AGENDA

10:00am

Welcome to Country

10:05am

Welcome to HRFest Australia 2026!

10:10am

Blow the Blues Away

Grab a harmonica and dive headfirst into this high-energy collective reset. We’re turning a room full of beginners from bungled notes into a coordinated blues band in record time. It’s loud, it’s vibrant, and it’s the ultimate proof of what happens when an entire crowd genuinely finds their rhythm together.

Rob Arcari

Facilitator, Be Challenged

11:00am

Keynote Panel: Under Pressure – How Australia’s Top People Leaders Are Holding The Line

Leadership

Wage theft legislation. Psychosocial safety obligations. AI disruption. Economic headwinds. The pressure on Australia's people leaders has never been higher and the strategic decisions you make right now will define your function for years to come. In this unmissable opening panel, CHROs and CPOs from Australia's biggest organisations get candid about how they're navigating the friction. Walk away with the strategic moves, hard-won lessons and decisive calls that separate the people functions thriving under pressure from those falling behind.

Elisa Nerone

Chief People & Sustainability Officer, REA Group

Erika Takahashi

People & Culture Regional Director, The Iconic

11:35am

Navigating the Friction – The Risk, Policy & Change Blueprint

Talent

This high-impact session delivers the practical, structural blueprint your organisation needs to survive and thrive under pressure. Designed to help you stress-test your policies, manage rapid change, and bulletproof your business against escalating compliance risks, this session serves as your essential toolkit to audit your internal infrastructure, protect your workforce, and stay one step ahead.

Karlie Cremin

CEO, Dynamic Leadership Programs Australia (DLPA)

12:05pm

Beyond Compliance - Steering Through Australia’s New Workplace Risks

Stay ahead of workplace law developments impacting employers. This session will cover Victoria’s proposed statutory right to work from home and new Psychological Health Regulations. It will also examine how the Federal Government’s Fair Work Act reforms are playing out in practice, with a focus on key areas of exposure for employers, including underpayments, and the emerging impact of AI in the workplace, to equip you with clear, actionable strategies to manage risk in an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.

Tamsin Lawrence

Associate Director, Australian Business Lawyers & Advisors  

12:40pm

Inspiring Performance Through Powerful Communication

Leadership

Lead by example and empower your people to communicate with confidence, influence, and authenticity. In this interactive workshop, you'll learn proven techniques to inspire action, strengthen engagement, and build meaningful connections. Whether presenting to a room or leading everyday conversations, you'll gain the tools to communicate with impact and bring out the best in others.

Sara Grenfell 

Tutor, NIDA Corporate Training 

1:05pm

Panel: Strategic Capability Uplift - Bridging the Leadership Gap

L&D

What does the next generation of leaders look like, today? This session breaks down the practical steps taken to transform a stagnant talent pipeline into high-impact leaders, demonstrating how to ensure your organisation is ready for future disruption. Gain insight on designing programs that drive measurable impact, engage senior leaders, and embed transformational learning in the organisation.

Meredith Crowe

Senior VP, Global People & Culture, Telix Pharmaceuticals

Louise Harding

Chief People Officer, David Jones

Liam Mahon

Head of People & Culture – VIC/TAS & WSN, Coles Group

1:45pm

Panel: The Agentic Shift - From AI Tools to AI That Acts

Tech

Are you ready for the next wave of AI impact? Generative AI answered your questions. Agentic AI is now making decisions, executing workflows and operating autonomously across your HR function without waiting to be asked. This session cuts through the noise to show you where the technology actually is today, what Australian organisations are already doing with it, and what the rise of autonomous AI means for your people function heading into 2027.

Pritho Saxena

Director HR - China, Australia & South East Asia, Amazon

Dean Jackson

Director, Global Digital Employee Experience, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners

Kate Jolly

Global Head of Talent & Enablement, Employment Hero

Jennifer Dobbell

Chief Operating Officer, Australian Financial Security Authority

2:35pm

Panel: Presenting Your Case to the C-Suite - Translating People Strategy into ROI

Leadership

The C-suite doesn't speak HR metrics, they speak revenue, risk and growth. Yet most people leaders are still walking into the boardroom with engagement scores and headcount data, and walking out without the budget or mandate they need. This practical session gives you the specific commercial framing, storytelling techniques and financial language to translate your people strategy into business outcomes that land. Delivered by CPOs who have sat on both sides of the table, leave with a repeatable approach you can apply to your very next executive conversation.

