Aaron is a seasoned financial adviser with a strong focus on innovation and technology within the wealth management sector. As a Senior Financial Adviser at Pivot Wealth, Aaron leverages his experience to guide clients through life's biggest milestones while embracing the latest technology to enhance service delivery.
Aaron has chaired innovation committees at leading wealth management firms, exploring and integrating AI-driven solutions to improve efficiency and client outcomes. As a 'Young Adviser of the Year' finalist on two occasions, Aaron is focused on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in wealth management.
In addition to his industry roles, Aaron also shares his expertise as a guest university lecturer and hopes to inspire the next generation of financial advice professionals.
Adrian Tembel is an economics and honours law graduate of the University of Adelaide. He began practising corporate and technology law in 1993 at his law firm Thomson Geer. He became a Partner of that firm in 1997 and its Chief Executive Partner in 2009. He is also a part-time Commissioner of the South Australian Productivity Commission and a Director of the Hackett Foundation.
Ann-Maree David is the National Executive Director of The College of Law, the largest provider of practice-focused legal education in Australasia. She has worked as a lawyer across public and corporate sectors and in private practice as a solicitor. She is also an experienced Board Director and Chair.
Ann-Maree is driven by her passion to support all Australian lawyers through mentoring & coaching and education & training. She has a particular interest in promoting greater diversity in all its forms throughout the profession
Ben has over 15 years of experience specialising in cyber risk, privacy, law, technology risk, insurance and dispute resolution.
Ben leads WTW’s Australia and New Zealand cyber and technology risk team providing insurance, advisory and consulting services to domestic and international clients. Ben focuses on helping clients understand emerging technology, exposure risks and developing responsive management, resiliency and business strategies.
Bob has been in the telecommunications industry for over 53 years having started as a PMG Technician in 1967. During that period Bob has had 5 successful careers. He has worked in a variety of roles with organisations like PMG/Telecom, Alcatel (formerly STC), Ericsson Australia and worked 31 years as founder, owner, dealer principal and CEO of TTGroup Communications incorporating SmartSpeak Solutions.
While he has held many chairman positions and directorships, at the moment Bob is Chairman of Azentro, a Voice Vision and Data Company after a merger acquisitions with Productiv Pty Ltd, VV Tech Pty Ltd, FleetLink Australia and as at 22/02/18 Data Mobility and Voice (DMV) in Adelaide South Australia. DMV are a Gold MITEL Partner and Calibre One based in Darwin and Adelaide.
In building Azentro into it’s 2023 profile Bob managed 6 merger acquisitions and 4 brand changes.
Bob is also a founding director of Sheldon College which his wife Dr Lyn Bishop founded in 1997.The college has 1600+
I am a business owner and passionate promoter of computer technology for business. I help businesspeople embrace modern technology to enhance business processes. Passionate advocate for Open-Source Software and Open Hardware Design. We live in exciting times, and I want to be a part of and enjoy digital transformation to the max. I constantly challenge the status quo because we can, and we must.
Dali Kaafar is the Executive Director of the Cyber Security Hub Macquarie University and is Full Professor of Cyber Security and Confidential Computing at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Macquarie University. Prof. Kaafar is also the director of the Cyber Range Training Centre (CRTC) and director of the Cyber Security Curriculum at the Institute of Applied Technology in New
South Wales. He is also the Founder and CEO of APATE Technologies, delivering solutions to disrupt the phone scammers business model. From 2017 to 2019, Dali was also the Chief Scientist of the Singtel Optus MQ Cyber Security Hub where he spearheads since then the research of over 160 academics across the university’s four Faculties on Data Security, Security of Cyber Physical systems, cyber governance and human-centric security. As the chief scientist of the Cyber Security Hub, he developed the Science Strategy of the Hub, a multi-disciplinary approach to Cyber Resilience, under which the Cyber Security Hub currently operates. From 2016 to February 2020, Dali has also been the founder and leader of the Information Security and Privacy Research group at CSIRO Data61, the Data and digital specialist arm of Australia's national science agency, with his position at MQ being partly funded by Data61, and prior to that the research leader of the data privacy stream in AI/ML Fundamental Science pla\orms at CSIRO. Dali fosters the culture of research excellence and impac\ul reputable science. The approach to Cyber Security in Dali’s research is underpinned by his vision of “Enabling Explicit Trust in the Digital Economy”. Within the school of Computing, Dali is also the director of the Information Security and Privacy research group.
