app, and invested in Sonnant, which lets the media giant connect to metadata, including listener topic analysis as well as listening and marketing data. Join Haddad as he demonstrates the LiSTNR app and describes how AI and ML technologies are used to do sentiment analysis of audio content and how this is used to drive recommendations and transfer listeners across genres. He will also discuss how SCA will roll out self-service features, using an AI bot, that enables listeners to purchase online audio products within minutes.
- CDO relationships: Reducing the ‘pain of paying.’(CDO Sit-Down) In 1996, US-based academic, Ofer Zellermayer, pioneered the term ‘pain of paying’, which refers to the emotional toll that one experiences when physically paying for a good or service. Westpac’s senior manager of Operational Risk, James Bailey, believes it’s one concept that may drive the rift between data leaders and their business counterparts, where each group often doesn’t have respect for the other’s daily pressures and deadlines. He says this goes on while they are desperately trying to communicate with one another. Join James at this Sit-Down as he discusses how, using clean, actionable dashboards and Zellermayer’s principals, CDOs can be more effective in the role they play with the business to ‘reduce the pain of paying’ for their insights.
- Final remarks and close(CIO/CISO Sit-Down)
- Final remarks and close(CDO Sit-Down)
- Networking drinks(CIO/CISO Sit-Down)
- Networking drinks(CDO Sit-Down)
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