Kate Burleigh is Managing Director for Intel Australia/ New Zealand. Kate is responsible for Intel’s overall business within Australia and New Zealand and is committed to ensuring Intel’s customers benefit from the diverse breadth of products and services the company offers; from personal computing, the cloud and big data solutions, to the Internet of Things and data security offerings.
With a strong reputation in high-tech sales and brand marketing built over a 20 year career, Kate is passionate about the potential for technology to vastly improve how we live, work, and play within this increasingly connected world. She is a strong advocate for boosting educational efforts in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) and supports the need for smart government policy and industry leadership on how we harness technology to drive innovation.
Prior to her appointment as Managing Director, Kate spent six years as Marketing and Retail Sales Director. More recently she managed Intel’s Channel Sales Organisation, and from 2000 to 2003 Kate held the role of Asia Pacific Category Manager for Intel Centrino® mobile technology.
Kate sits on the board of the Australian IT Industry Association (AIIA) and is deputy-chair of the National i-Awards steering committee. Additionally Kate sits on the Camp Quality board.
Prior to joining Intel in 1996, Kate worked in marketing roles in both the retail and non-profit sectors.
Kate holds a Masters of Business and Marketing from University of Technology Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sydney University. She lives in Sydney with her husband and two daughters.
As the lead for Accenture Interactive in Australia and New Zealand, Michael works with business leaders to drive efficiencies through marketing analytics, customer experience, campaign and content management and eCommerce.
Michael’s career spans two decades in the advertising and media sector and he specialises in digital ecosystems from the web, data, design experience, eCommerce, media and technology to social and digital marketing.
Michael leads organisations through large scale business growth and transformation using his expertise in technology and media fragmentation.
Rod van Onselen is the General Manager of Online at Sportsbet, Australia’s largest pure play e-commerce company. He joined Sportsbet two years ago to lead a team of Product, Online Marketing, Innovation and Analytics specialists and build a market leading digital capability.
Rod’s diverse experience covers a range of business growth, strategy, and transformation roles across corporate, management consulting and start-up environments. The common thread has been a focus on growing and transforming businesses through a combination of clear strategy, building high performing teams, data analytics and continuous innovation.
Before joining Sportsbet, Rod was Head of Strategy & Analytics at ANZ Australia, where he led a large multi-disciplinary team responsible for B2C strategy, customer analytics and business intelligence, and a $100m+ investment program to transform ANZ’s data analytics capabilities.
Rod’s prior experience includes practicing as a solicitor at Clayton Utz; establishing and running a venture capital-backed Internet business that grew to #1 in its market segment; commercial management at a mining company; and several years as a strategy consultant at management consulting firm, A.T Kearney, where he specialised in growth strategy and business transformation for clients across Australia and Asia.
Rod is a John Clemenger Memorial Prize winner, having graduated first in Melbourne Business School’s MBA class of 2005; and also holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Melbourne.
Despite all of this, Rod is still at the mercy of his wife Vanessa and two kids Alice and Willem who describe what he does as “daddy looks after the iPhone, computers and things”.
Ciarán has been working online since getting a job in an internet café in Sydney in 1999. He’s worked client-side, at media and creative agencies and in sales organisations driving innovation and an understanding of digital trends.
He started in online publishing, setting-up the first SEO training programme for journalists at the UK B2B publisher RBI, before moving agency side. At digital marketing agency Altogether he was responsible for award winning campaigns as Head of Search & Social.
He then spent 5 years at global media agency Mindshare, as the first Head of Social in their worldwide office in London, the first Head of Digital at Mindshare in Ireland and then Chief Digital Officer for Mindshare Australia. During his time at Mindshare he helped win & retain major clients and ran a number of innovative initiatives and campaigns to “normalise” digital at Mindshare and its clients.
Ciarán then moved to Yahoo7’s, heading the Strategy & Integration team within the sales organisation, where he led the commercial roll-out of Tumblr in Australia. He has recently started at American Express where he leads Amex’s consultancy team providing marketing services and advice to its merchant clients across the JAPA region.
Associate Professor Bem Le Hunte is an international author, an academic at UTS and an expert in the field of Creative Intelligence. Over the past three decades she has worked across a broad range of creative industries, from advertising and journalism, to publishing and new media. She’s been a creative consultant, creative director, brand consultant and copywriter (in the UK, Australia and India) for over 500 brands across a diverse range of media – covering the world’s most successful blue chip companies to social enterprises and start-ups.
In her professional life, Bem has focused on digital innovation, educating consumers, clients, students and colleagues on the creative potential of next generation technology since the time she was creative director on the launch of Microsoft Windows ’95.
Bem’s research interests lie in the thinking, theory and practice of creativity and in trailblazing educational innovation. She also has a research interest in cross-media innovation, storytelling and the social, cultural and political impact of media consumption.