Prior to that, Prof. Kaafar was the Group leader of the Networked Systems group and research leader of the Data Privacy and Mobile systems groups at NICTA from 2012 to 2016 (National Information Communication and Technology Australia) and Senior principal researcher at INRIA, the French research institution of computer science and automation. He received his PhD from the Polytechnic University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and INRIA in France where he pioneered research in the security of Internet Coordinate Systems. In 2011, he was also researcher at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto California where he led research on security and privacy of Information-centric Networking.
Prof. Kaafar is the Senior Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security (IEEE T-IFS), and Editorial Board member of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Systems (IEEE TDSC) and serves in the Editorial and Advisory Board of the Journal on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. He is the general Chair of Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (petsymposium.org/) 2022 and co-chair of the Cyber Defence Next Generation Technology and Science Conference 2021.
He is also member of the Advisory Board of CORE (The Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia) and is the Chair of the Security and Privacy field of research. Finally, since 2019, Dali is also New South Wales Cyber Ambassador.
Dali is a world class researcher, with an h-index of 45 and 6940 citations of his research work and an i10-index of 107 according to Google scholar. His research is well known and praised nationally and overseas for his pioneering contributions to Alternatives to passwords-based authentication systems, Security and privacy of Machine Learning and networked systems, and provable privacy
technologies. He published over 300 scientific peer-reviewed papers with several and repetitive publications in the prestigious IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), ACM SIGCOMM, WWW, NDSS and PETS. Since 2015, his research attracted over $36M external funding with solid research and development partnerships established with both Australian and US Departments of Defence (Dali’s defence-related research is funded at over $12M with US Army and Defence Science and Technology Australia), the Australian Federal Government, New South Wales Government, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Wesfarmers, HSBC, National Australian Bank, Fujitsu, Siemens, Singtel, AT&T, CISCO but also start-ups and SMEs translating research into applied technology deployed at production (e.g. Adaptive AI-driven micro-segmentation security policies with Ditno and Provably private Record Linkage techniques with IXUP ltd).
He is recipient of several prestigious awards including the Highly Commended University-level 2021 Research Excellence Award, The Jim Piper Award for Excellence in Research Leadership award in 2021 by Macquarie University Sydney, INRIA Excellence of research National Award in 2010, and the Andreas Pfitzman award from the Privacy Enhancing Technologies symposium in 2011. In 2019, and 2022 he has also been awarded the very prestigious and selective Chinese Academy of Sciences President's Professorial fellowship Award.
Since November 2016, Dali has led the Information Security and Privacy Research which evolved to become a Trusted Advisor for Commonwealth entities. The group consisting of 30 researchers has established a very solid and strong relationship with several State and Federal Government agencies with significant contributions to the Federal Government Open Data initiative with Prime Minister Cabinet (PM&C). Dali Kaafar has led over 50 Security and privacy risk assessment projects undertaken by the group for diverse data assessment use cases, delivering Re-identification Risk Metric and security and Re-identification Risk Reports for the Department of Social Services, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Department of Health, Department of Human Services, Department of Veteran's Affairs, Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission, Transport for NSW, Australian Taxation Office. Dali Kaafar also led the development and open release of the social security payments dataset on Dataverser (available on the Australian Data Archive as the PIA dataset) with provably private properties. Prof. Kaafar was the lead investigator in the world’s first release of Provably Private High dimensionality Transportation data in collaboration with Transport for New South Wales.
