Featured speakers
Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher
Katy Gallagher is the Federal Minister for Finance, Women, the Public Service and Government Services.
Katy entered politics in 2001 in a bid to boost women's representation in the ACT Legislative Assembly. Since then, she has dedicated her career to delivering progressive policies, with a particular focus on making sure that government works for women. In 2022 with the election of the Albanese Government, Katy became a proud member of Australia's first majority women federal government and, with the recent election, is now a member of our country's first gender equal cabinet.
Holding the portfolios of Finance, Women, the Public Service and Government Services across both terms of government, Katy has worked with her colleagues to ensure that women are at the centre of government decision making.
As the Minister responsible for the public service's data and digital transformation, Katy is leading the adoption and integration of artificial intelligence across the APS and is focused on ensuring that as government embraces emerging technologies, women benefit equally from technological advancement.
Johanna Weaver
Johanna Weaver is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Tech Policy Design Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank dedicated to tech policy. She is a reformed commercial litigator, a recovering diplomat, and an escaped professor.
In 2021, Johanna founded TPDi's predecessor, the Tech Policy Design Centre at the Australian National University, after concluding her term as Australia's independent expert and chief cyber negotiator to the United Nations.
She has been appointed to numerous boards, including the ICRC Global Advisory Board on Protecting Civilians from Digital Threats, the Minister for Government Services' Independent Advisory Board, and the Data Standards Advisory Committee.
Matt Yannopoulos
Matt has served as Secretary of the Department of Finance since September 2025. He has led major reform, service delivery and corporate operations functions, with a career spanning several Commonwealth agencies, including in Defence, Finance, Health, Education and Immigration.
Matt brings deep expertise in finance, technology and organisational change. He is an accredited FCPA and was awarded a Public Service Medal in 2019 for his achievements in Child Care Reform Implementation.
Abigail Bradshaw
Abigail Bradshaw was appointed the Director-General of the Australian Signals Directorate in September 2024.
Abigail previously served as Deputy Director-General ASD and Head of ASD's Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), responsible for leading Australian Government's operational advice and assistance to improve cyber security for Australians and Australian entities. Abigail led ASD's response to nationally significant cyber security incidents and spearheaded the Government's cyber security partnership with industry, forging critical partnerships, which underpin Australia's national resilience.
Abigail has held key national security roles where she has led whole of government operations, as well as policy and international roles, focussing on advancing Australia's national security agenda domestically and offshore.
Abigail has held senior appointments within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), the Department of Home Affairs, and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
Abigail began her career in the Royal Australian Navy and was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in 2005. She holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Asian Studies.
Dr Subho Banerjee
Dr Subho Banerjee is Deputy Commissioner, Head of APS Academy and Capability at the APSC, and he has previously served in APS Deputy Secretary roles in the Education and Training, Industry, and Climate Change portfolios.
In addition to his APS work, Subho has worked at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government, and held visiting and adjunct appointments at the ANU and Griffith University. He has also worked for a private sector management consultancy and an Indigenous policy think-tank.
Subho holds a BSc and PhD in Physics from ANU. He also holds Masters qualifications in economic and social history, and environmental change and management, from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar.
Lucy Poole
Deputy CEO-Strategy, Planning and Performance Division, Digital Transformation Agency.
Lucy leads the Strategy, Planning and Performance Division which focuses on providing whole-of-government strategic leadership to the development and implementation of digital policies, the Australian Government Architecture, and the Data and Digital Government Strategy.
Lucy oversees the management of the government's digital investment pipeline to ensure an integrated and coordinated approach to government's investment in digital and ICT. A key priority for Lucy is driving the achievement of the Australian Government's vision to implement world class digital capabilities to deliver outstanding outcomes for all.
Lucy also manages the Digital Transformation Agency's development of policies, governance models, and assurance frameworks for the implementation and use of Generative Artificial Intelligence technologies across the Australian Public Service.
Prior to joining the Digital Transformation Agency, Lucy held senior executive roles at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Australian Public Service Commission where she led several transformation programs. Lucy has experience across a range of sectors including Australian federal and state governments, the private sector and the UK civil service.
AI thought leader speakers
Ramsey Beydoun
Ramsey leads the AI branch at the Digital Transformation Agency, where his teams are responsible for the Australian Government's AI policy, impact assessment and technical standards (including the agentic AI addendum), the AI reference architecture, and joint stewardship of the APS AI Plan.
