"AI is like chocolate (and observability is like strawberries)"
Former Google SRE who worked on Cloud Load Balancer and Google Flights. Co-author of Observability Engineering. Advocate for transgender rights, board member of the National Center for Transgender Equality. Australian permanent resident since 2022, splits time between Sydney and Vancouver.
IT Technical Specialist · Australian Taxation Office
Arena
"ROI of User Support and Education"
IT technical specialist at the ATO with a focus on the measurable value of user support and education programs within large government organisations.
SB
Simone Bennett
Product Manager · Buildkite
Extra
"From Delivery to Assembly Line: Making Your Work Feel Automated"
25+ years in IT, former Microsoft Solution Architect and Principal Consultant at Arkahna. 2025 Microsoft MVP, ARN Technical Achievement Award winner, and National Women in Digital Industry Excellence Award winner. Advocates for non-traditional pathways into tech.
Theresa Payne — Previously Platform Director at News Corp Australia and Senior Manager Digital at ASX. University of Newcastle alumna.
Carolyn Breeze — 20+ years in tech, fintech and payments. Alum of GoCardless, Braintree, PayPal, eBay, Vodafone and Telstra. CEO Magazine IT Executive of the Year 2018; Fintech Leader of the Year 2023.
Margareta Studdert — Based in Newcastle. Previously at Folksam and PostNord. Passionate about psychological safety, mentoring and diversity in tech.
Dr Jacqueline D Bailey — PhD in IT from UoN. Researches human-centred computing and virtual humans in serious gaming and simulation. Teaching Excellence Award winner.
Victoria Aspden — Multiple executive roles at CommBank and Colonial First State, Head of Customer & Enterprise Platforms at Great Southern Bank, IT Advisory at KPMG UK and Australia.
"AI-Augmented Incident Response: What to Add, What to Trust, What to Keep Human"
Based in Newcastle with 20 years in IT. Helped build the CyberCX Academy curriculum, producing 160+ new cybersecurity professionals. Master's in Cyber Security from Charles Sturt University (postgraduate medal, 6.82 GPA). Founded the AWSN Newcastle chapter; volunteers in the NSW Cyber Ambassador program.
"Designing for the Mind: Using Cognitive Load Theory to Measure Interface Effectiveness"
PhD in Computer Science from UoN. Research focuses on cognitive load in ubiquitous computing — how ambient displays can surface information peripherally without increasing users' mental load. Conducted a systematic review of 459 ambient display publications spanning 20 years.
"Engineering Innocence: The Ethics of Dark Patterns and the Next Generation"
Enterprise architect and conference speaker with a passion for technology ethics. Brings an architectural lens to the ethical choices baked into digital product design — particularly their impact on children and the next generation.
"From Alert Fatigue to AI-First: A Leader's Guide to Modernising SecOps"
Security operations leader at Newcastle-based health insurer nib. Practitioner's perspective on evolving security operations from reactive alert triage to AI-augmented, intelligence-driven security programmes.
Katherine Squire — Former GM Application Development & DevOps at ASX. Deep background in financial services technology leadership.
Josh Doolan — Founded Mudbath Digital in Newcastle in 2014, grew it to ~100 people across Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne, then led it through acquisition by Endava. Now leads Endava's APAC expansion.
Andrew Cresp — Former CIO at Bendigo & Adelaide Bank where he piloted generative AI cutting legacy modernisation costs by up to 90%. Previously GM Core Banking Technology at NAB.
James MacDonald — Founder of NewyTechPeople & NTP Talent. Co-founder of NewyStartUps. Director of Hunter Angels.
"Why Brilliant Technical People Struggle to Be Heard"
Co-founded Digital Armour from her kitchen table two decades ago, building it from an MSP into a business and technology consultancy. Was managing 40 people at 24 in New Zealand's engineering sector. Author, podcaster, mentor, and two-time winner of the National Customer Excellence & Innovation Award.