Robert Tanti

Chief People and Corporate Affairs Officer, Opal

Alexia Bryant

Chief People & Experience Officer, Omnicom Media

Stephanie Watt

Chief People Officer, DuluxGroup

3:05pm

Closing keynote: Horsepower for connected teams - psychosocial safety to cultivate human engagement

Wellbeing

In this completely unmissable, interactive experience, Jess brings her horse to the main stage to look at team dynamics through a completely different lens. By tuning into the horse’s real-time biofeedback and natural response to the collective energy in the room, you’ll discover an unfiltered, honest look at how your leadership presence impacts those around you.

Jessica Cody

Director, Inner Rhythm

3:50pm

Prize Draw and Rising Star Awards

4:00pm

Networking Drinks

DJ Eliza

11:00am

Panel: The Psychosocial Blueprint - Moving from Compliance to Culture

Wellbeing

Is your wellbeing strategy a genuine safety net or just a legal shield? This session breaks down how to apply psychosocial safety directly into your organisational design rather than treating it as a final audit. We’ll move past the checkbox mindset to give you a clear roadmap for identifying psychosocial hazards and embedding real safety into your team’s daily work.

Carl Philips

Chief People Officer, Costa Group

Jo Cairns

Chief People Officer, Team Global Express

Paul Steer

Chief HR Officer, ANZ, L'Oreal

11:35am

Panel: Workforce Intelligence - Stop Guessing, Start Predicting

Tech

Most organisations are making workforce planning decisions based on last year's data and gut instinct. This session shows you how Australia's most forward-thinking HR functions are using AI and predictive analytics to map future skill gaps, build smarter succession pipelines and get ahead of talent risk before it becomes a crisis. Practical, specific and built around the data privacy and compliance guardrails that matter in the Australian context.

Seemali Shukla

People Leader - ANZ, HP

Sarah Novelli

Executive Director - People and Culture, BGIS

Merryl Dooley

Chief People Officer, Bega Group

Matt Loop

VP and Head of Asia, Rippling

12:10pm

Panel: Wired Differently - The Neuroscience of Inclusive Leadership

Leadership

This session dives into the biological drivers of bias and belonging to show you what high performance really looks like when you stop guessing. We’re delivering the science-backed frameworks senior leaders need to lead neurodivergent talent and diverse squads by aligning your leadership style with how the human brain is actually wired.
1:15pm

Panel: The L&D Evolution - Stop Buying Talent. Start Building It.

L&D

With Australia's tight labour market, the "build vs. buy" equation has shifted to build, turning L&D into a critical business strategy pressured to deliver real capability uplift. Moving past passive, algorithm-driven e-learning, this session uses real-world examples to show you how to architect capability frameworks that stick.

Peter Elkhuizen

Talent & Learning and Development Manager, Starbucks

Michelle Fichmann

General Manager, Organisational Development & Learning, Ramsay Health Care

1:50pm

Burnout to Balance - Identification, Recovery, Prevention

Wellbeing

Over 70% of Australian workers are currently experiencing burnout or burnout symptoms, and 40% of the increase in workplace psychological injury claims are directly linked to it. Everything we thought we knew about burnout is outdated. Not anymore. This session will cover the latest science, accurate measurement, and real strategies for recovery and prevention.

Mel Neil

CEO / Founder, The Institute of EI

2:15pm

Panel: The Overlooked Talent Pool - The Competitive Edge of Untapped Potential

Talent

In a talent-starved market, the best candidates are often hidden behind traditional credentials or geographical boundaries. This session explores how forward-thinking companies prioritise capability over degrees or local proximity. We’ll dive into how this mindset fuels the rise of "returnships" for professionals re-entering the workforce, unlocks borderless global talent pipelines, and rewires traditional recruitment, transforming these non-traditional, untapped pools into your ultimate commercial advantage and build a truly future-proof workforce.

Louise Hope

Chief People Officer, Campbell Property Group

Alison Scott

Chief People & Culture Officer, Systra

3:05pm

Panel: HR in the Driver’s Seat – Owning Your Career Progression 

Emerging Leaders

HR leaders spend all their time architecting everyone else’s career paths—but who is piloting yours? As we rewrite the rules of HR, it’s time to step out of the passenger seat and strategically accelerate your own trajectory to the C-suite. We’re discussing how to build your commercial acumen, crush the "back-office" stigma, and unapologetically own your future.