He has spent 22 years in the public service delivering large-scale data and digital transformation, including new AI and analytics platforms, cloud migration and graph database amongst many large programs.
With a background grounded in data, he focuses on the unglamorous foundations that make AI work. He is a strong advocate for building capability inside the APS, for open source, for managing vendor lock-in, and for specialising AI to the realities of government service delivery.
Ms Tenille Collins
Tenille Collins is the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for Services Australia. The CDO is accountable for the agency's enterprise-wide governance and use of data as an asset, as well as building agency data capabilities.
The CDO also ensures the agency's work and data agenda aligns with the Australian Government's Data and Digital Government Strategy.
Adrian Cullen
Adrian is Industry Program Manager at the National AI Centre. His focus is understanding the barriers to AI adoption how different sectors are adopting AI, to build products to support sector needs. He is building with AI in his spare time and champions how approachable AI is, if you know which way to come at it.
Previously, he led foreign investment across Low Carbon Fuels and Agrifood within Austrade working with global companies to secure Australia as an investment location. He had a previous career in the secondary and tertiary education sectors.
Louise Frezza
Louise leads the AI Workforce Planning Taskforce at the Australian Public Service Commission, helping agencies understand and prepare for how artificial intelligence will reshape work, skills and workforce needs across the APS.
Lee Hickin
Executive Director, Australian National AI Centre.
Lee has over 30 years' experience in the technology industry, having been in engineering, sales and senior leadership roles. Prior to joining the Australian Federal Government, he was the CTO for Microsoft ANZ leading the launch of the OpenAI partnership, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.
Lee has worked across the UK, Asia, and Australia, he led the Internet of Things team for Amazon Web Services in Asia Pacific, he was a CISSP security architect with RSA Security Asia and IBM as a software engineer in the UK.
Lee has supported Governments around the world as an independent contributor; having been a member of the Singapore AI-Verify Board and a founding member of the NSW AI Assurance Committee.
Today Lee leads the Australian National AI Centre (NAIC), with a mission to enable and support Australian organisations to safely adopt AI technology and services. He has a clear focus on the need for consistent and appropriate responsible safety mechanisms to support AI, balanced with the need to empower Australians with the confidence and trust in the positive and transformative potential of AI.
Christopher Horlyck
First Assistant Director-General, Cyber Security Resilience, Australian Signals Directorate.
Mr Horlyck is the Head of Division for Cyber Security Resilience in the Australian Signals Directorate's (ASD) Australian Cyber Security Centre. In this role he is responsible for delivering technical programs, services and publications across government and industry, as well as enabling the uplift and hardening of critical networks.
Chris brings extensive experience implementing advice on some of Australia's most sensitive networks as ASD's former Chief Information Security Officer and focusses on practical and achievable mitigations, informed by a background in incident response, digital forensics, and operational security within the public and private sector.
Throughout his career, Chris has leveraged his experience in responding to incidents and operations to uplift security capability to mitigate risk where possible and understand manageable risks. Notably, he led ASD's hunt and incident response capability for 3 years during the tactical response activities to two of Australia's most significant cyber incidents.
Previously Chris had experience in the private sector where he provided expert guidance to boards and executives, consulted on critical infrastructure security and assisted large organisations response to major cyber incidents.
Ms Lisa Keeling
Lisa rejoined Services Australia in January 2024 and brings extensive leadership experience across large scale government and technology environments.
In her current role, Lisa leads the Telecommunications Services Program, a $1.5 billion transformation delivering resilient, modern communications capability at national scale. Lisa is also responsible for Services Australia's automation & AI, focusing on ensuring Services Australia can harness automation & AI technologies in a way that is human-centric, safe, responsible, transparent, fair, ethical and legal.
In addition to this, Lisa leads Services Australia's business and customer architecture team, which focuses on translating strategy into delivery by putting the customer at the heart of everything we do.
Dr Susie Kluth
As Chief Data Officer at the Department of Education, Susie leads the delivery of the Department of Education's Data Strategy, which supports the department to create and harness data for policy development. She also drives the use of integrated data and economics in the department to answer complex policy questions which can't be addressed through single data sources and leads the department's expertise in measuring educational outcomes.
Susie has 20 years of experience in data and analysis in the APS from a broad range of data roles building on her early career as a physicist. At Treasury she led the development of major models, at the Department of Social Services she pioneered the use of integrated data.
Susie contributes to the whole of government data agenda through the Senior Working Group for the APS Data Profession and the PLIDA Board. She is passionate about building data capability and is the sponsor of the Graduate Data Network.