Dali is currently the lead Principal Investigator of several Defence projects, including the very prestigious AUSMURI / MURI (Military University Research Innovation) Program with a US/Australia 5- years joint project awarded $13M to develop “Robust Human-AI Cyber Teams” in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, UPenn, University California San Diego and University of Wisconsin from the US side and University of Melbourne and Macquarie University from the Australian side. Prof. Kaafar is also the lead investigator and project lead of the “Rapid Malware Triage in Military Platforms” project (2021-2025) funded by Department of Defence Australia with MQ Cyber Security Hub recognized as the preferred member for the Defence Research network under the Defence Science Partnerships. In 2022, he has been awarded a 3 years $720K research grant from the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) to develop techniques to combat global phone scams using conversational AI. In 2023, he was awarded a $2.35 million grant from the Australian Federal Government for the project ‘Develop a Cross-disciplinary Cyber Security Workforce Training Program’. He is also the leader of the $12M co-investment project between Singtel Optus, Australia’s second largest telecommunications provider and Macquarie University. In 2015, Dali has been part of the European Commission Article 29 Data Protection Working Group, the advisory body that has developed the early recommendations for the EU GDPR regulation on data anonymization.
Dane has over a decade of experience leading two security businesses helping organisations address some of their most pressing security challenges.
Drew is an award-winning Writer, Speaker, Financial Adviser & Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging advocate. He specialises in supporting business owners and their families to protect and provide for what matters most in their lives.
His company’s speciality brand Unusual Risks Insured, is the first Trauma Informed Organisation (TIO) working in Australian Financial Services.
He’s been recognised and awarded by non-industry bodies for his use of technology to connect people and businesses and his call for needed proactive anti-discrimination, inclusive & belonging practices in Australian Financial Services.
In his free time Drew works to mentor new businesses and support high-performing LGBTI+ young adults completing higher education to reach their full potential.
Joseph Catanzariti AM is a Vice President of the Fair Work Commission, the national workplace relations tribunal.
Prior to his appointment to the Fair Work Commission, Joseph was a senior Partner of Clayton Utz and Practice Leader of the Workplace Relations, Employment and Safety Practice Group. Joseph was a trusted adviser to many of Australia’s leading companies and government departments. Joseph was also a highly experienced Commercial Litigator.
Joseph is a Visiting Professorial Fellow of the School of Law and the Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in Work and Organisational Studies, School of Business at Sydney University.
Joseph is the Chair of the College of Law.
Joseph is also co-author of Workplace Bullying published by LexisNexis.
He has previously held the positions of President of the Law Council of Australia, President of the NSW Law Society, Chair of the Workplace Committee of the Law Society of New South Wales (2000 - 2013), and Secretary of the Industrial Relations Society of Australia (1997-2011).
Joseph was awarded Life Time Recognition, Industrial Relations Society of Australia / Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association 2011, and the Industrial Relations Society of New South Wales in 2015.
Joseph is a fellow of the Academy of Law.
On 26 January 2016 Joseph was made a Member of the Order of Australia.
As Director of Encore Advisory Group, Mark is well known in the Advice industry and is a highly sort after trainer, educator and coach. Mark has worked with numerous mortgage broking and financial planning businesses enabling them to undertake the key important action of building a successful client advice practice, for the long term.
In 2017, after decades leading Wealth, Broking and Advice businesses, Encore was reimagined to better serve and prepare brokers and planners for the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead. Encore believes a better advice business means a better industry and therefore a better community.
Mark delivers practical, real-world solutions helping businesses navigate today’s complex environment whilst providing essential advice, helping to improve the quality and value of their business. This is achieved through partnerships with the right people and solutions thus enabling practices to deliver increasingly valuable advice to more clients.