Chris Best

General Manager People Operations, Latitude Financial Services

Bree Xuereb

Vice President - HR, Live Nation

11:00am

Panel: Influencing Up - How to Build a Business Case for CHRO Buy-In

Emerging Leaders

You know the idea is good. The challenge is making the budget-holder agree. For emerging HR leaders, the ability to build and present a compelling business case is one of the fastest ways to accelerate your career. This practical, hands-on session walks you through exactly how to structure your argument, speak the language of the decision-maker in the room, anticipate the objections before they're raised, and land the yes. Leave with a repeatable framework you can apply to your very next proposal.

Zemeel Saba

Chief People and Culture Officer, Dental Health Services Victoria

Stacey Dawes

Director of People & Culture, National Breast Cancer Foundation

Nick Southcombe

Chief Executive Officer, Frontier Software

11:35am

Empathy Lab - A Hands-On Journey into Accessible Design

DEI

Step out of your comfort zone and into someone else's digital reality. In this high-impact, hands-on workshop, we’re stripping away the theory to experience firsthand what happens when platforms aren't built for everyone. You’ll navigate the digital world through the lens of diverse abilities, walking away with a raw, unfiltered understanding of the barriers we need to break to build a truly inclusive future.
12:10pm

LIVE DEBATE: Generalist vs. Specialist: Structuring HR for a High-Risk Era

Leadership

With recent high-profile underpayment scandals at major employers shining a harsh spotlight on compliance failures, the stakes for how you structure your people function have never been higher. Has the HR generalist model worn too thin and is a return to deep, functional expertise the only way to manage today's high-stakes regulatory landscape?

In this rapid-fire Speed Debating session, two teams face off to argue both sides of this organisational divide. Each team gets just 10 minutes—three speakers, two minutes each, and one closing statement. Then it’s over to the audience to decide the winner using our clapometer. No roving mics, no lengthy talk, just bold ideas, fast opinions, and festival-style fun.

Angela Gaylard

Chief Operating Officer, The Man Cave

Rebecca Coombes

Group Chief People Officer, The Disability Trust

Naz Wilson

Head of Engagement, Funlab

1:10pm

Colour Your Way Back to Clarity through Soul Pattern

Wellbeing

Join us for this one-of-a-kind session with Soul Pattern, part science, part creative reset, entirely unlike anything else on the programme. Using colour and creative flow, you'll learn how to regulate your nervous system, shake off the flat-out feeling and walk away with a practical tool you can use the moment things get overwhelming.

Alejandra Sieder

Founder, Soul Pattern

1:55pm

The Execution Gap: Why Strategy Isn’t Delivering and How to Fix It

Only 1 in 10 organisations is truly future ready, despite significant investment in transformation. At the same time, 60% of workers are already pivoting careers, creating a workforce that is evolving faster than many organisations can adapt. As leadership alignment falters and managers become stretched between delivery and leadership, execution suffers. This session explores what is driving the strategy-to-execution gap and how HR leaders can strengthen leadership, unlock internal mobility, and build a workforce ready to perform through continuous change.

James Mcilvena

SVP, Managing Director Australia, New Zealand + Singapore, LHH

Nithya Ramaswamy

Solutions Director, LHH

2:25pm

Is your focus on KPIs killing your culture?

Talent

A provocative rethink of performance: why KPIs are quietly failing your people and your culture. This workshop challenges the obsession with outputs and introduces a more human, strategic model—one that prioritises strengths, behaviours, and capability growth to unlock real performance, deeper engagement, and sustainable impact beyond the numbers.

Lisa Kelliher

CEO, BeChallenged

2:50pm

Panel: Becoming an Employer of Choice: Building a Workplace Worth Staying For

Talent

Brand prestige and basic salary bumps are no longer enough to win the fight for top talent in today’s hyper-flexible market. This session brings together leading companies to decode what it actually takes to build a magnetic employer brand, from radical trust and non-linear internal mobility to genuine capability-building.