Eloise Leaver
Eloise Leaver is the Industry Growth Manager of the NAIC, where she leads strategic initiatives to accelerate trusted AI adoption and strengthen Australia's AI ecosystem.
She works at the intersection of government, industry and innovation – connecting organisations with practical AI capability, supporting businesses to move from curiosity to adoption, and bringing together industry insights and data to shape national approaches to AI adoption.
Eloise brings over 20 years' experience across government, innovation and higher education, with a strong focus on partnerships, ecosystem development and delivering high-impact national programs.
Daniel Livesey
Daniel Livesey works at the intersection of AI, technology, policy, and people. Drawing on experience across government, higher education, and industry, including leading the development of shared AI services across the Australian government through GovAI.
Daniel brings a practical perspective on what it takes to make AI useful in complex organisations and how to navigate the steps to get there. He speaks candidly about leadership, responsible adoption and the difficult questions that emerge when technological ambition meets everyday reality.
Andrew Morrison
Andrew Morrison leads the Australian Government's GovAI Program as an Assistant Secretary within the Department of Finance. In this role, he is driving the development of shared AI capabilities and services that support safe, secure and effective AI adoption across the Australian Public Service. Andrew previously held the Chief Technology Officer role at the Digital Transformation Agency, leading significant digital transformation and technology initiatives across government.
His experience spans digital strategy, government technology, service delivery and cross-agency collaboration, underpinned by a commitment to responsible innovation and better outcomes for government and the Australian community.
Dr Ian Oppermann
Dr Ian Oppermann commenced his 5 year appointment with the ACCC on 10 December 2025. Ian has more than 30 years' experience in the information and communication technology sector, and deep expertise in data, broadband enabled services and technology.
Ian is a respected thought leader in the digital economy. His leadership reflects the ACCC's role in consumer data protection and supports our data-driven regulatory innovation.
Prior to joining the ACCC, Ian held the position of Data Standards Chair for Digital ID and Consumer Data Right, was the NSW Government's inaugural Chief Data Scientist (CDS) and is currently the Vice-President of the International Electrotechnical Commission.
John Shepherd
John is the First Assistant Secretary, Digital ID and Data Policy Division within the Department of Finance. The Division has led work to establish the legislative framework for Australia's Digital ID System as a comprehensive, economy-wide system for Digital ID.
This includes important work on inclusion and ensuring appropriate privacy safeguards. The Division also leads on data policy for the Commonwealth including the data elements of Australia's Data and Digital Government Strategy.
John has held General Manager roles at the Australian Bureau of Statistics where he led multiple reform initiatives to reduce the burden on businesses and households of completing surveys. John also held a number of senior roles at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), leading significant change programs including the implementation of Single Touch Payroll for which he was awarded a Public Service Medal (PSM) in the 2022 Australia Day Honours list.
Stela Solar
Stela Solar is the CEO of Stone & Chalk, Australia's largest innovation community. Stela also serves on the Data & AI Advisory Council at Beyond Blue.
A recognised technology leader, she was previously Managing Director for Data&AI at Accenture ANZ, served as the Inaugural Director of Australia's National AI Centre and Co-chair of the Commonwealth AI Consortium, after holding several leadership positions at Microsoft, including Global Director of AI Solution Sales and Global Partner Co-sell Leader.
Throughout her distinguished 20 year career, she has driven business model transformations that enable organisations to capture new opportunities through emerging technologies including Cloud, IoT, and AI, and has developed nation-wide AI frameworks such as the Voluntary AI Safety Standard. Combining her background in sustainability and creative industries with deep technical expertise, Stela is known for delivering business outcomes anchored in business value, market differentiation and responsible impact.
Beyond her professional endeavours, Stela enjoys sailing and tries to find time to play cello and piano.
Ms Jo Talbot
Jo Talbot is First Assistant Commissioner, Workforce, Tribunals and Inclusion at the Australian Public Service Commission.
She has previously held Chief Operating Officer and Chief People Officer roles, as well as responsibilities in a range of senior corporate leadership roles across a number of departments including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Department of Social Services, Department of Communications and the Arts, Department of Human Services, and Australian Customs Service.
Jo is Australia's representative and Vice Chair on the Public Governance Committee at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and a government member of the Open Government Forum. She is also a member of the AHRI Public Sector Advisory Panel (PSAP), a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Fellow Certified Practitioner of Human Resources.
