Michael Aaron
Blockchain Business Development Leader AuNZ
IBM
Michael Aaron has spent over 30 years in Financial Services for IBM, in a variety of Banking Industry positions. Michael has worked with all the major Australian and New Zealand banks and both central and commercial banks in Asia on a variety of projects, including payments, delivery systems, risk management, customer insight, Central Bank supervision and national payment system design. Michael is an accomplished public speaker and has spoken at many conferences and events on a variety of Banking Industry and IT topics. He currently manages IBM’s Asia Pacific Banking vertical business.
Michael’s strengths are in understanding the specific issues and trends of a particular Financial Industry environment and developing either an institution’s or IBM's strategy and execution plan to address. He is a Fellow of the Financial Service Institute of Australia. Michael is a member and former Chair of the APCA CECS (ATM/EFT) Advisory Council.
Specialties: Thought Leadership, IBM and Client banking strategy development, building solution businesses, people management, business management, staffwork, Industry organisation representation. SME on payments, delivery systems, Central Banking, core systems, ISV management.
Nick Addison
Chief Technology Officer
Finhaus Labs
Nick has been following the evolution of blockchain technologies since 2013. It started with trading Bitcoin but soon moved into other technologies including Ripple, BitShares and Ethereum. More recently the interest has been with smart contracts and how they can be used to add real value to new and existing businesses.
Nick’s background has been developing business applications in logistics and then financial services which covered structured products, fund management, banking and payments.
Chami Akmeemana
Director
ConsenSys
Entrepreneur to Intrapreneur - currently advises the regulator, Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) on the newly formed fintech hub.
His background includes big data, engineering, law enforcement, and entrepreneurship with successful exits.
He is the former Managing Director for Global Markets at the Global Risk Institute and also sits on several boards of start-ups in the AI and VR/AR space. Chami is a former semi-professional rugby player and volunteers with a number of youth charities in Australia, Canada, and Sri Lanka.
Graduating from Staffordshire University in 2000, Chami part completed a Ph.D. in Bioceramic Engineering (on scholarship) at Queen Mary, University of London. He decided to forgo an academic career in favor of Law Enforcement and in 2002, he joined London’s Metropolitan Police.
Moving to Australia in 2006, Chami explored his entrepreneurial side and opened his first business – a Mobile Coffee Van in Sydney. He later also founded an Analytics and Exec search company and a Healthcare Recruitment company and became business partner in a rugby clothing brand. All three ventures were later sold.
In his free time, Chami pursues other interests as conference speaker, mentor, researcher/writer, sportsman, as well as contributing time and energy to a number of charities in Australia, Canada, and Sri Lanka.
Chami is an ardent rugby fan and an avid cyclist.
Bradley Brown
National Manager, Strategic Intelligence and Policy
AUSTRAC
Simon Cant
Co-founder and Managing Director
Reinventure Group
Simon Cant is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Reinventure Group. Launched in January 2014, Reinventure is a $50m Westpac backed venture fund which combines the best of independent venture capital and corporate venturing.
Simon is also the Founding President of Fintech Australia, the representative body of Fintech’s across Australia which has driven the Australian Government’s ‘Backing Australian Fintech’ policy agenda.
Simon has built his career in venture and innovation including advising companies such as Westpac, NAB, Suncorp, Fairfax, News APN and Tennis Australia as well as being a founding team member at Social Ventures Australia, Tinshed Angel Group and ninemsn.
Simon began his career as a solicitor with Allens.
Lucas Cullen
Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder
Civic Ledger
Lucas is the Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder of Civic Ledger - an Australian technology company that uses blockchain technologies to transform a wide range of business process challenges face by public sector clients.
He is a software engineer with extensive experience in the banking industry and regularly contracts to government agencies, Lucas has been developing and building bitcoin and blockchain related services for the past three years both for private businesses and for open source communities.
Lucas is a sitting board member of Blockchain Australia, is the founding host of Brisbane Bitcoin and Blockchain Meetup and is sought out often by government and industry for technology advice and for public speaking engagements on the subject of bitcoin and blockchain.
Richard Davies
Blockchain Technical Lead
IBM
Experienced in a wide range of technology, including software development, operating systems, business process management and database management systems. Currently focused on cross-industry applications of blockchain and distributed consensus.
Highly proficient communicator with experience in technical sales, education and presenting to highly technical, business and C-level audiences across multiple industries. In depth understanding of sales process and ability to align technical capabilities with business goals.
Technical interests include biologically based AI algorithms (e.g. genetic algorithms, flocking), learning new programming paradigms and end user development. Outside technology Richard enjoys scuba, skiing, travel and learning foreign languages.