Believing every Australian deserves advice on “both sides of the balance sheet”, Mark successfully built a mortgage broking business that partnered with over 200 financial planning practices and accounting firms, delivering advice services to over 5,500 Australian families a year.
Mark is known as a leading authority in bringing together Broking and Planning groups to deliver integrated “debt advice” and “broker planner” solutions. He is dedicated to this community as an SME owner himself. Mark is himself a consumer and advocate of Advice services and has led and steered advice businesses successfully through market, regulatory and consumer change and disruption for over 20 years.
Michael commenced his career as an advertising executive with The Countryman Newspaper (West Australian Newspapers) and later Community News Group working with advertising agencies and strategic partnerships. He transitioned to online marketing with the launch of Australia’s first online business directory, listed on the ASX.
Has held senior executive and director roles in private and public companies across advertising, business services, membership, not-for-profit, publications, and technology organisations.
Experienced industry awards judge and regular presenter and contributor to various organisations and publications such as Australian Owner Manager, Lexology, and Momentum Media.
Dr Michelle Cull is an Associate Professor in Accounting & Financial Planning in the School of Business at Western Sydney University. She has taught accounting and financial planning for over 20 years and published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and textbooks in financial planning. Her work has featured in Money Management, Professional Planner, Money and Life, Sunrise, ABC News, Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph and on radio.
Michelle is co-editor of the FAAA’s Financial Planning Research Journal, President Elect for the Academy of Financial Services in the United States, Chair of the Financial Planning Education Council, and on the advisory boards of Ecstra Foundation and Adviser Ratings.
Michelle led the development of the WalletSmart App, co-founded the Western Sydney University Tax Clinic and developed the Personal Finance Basics Micro Credential. She is an FCPA and member of the FAAA. In 2021, Michelle received Western Sydney Women’s Western Sydney Educator of the Year Award.
Prior to becoming a full-time academic, Michelle worked for 15 years in accounting and finance roles at ASX-100 listed companies. Michelle has also worked as a consultant.
Michelle has previously served as Deputy President of CPA Australia’s NSW Divisional Council and currently volunteers as academic member of the UniSuper Consultative Committee, and on the Women’s Committee of Canterbury Bankstown Chamber of Commerce.
Peter Lynch is a leader in Professional Indemnity Insurance in the real estate, valuation and management right industry sectors.
He boasts over 30 years’ experience with Aon Risk Solutions and as the Client Manager is responsible for developing new business within the real estate sector including the identification of business opportunities with franchise groups and other stakeholders.
He took a significant role in providing advice and support to introduce a Real Estate specific indemnity insurance scheme and is responsible for the highly successful REIQ/REINT schemes which he coordinated with the assistance of industry, lawyers, underwriters and claims staff.
Peter has a strong interest in promoting safe and quality business practices in real estate and has been a regular contributor to course materials, presentations and editorial submissions. He has been called upon to be a guest speaker at training forums for the REIQ, REIA, REINT, REIWA and various franchise groups.
Peter also provides individual Risk Management training to a number of his Franchise Group clients.
Dr Rahat Munir is a Professor and Head of Department of Accounting and Corporate Governance, Macquarie University. He is FCA, FCPA and PhD. For over 30 years Professor Munir has been at the forefront of initiatives that have positioned organisations to support significant development and change. He is internationally renowned for curriculum development, pioneering innovative learning and teaching (L&T) practices, Micro Credentials and academic standards (including TEQSA and Australian Qualification Framework), Accreditation (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS, Professional Accounting Bodies), student experience and research. He has played a pivotal role in creation of research and teaching collaborations with professional accounting bodies, Universities in China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe. He has served on the panel for Faculty/Course Reviews of various Universities in Australia and New Zealand.
His research is across management accounting and controls and related subjects. He supervises Master of Research and Ph.D. students. His research interests include from management accounting systems, performance measurement systems, CSR, corporate governance, and management control systems. He has published in leading international journals as well as presented at international conferences in many parts of the world. He is affiliated with several professional bodies including the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, Professional Risk Managers International Association, USA, American Accounting Association and European Accounting Association.