Jo holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Human Resources for the University of Tasmania and a Graduate Certificate of Public Administration from the University of Canberra.
Jonathon Thorpe
Chief Customer Officer, Service Delivery Excellence Group.
As Deputy CEO and Chief Customer Officer at Services Australia, Jonathon leads a group responsible for optimising, improving, and transforming critical services to millions of Australians every day. With over a decade of senior executive experience across several portfolios, he specialises in technology enabled transformation across digital, Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital identity, and strategy in the public sector.
His mission is to improve customer and staff experiences by using data, AI and human-centred design to deliver government services that are seamless, trusted and inclusive. He believes well-designed services are enabled by the safe and responsible use of technology, informed by strong collaboration with users, and focused on improving outcomes for people and communities.
His experience spans agile leadership, modern digital delivery and service innovation. He is passionate about building empowered teams that are encouraged to experiment, learn and deliver at pace, while strengthening partnerships across government to turn innovation into practical, scalable impact.
Ms Cathy Toze PSM
Cathy is the Chief AI Officer and General Manager, Automation and AI Strategy and Delivery Division at Services Australia. She leads the agency's approach to automation, artificial intelligence and workforce capability, helping ensure technology is used safely, responsibly and in ways that improve outcomes for Australians.
Cathy is passionate about delivering accessible, trusted government services that make a meaningful difference in people's lives. Throughout her public service career, she has led major service delivery reforms, large-scale operational responses and strategic policy initiatives, while championing diversity, inclusion and leadership development. As a proud Indigenous Champion, she advocates for positive outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees and communities.
Her achievements include leading Centrepay reforms that strengthened protections for hundreds of thousands of Australians through extensive consultation and co-design, developing first Services Australia's Vulnerability Strategy, and delivering the $12.8 billion Coronavirus Disaster Payment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cathy was awarded the Public Service Medal in 2023. In 2024, she received the Dr Margot McCarthy Scholarship and completed the Executive Public Leaders Programme at the University of Oxford, followed by an executive placement with the UK Department for Work and Pensions in 2025.
Originally from Brisbane, Cathy has lived in Canberra with her husband and four children for more than 20 years. She supports HeartKids, Transplant Australia and DonateLife, drawing inspiration from her daughter Hetty's experience living with a complex congenital heart condition.
Elizabeth Tydd
Australian Information Commissioner.
Elizabeth Tydd took up the position of Australian Information Commissioner in August 2024 for a 5-year term. Elizabeth is an experienced agency head and has occupied a number of statutory decision-making roles, including Information Commissioner and CEO of the NSW Information and Privacy Commission, Australian Freedom of Information Commissioner, Deputy President of the Workers Compensation Commission and Deputy Chairperson of the former Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal.
Elizabeth has extensive regulatory and governance experience at an executive and board level in a range of jurisdictions and industries, including commercial, not-for-profit and public sector oversight.
She holds a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney, as well as postgraduate certificates in executive management and governance together with post graduate qualifications in leadership and policy from Harvard University. Elizabeth possesses expertise in digital government and has written extensively on this subject.
Dr Liming Zhu
Dr Liming Zhu is a Research Director at CSIRO and former Head of Data61, Australia's national digital and AI research capability.
He is a conjoint professor at UNSW, a global expert in AI engineering and responsible AI, and contributes to major international AI safety and standards initiatives.
Monita Lal
Monita Lal is a senior Australian Public Service executive with extensive experience leading digital transformation, service delivery reform and customer-focused innovation across government. She is the First Assistant Secretary of the AI Delivery and Enablement Division at the Department of Finance, where she leads whole-of-government efforts to support the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence and build AI capability across the Australian Public Service.
Prior to joining Finance, Monita held a range of senior executive roles at Services Australia, most recently as General Manager, Care and Support, with responsibility for major service delivery programs supporting older Australians, people with disability and carers. She also led significant digital service delivery and customer experience initiatives, including work on myGov, helping shape how government services are designed, delivered and experienced by millions of Australians.
Jenny Telford
Jenny Telford is the General Manager of the Census and Population Statistics Division at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). She leads the design, planning and delivery of the 2026 Census and oversees the production of Australia's official population statistics.
Jenny has extensive experience leading large-scale national programs, communications, stakeholder engagement and digital transformation initiatives. She has held senior leadership roles across multiple Census cycles and has led major initiatives to improve the accessibility, use and delivery of ABS data and services.
Jenny holds a degree in Information Technology and Business Management from Southern Cross University.