Paul Derham
Partner
Holley Nethercote/Compact
Paul assists participants in the financial services industry in complying with their legal and compliance obligations. Paul regularly assists businesses in acquiring their Australian financial services licences (AFSL), as well as providing assistance to licensees in their ongoing compliance obligations. These businesses include large insurers, automated investment advisers (robo advisers), dealer groups, global foreign exchange companies and online platforms.
Paul began working for Holley Nethercote/Compact in 2001. Paul completed his Arts/Law degree with honours in law in 2004, and became a solicitor in 2005. He also holds a Diploma of Financial Planning.
Paul also chairs:
· the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association’s AML/CTF & Financial Crimes Committee
· FinTech Compliance Forum
· CFD Compliance Forum
· Money Remitters Compliance Forum
Paul facilitated the development of the ADCCA Code of Conduct for digital currency businesse
Nigel Dobson
GM Wholesale Digital Transformation
ANZ
Nigel Dobson is General Manger, Wholesale Digital Transformation at ANZ, overseeing digital strategy and transformation across all of ANZ’s wholesale customer segments. Nigel also has responsibility for delivering wholesale lending transformation for the institutional bank as well as overseeing enterprise payments transformation and payments strategy across the group. Nigel leads the banks Blockchain strategy and associated activities, including fostering partnerships and industry pilots. Nigel is currently a Director of the New Payments Platform (NPPA) in Australia and a Director of the Australian Payments Council (APC).
Prior to this role, Nigel spent 4 years in senior Transaction Banking roles at ANZ, including Global Head of Payments and Cash Management and Global Head of Transaction Banking Products.
Nigel joined ANZ in July 2009 from Citi in Hong Kong where he was Regional Head of Trade and Transaction Services. Nigel had spent a total of 19 years at Citi in various senior Markets and Transaction Services roles in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Nigel has a Bachelor of Economics from Victoria University, New Zealand.
Michael Eidel
Executive General Manager Cash-flow & Transaction Services
Commonwealth Bank
Michael Eidel is Executive General Manager of Cash-flow and Transaction Services at the Commonwealth Bank. His role is to lead the Group’s portfolio of working capital solutions for business and institutional clients, which consists of cash and liquidity solutions, payments, trade solutions, platforms and payment technology. Michael is a member of the Australian Payments Council and Director of the New Payments Platform Australia Board. He is an executive sponsor for Commonwealth Bank’s innovation initiatives, including blockchain and has appeared as a guest speaker on industry panels and events in both Australia and Europe.
Before joining the Commonwealth Bank, Michael was Managing Director at Credit Suisse in Zurich where he held a variety of roles. Michael was the Head of Global Finance & Transaction Banking at Credit Suisse where he was responsible for cash management, custody, trade finance solutions and global relationships to financial institutions and commodity traders. He was also the Chairman of Fides Treasury Services Ltd., a world leading provider of multi-banking connectivity solutions.
Previously, Michael was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, providing strategic recommendations to banks and insurance companies across Europe and Northern Africa.
Michael graduated from Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany with a PhD and Masters degree in Economics.
Bronwyn Evans
Chief Executive Officer
Standards Australia
Dr Bronwyn Evans is CEO of Standards Australia. She has a Bachelor of Engineering (Elec) and a PhD in Electrical Engineering in industrial automation. Dr Evans has over 30 years’ experience as a business executive in the fields of medical devices, engineering education, standards development and power generation. She is Chair of MTP Connect, an Australian Government program aimed at accelerating Australia’s innovation and global competitiveness in Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals and is a member of the Australia-Japan Foundation.
In her executive roles, Dr Evans has led regional businesses across 12 countries; had global leadership responsibility in a medical device company and had engineering roles in both private and public sector organisations.
Dr Evans has previously held positions as a Deputy Chair of The Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering and member of the Centre’s Finance and Risk Committee, an independent non-executive director of John Holland Limited, Chair of the Medical Technology Association of Australia Board, Chair of the National Board of the Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management and a member of the Future Manufacturing Industry Innovation Council.
Dr Evans is a Fellow of The Institution of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, an Honorary Fellow of University of Wollongong and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. In 2014 she was awarded the Engineers Australia President’s Award. In 2014 and 2015 was recognised as one of Australia’s 100 most influential engineers in 2014, and in 2015 was acknowledged as one of Australia’s Knowledge Nation 100.
Stuart Fuller
Partner, Banking and Finance
King & Wood Mallesons
Nick Giurietto
Chief Executive Officer
Australian Digital Currency & Commerce Association
Nick Giulietto is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director at the Australian Digital Currency & Commerce Association. He is a B2B marketing and product professional enthused by the potential for Blockchain technology to transform business models in every industry sector - and in government service delivery.