At UTS, Bem is the course director for the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation, responsible for the interdisciplinary integrity and inspiration behind this flagship combined degree. She teaches creative thinking, theory and practice across disciplines from Anthropology to Media and Creative Writing – and works with academics from across all faculties at UTS as well as with industry stakeholders, to create this world-first, future-facing transdisciplinary degree.
Currently, Bem is working on her fourth book. Her novels, short stories, articles and commentaries are published internationally to critical acclaim. Her most recent passion is a start-up with fellow authors at www.wutheringink.com– the world’s first author-run portal for published writers.
Paul Rush is a Partner in the Sydney Office of Odgers Berndtson where he leads the CIO/CTO/CDO functional practice for Asia Pacific and Japan. He is a member of the Global CIO functional lead team and manages several regional key accounts within the Telecommunications sector. His client portfolio is international and broad. He has worked across a multitude of industries and types of organisation, including Global MNC’s, ASX Listed Companies, Government, Higher Education, Professional Services and NFP’s.
Paul is often asked to provide comment to the press in regard to the changing landscape of technology leadership within the region. Paul started his search career in the UK. He moved to Australia in 2005.
Prior to joining Odgers Berndtson, Paul worked for another well respected search firm. He has always focused on Technology executives and Telecommunications.
Paul has an honours degree in Geography from the London School of Economics.
Gerd Schenkel joined Telstra Digital as Executive Director in March 2011. In this position Gerd and his team deliver a comprehensive, relevant and integrated digital experience for all Telstra customers. In 2014 Telstra also launched its Digital First approach which is all about creating a brilliant connected future for its customers and staff, Gerd is overseeing this crosscompany program of work.
Gerd is passionate about customer driven business growth and has extensive online experience.
Prior to joining Telstra, Gerd launched and managed UBank (www.ubank.com.au) for NAB, a branchless direct bank. Other previous appointments include Customer Strategy, Customer Relationship Management and Cross Marketing for NAB’s Australian businesses, Director of Strategy for Citigroup in Australia, as well as the Chief Manager of Strategy Development and Implementation for BankWest/ HBOS. Prior to that, Gerd was a Management Consultant with The Boston Consulting Group based in Sydney, Los Angeles and New York where he advised blue chip corporate clients on their business strategy and growth agendas.
Gerd has a Master degree in Engineering (Robotics) and an MBA from the Columbia Business School in New York.
John joined GroupM on October, 2013 as Head of Digital and was promoted to Chief Digital Officer in 2015. Miskelly is charged with overseeing the group’s extensive digital investments. He was previously Digital Head of Implementation Planning and Investment at MediaCom.
In November 2015, Michelle joined the City of Melbourne as Chief Digital Officer (the first position of its kind for Victorian Local Government) managing the newly-formed Smart City Office. In this position she will assist the City of Melbourne to attract technology and bioscience start-ups; drive the take up of digital, agile development and open data across customer services; lead the shift in infrastructure management towards smart city modelling; and collaborate with Melbourne’s research and higher education sectors to build the city’s education capabilities and reputation as a knowledge hub.
Michelle was previously a Customer and Digital Partner, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) Consulting Australia. Michelle has extensive experience in developing strategies across financial services, telecommunications, resources, healthcare and technology sectors across Australia and internationally.
She is also a Non Executive director for Standards Australia, and was recently awarded as one of the Knowledge Nation 100 leaders in Australia.
Bronwyn heads up Fjord in Australia, one of our newest studios. As the Group Director, Bronwyn is responsible for growing the business, finding and developing the best talent, creating value for our clients through design and innovation, as well as overseeing the work that the team delivers. Central to all of this is understanding and empathising with the end user of a service, be that a customer or a staff member.
Bronwyn is passionate about using creativity and design thinking to reframe big, fuzzy problems, be that for an individual, a business or society. She loves using design to create beautiful, coherent brand experiences across multiple touchpoints.
Bronwyn hails from the BBC, where she first had the pleasure of working with Fjord. Being the Head of Design and User Experience, she led the project that delivered the Global Experience Language for the BBC’s digital products across web, mobile, tablet and interactive TV (GEL). After 15 fabulous years in the UK she decided to return to Australia where she joined Massive Interactive as Global Director of Experience & Design. Massive specialise in creating digital experiences for the entertainment, media, travel and airline industries. The projects Bronwyn worked on included the design of the in-flight entertainment systems for Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Qantas; set-top boxes for local pay TV provider Foxtel as well as Freeview; and a bunch of connected TV, mobile and tablet apps for clients such as the BBC and Sony.
When Bronwyn takes a break from design thinking, she has two little boys to keep her busy, three chickens, a vegetable patch and half a dog (that she shares with her brother). She loves going to the beach, doing yoga, taking the kids camping and enjoying a glass of wine with good friends.