Professor Munir serves on various high-level Committees and Advisory Boards. Professor Munir has also served on the TAFE NSW Higher Education Academic Board. He has served as guest editor and referee/scientific program committee of various international journals, and organised conferences & workshops. He has been invited for Keynote lectures and Policy presentations in international conferences and public sector institutions. With his strong engagement with industry, he leads CFO Forum, Industry Academic Series, Thought Leadership and Business Leaders Roundtables.
Professor Munir’s sustained excellence in teaching and research has been recognised through international and national awards, including:
2 x Macquarie University Vice Chancellor’s awards for developing programs and outstanding contributions to student learning,
Dean’s teaching excellence award,
2 x CPA Australia’s award for achievement in academia, and
Business/Higher Education Roundtable Award for excellence in accounting teaching collaborations.
Professor Munir's contribution has also been acknowledged for his projects in 2015 and 2021 for the Wharton-QS Stars Reimagine Education Awards at the University of Pennsylvania in the Nurturing Employability Award category for the most innovative pedagogical approach to learning and teaching. He has served on the judging panel of the Momentum Media and Accountants Daily’s Australian Accounting and Australian Digital Technology and 30 Under 30 Awards. Professor Munir's case study - The Ethics of Profit in the Australian Retail Industry was amongst the top 4 teaching cases globally by the Decision Sciences Institute, Washington DC for the ‘Best Teaching Case Studies Award’ competition.
Professor Ryan Ko is an internationally recognised computer scientist, co-founder of CyberCert, and co-founder and director of Cyber Security Certification Australia (CSCAU), an industry council which focus on uplifting the cyber maturity of SMEs globally through dynamic certifiable standards. For more than a decade, he has served as an expert at ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27, edited two ISO standards in the ISO/IEC 27000 family, and recently co-chaired Singapore’s standards on Cyber Essentials and Cyber Trust Mark. He is also a Chair Professor and Director of UQ Cyber at The University of Queensland. He grandfathered (ISC)2’s CCSP certification, and was commissioned by NZ’s Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to draft NZ’s national cyber security curriculum (NZQA Level 6). Through his academic roles, he co-founded several national and global cyber security competitions. He has published more than 150 publications in the areas of AI, AI security, cyber security autonomy, data provenance and privacy, and his work has been translated and adopted worldwide including organisations such as INTERPOL, CERN, and Hewlett Packard. He is a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society, Fellow of Cloud Security Alliance and Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Sinthya, (CPA), Executive (MBA), is a Senior Financial Analyst at Qantas, where she looks after the Regional Workforce Division, providing critical financial insights, supporting and managing key commercial decisions and strategic planning across the wider business.
“The numbers don’t rule, they can inform, but it’s all about us as accountants inside companies having the deep understanding and skills to look at the past and present to help predict and shape the future.” She further leads multiple projects, protecting and serving the public interest by ensuring that investors and other stakeholders have materially accurate financial statements and other reliable information on which to base decisions.
Additionally, Sinthya is an Adjudicator for Australasian Reporting Awards, as well as a Judge for multiple Award shows across the Accounting industry, including Accountants Daily, Accounting Reporting Awards, Commercial Finance Awards, & Better Business Awards, recognizing individuals and organizations that have achieved outstanding accomplishments in the industry.
Financial adviser, entrepreneur and co-founder of Pure Private Wealth alongside his partner, Danielle. With more than 10 years of experience, Stefano has supported Australians from all walks of life—including young professionals, singles, families, pre-retirees, high-net-worth clients and business owners.
His approach is founded on genuine care, clear strategy and long-term commitment. Stefano believes that quality financial advice should be accessible to anyone who takes their future seriously—not only the wealthy few. Based in Northern NSW and working with clients throughout Australia, he provides personalised advice across superannuation, investments, insurance, cash flow, retirement planning and business wealth strategies.