Unusual career journey from primary school teacher and pastor into change management, specialising in the Salesforce ecosystem. Works with CIOs and digital leaders on the human side of technology adoption — moving from implementation to sustained use.
Former mathematician with a PhD from the University of Maryland. Transitioned into software engineering and functional programming at Cartesian Software, Anamorphic Digital and Tarides. Now building TANK — the app fighting burnout in product engineering teams.
17:00
🍻 ACE Networking Event hosted by Atlassian — The Avenue (until 19:00)
Day 2 — Thu 28 May
8:30
Registration & Morning Tea — The Avenue
10:00
Conference Welcome — The Arena
10:10
JD
Jovana Dunisijevic
Senior Technical Evangelist · Atlassian
Arena · Keynote
"Humans In The Loop – Why the Future of AI Still Belongs to Us"
Moved from Serbia to Sydney in 2017 on an internship visa. Spent years as a software engineer on Jira before moving into platform engineering and then developer advocacy. Evangelises Rovo Dev, Atlassian's AI-augmented development tooling. Finalist, Software Engineer of the Year at the 2022 Australia Women in Digital Awards.
"Change is Only Good When Measured: Building Confidence Through Experimentation"
Studied IT at UTS, started as a junior business analyst before teaching herself to code. Quickly became a senior engineer working across frontend and backend. Specialises in feature experimentation — shipping confidently without turning your codebase into spaghetti. Outside work: bakes, paints, and photographs.
6× Microsoft MVP and 8× Umbraco MVP. Leads the award-winning team at Bump across the UK and Australia. Active open-source contributor and community organiser; co-hosts the weekly UmbraCoffee YouTube series. Has delivered this talk at NDC Oslo, NDC Copenhagen, and TDC 2025.
"Trustworthy AI: Keeping Humans at the Heart of Intelligent Systems"
TEDx speaker. Presents at ~50 conferences a year on AI, Azure, GitHub, open source and game dev. Vice Chair of the Australian Computer Society (WA). Mentors for Code Without Barriers, She Codes Australia, Girls Programming Network and others. Passionate advocate for diversity and young people in tech.
Software developer, author of .NET MAUI in Action, and co-host of the Beer Driven Devs podcast. 15 years in IT spanning systems engineering, management and consulting. Specialises in .NET, Azure, MAUI and Blazor. Presents regularly at .NET user groups across multiple Australian states.
Principal consultant at Equal Experts with a delivery-focused perspective on integrating robotic and AI systems into real-world engineering workflows.
VA
Victoria Aspden
EGM Digital & Transformation · Ampcontrol
Extra
"How To Make Good Decisions"
Executive leader spanning financial services, banking and infrastructure. Multiple executive roles at CommBank and Colonial First State, Head of Customer & Enterprise Platforms at Great Southern Bank, IT Advisory at KPMG UK and Australia. Also speaking on the WITH Panel (Day 1).
Global digital transformation leader with experience across e-commerce, government, finance, healthcare and manufacturing. Expertise spans Microsoft 365, Azure, Google Cloud, CRM, RPA and business process automation. Trusted advisor and principal consultant across multi-industry transformations.
13+ years in software development and leadership. Conference Director of PyCon AU 2026. Former Microsoft Relations Developer & Program Manager. Founder of FrontGate.app. BSc in IT from UTS. Active Australian tech community speaker, fractional CTO and open-source contributor.
"The Reality Gap: What AI Needs to Actually Work at Scale"
Writes about the gap between AI pilots and production. Argues that Continuous Delivery practices are what let organisations actually scale AI value — relevant given BCG research showing only 21% of AI pilots reach production.
"Balance Is a Myth: Why the Best Tech Careers Are Built in Seasons"
Founder of NewyTechPeople and NTP Talent. Co-founder of NewyStartUps. Director of Hunter Angels. Hosts multiple podcasts with tens of thousands of downloads on tech talent and trends. Also on the AI in the Enterprise Panel (Day 1).