Jess Lantieri

Chief People and Culture Officer, Judo Bank

Carly Lloyd

Group Executive – People, Loan Market Group

3:20pm

The Science of Sound: Regulating the Post-AI Nervous System

Wellbeing

This live, participatory session strips the mysticism away from sound meditation to look at the hard science of stress. Experience a collective nervous system reset while discovering exactly how contemplative sound practices rewrite the brain.

Dr Gemma Perry

Psychological Scientist and Yoga Teacher

11:00am

Panel: The Human Cost of Moving Fast - When Tech Transformation Leaves People Behind

Tech

The upskilling programs are running and the change management playbooks are out and yet a significant chunk of the Australian workforce are anxious that their role won’t exist in five years. This session moves past "bringing people on the journey" to ask the harder question: what do you actually owe your workforce when transformation genuinely threatens their livelihood? Hear how Australia's most honest people leaders are navigating the gap between the pace of change and the human capacity to keep up.

Alexia Bryant

Chief People & Experience Officer, Omnicom Media

Kate Hickman

Chief People Officer, Infoxchange

Marc Starfield

Executive - Colleague Systems and Experience, NAB

Preeti Verma

People, Initiatives and Transformation Leader, Atlassian

11:35am

Panel: The Pressure Test – Managing the Surge of Workplace Mental Health Claims

Wellbeing

Psychological injury claims continue to rise across Australia, placing new demands on team resilience and organisational safety nets. We’re bringing together a leading insurer, HR leader, and medical professional to explore the root causes of this trend and how organisations can respond effectively. Walk away with a clear understanding of where your organisation's risk lies, what practical early intervention looks like, and actionable steps to support your people while managing claim exposure.

Nicki Tan

Manager Psychosocial Safety, Health & Injury Management, AGL

Glenn Baird

Head of Mental Health, TAL

12:35pm

Keynote: AI-Powered Productivity for HR - Mastering AI to 10x Your Impact

Tech

We’ve been sold the dream: AI will save us time, boost productivity, maybe even think for us. In reality, most of us are still flailing, typing vague prompts and hoping for brilliance. For HR leaders, the stakes are higher. You’re juggling requests, emotional labour, compliance, and constant “quick favour” messages. AI shouldn’t be another thing on your plate – it should give you time, focus, and energy back, helping you work wisely and protect yourself and your teams from burnout. Dr Amantha Imber (organisational psychologist, founder of Inventium.ai, and 2025 AI Consultant of the Year) isn’t here to talk at you about technology. She’s here to talk about you: how your brain works, where you’re stuck, and how to partner with AI to design better workflows, reduce overload, and free you up for the deep, human HR work that matters.

Dr Amantha Imber

Organisational Psychologist and Founder, Inventium

1:15pm

Beyond the Audit: From Payroll Risk to Workforce Trust

With the stakes higher than ever under Australia’s new wage theft legislation, this session draws on real-world case studies and emerging industry trends to reveal how leading organisations are proactively managing wage compliance risk to strengthen governance, protect their reputation, and build workforce trust.

Rob Dryden

COO, Wagesafe

1:35pm

Fireside Chat: Real Talk – What Actually Drives Engagement?

Talent

Let’s be honest – traditional engagement strategies are failing. Join this unfiltered deep dive into what it actually takes to build a culture that sticks when half your team isn't in the office. With disengagement at an all-time high and connection fracturing by the day, keeping pace with an evolving workforce requires a radical shift in strategy.

Monica Tuckwell

Senior People & Culture Business Partner, SG Fleet

2:35pm

Spotlight: The Benefits Reset - How Digital-First Perks Are Redefining Your EVP

It's time to change how we approach our benefits strategy. This session looks at how to leverage digital-first solutions to attract and retain digital-native talent. We'll cover the latest innovations in AI-powered car benefit technology and real-world case studies quantifying the impact of digital-first transformation on cost-of-living relief and workforce engagement, plus a clear blueprint for using modernised benefits to build a distinct, long-term competitive advantage.

Greg Parkes

CEO, Auto-UX

2:55pm

Fireside Chat: Leading with Conviction When There’s No Right Answer

Leadership

Leadership is most difficult when there is no clear answer. This candid session focuses on leadership presence, earning trust, and managing the psychological safety of a team through geopolitical and technological disruption. Hear from an executive trailblazer on how to anchor your decision-making when the ground is constantly shifting, balance commercial pressure with empathy, and navigate challenges with greater clarity.