Tania Ezra is a nationally recognised business security leader in Australia with over 20 years’ experience in Australian Government and other highly regulated industries. She is known for her strategic insights and innovative solutions. Tania’s leadership in secure business focussed initiatives underscore her impactful collaboration and customer-focused approach. She brings a unique blend of technical acumen and inspirational vision, driving empowerment and success, which has resulted in numerous awards.
Thomas Green is a co-founder of Neumann Space where he served as a research and policy analyst and in-house counsel for almost five years. He is currently a Project Manager in the Emerging Technologies branch of Transport for NSW and is a member of the International Institute of Space Law, the Royal Society of NSW and the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science.
Thomas is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Wollongong on the regulation and enforcement of new technology — specifically concerning access to space by commercial and non-government entities.
Thomas has also previously worked on software projects and start-ups related to machine learning, worked in private equity, served as a Ministerial Advisor on emergency services and road safety, and was a business coordinator for the COVID-19 response team for Transport for NSW during the COVID outbreaks in NSW throughout 2020 and worked in the private sector as a Quality Manager through 2021 managing the design, development and production of novel COVID-19 testing kits to improve pandemic management responses and patient outcomes.
Tracy Sheen CSP is a Certified Speaking Professional, award-winning author and practical AI educator with over 30 years in digital transformation. She builds AI capability programs for organisations that need training to stick past Friday afternoon. Plain English. Real habits. No hype. Creator of the GIST Framework. Board member, Professional Speakers Australia. Human-led. AI-leveraged. The Augmented Workforce.
Troy Swan is the Group General Counsel and Board Member of the $1.3 billion office products company Winc. Winc was formed following the acquisition and merger of Staples, OfficeMax and Corporate Express in Australia and New Zealand by leading US based private equity firm Platinum Equity.
He has been publicly recognised as one of Australia's leading corporate lawyers and was previously an Australian Lawyer of the Year and an Australian General Counsel of the Year triple finalist. He was also the Association of Corporate Counsel Global Member of the Year, from over 43,000 lawyers worldwide, with this being the first time this honour was ever awarded to a lawyer outside America.
He became only the second Australian lawyer to win the International Value Champions Award in San Francisco and was also named the Association of Corporate Counsel Winner for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility.
Known for his business judgement, he is highly active within the legal and business community, being named a Judge at the Australian Law Awards, New Zealand Law Awards, Corporate Counsel Awards, Partner of the Year Awards and the 30 Under 30 Law Awards.
He is a long standing Member of the Law Society Corporate Lawyers Committee, is a regular commentator and speaker on legal and business affairs and leads an award winning legal team based in Sydney, Australia.
Warren supports customers in leveraging the value of cloud at scale, his focus is on identifying and overcoming blockers to adoption. Currently he is leading the roll-out of Generative AI services to enable enterprises to benefit from the new technology in a safe, responsible and effective manner.
Prior to AWS Warren was a General Manager at Commonwealth Bank of Australia and was accountable for the digital transformation of a subsidiary bank in Vietnam which contributed to a 25% improvement in CIR and 10X increase in profit over 3 years. He was also involved in a number of other large transformation programs within the main Australian bank.
As General Manager at CCA Financial Planners, I spend my days making sure the moving parts of the business work together. Coordinating and empowering people & process to achieve great outcomes is where I shine. I love simplifying complexity, building strong rhythms in the business, and removing roadblocks that slow good people down.
I’m also deeply committed to self-development. I’m driven by growth in myself and in others, and I get a lot of fulfilment from helping people build confidence, sharpen their skills, and step into their potential.
Off the pitch, I’m a big runner and outdoor enthusiast. Is there a better way spend our time than running on trails for hours on end and reconnecting with nature? I also love playing most games, sports and a bit of dancing too!