He has become a champion for the Blockchain industry and led the efforts of the Australian Digital Currency and Commerce Association to accelerate adoption of Blockchain technologies in Australia.
He is proud to have been a founding member of the Global Blockchain Forum which is striving for global regulatory alignment to support a global transformation.
Sam Hallinan
Managing Director
Nikko Asset Management
Sam Hallinan joined Nikko Asset Management as Managing Director, Australia on April 1 2015. Sam most recently was General Manager, Investment Management at NAB Asset Management while also serving as Director of Antares Capital Partners Limited, which is affiliated with NAB Asset Management.
Sam has a 20-year career in Australian financial services focusing on asset management, strategy, sales and organisational culture. At NAB, he held leadership roles in retail and institutional product and sales leadership roles for the asset management and investment platform divisions.
Ruth Hatherley
Founder
Moneycatcha
My career has been predominantly in the finance industry from 1996 until the present day, working in large financial institutions and also smaller, SME businesses. I moved into residential lending within 2 years of beginning my banking career and was the youngest branch manager for the CBA in WA by age 26. I rounded out my career in Third Party Origination during a record boom time, which gave me a detailed view of the front and back end challenges experienced in loan origination.
In 2007 I left corporate life and joined one of the largest and most highly decorated mortgage broking firms in Australia to help them with their national expansion plans. I worked in that executive team for 10 years and saw first hand the struggles that a disinter-mediated lending process causes the users and consumers involved, across a number of lender platforms. Because I witnessed my team and their client's deal with this frustration on a daily basis, as a side project I started to exploring how we could revolutionise this process through digital solutions. At the time I began my research, the word fintech was becoming popular and the interest in it was exponetially growing. Once I started working on my proof of concept and piecing together how the Blockchain technology could be part of an overall fintech loan origination solution, I was able to gain enough interest to design and build a prototype.
I spent all of 2016 testing my theory and applying my experience to building Moneycatcha with the four Ruth principals; Speed, Validation, Security and Simplicity and this is what Moneycatcha's innovation aims to continue to deliver today.
Nic Hodges
Head of Commercial Innovations
News Corp Australia
Nic Hodges has over a decade of experience working across the technology, advertising, publishing and startup space. He has led digital and innovation through roles including Head of Innovation & Technology at MediaCom, Digital Creative Director at Clemenger BBDO, and Technical Director at M&C Saatchi. Currently Nic is Head of Commercial Innovation at News Corp.
An active member of both the Melbourne and Sydney startup communities Nic is also a mentor for the Angelcube and Slingshot startup accelerators, as well as advisor and board member for several Australian and US startups.
Nic has presented at most major Australian and APAC media and technology conferences, as well as writing on media and technology for a number of publications, including in Wired and Forbes.
Sheree Ip
Legal and Compliance
Ledger Assets
Sheree is the Legal and Compliance lead in Australian based blockchain science commercialisation company, Ledger Assets. She has worked on numerous blockchain projects to date including large scale bespoke blockchain projects across Medical, Power and Identity sectors. She is an Academic at Curtin University's Law School in Western Australia teaching across various areas of law and Doctoral Candidate researching in Digital Currency Law and Blockchain Regulation.
She has a keen interest in how blockchain technology will advance not only financial services, but all industry sectors. Sheree cofounded Certus Consulting and brings her experience in consulting across a broad range of industry sectors, to current blockchain projects. She is a qualified Practitioner and a Board Member of the Bitcoin Association of Australia advising on regulatory and policy reform matters.
Peter Jessup
Senior Vice President of Global Technology
Nasdaq
Peter is an IT professional with more than 35 years’ experience in Financial Markets.
He heads Nasdaq’s Sydney office and has direct responsibility for the development and support organisation for Nasdaq’s surveillance, compliance, matching and risk management products located in Sydney.
He has previously had roles with the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Tandem Computers and Computershare, and recently returned to Sydney after a 2½ posting to Nasdaq’s Stockholm office.
Loretta Joseph
Advisor, Sydney Stock Exchange
Director, BlackCitrus
Advisor, Brightbridge Capital (India)
Max Kaye
CTO and Co-founder
XO.1
Max is passionate about improving the world to the best of his ability. He is a software developer and blockchain consultant. His educational background is in science, mathematics, and information systems, though his strong interests in economics, political philosophy, disruptive startups, and theory of knowledge have provided a strong foundation across the board.
Max desires to use and build new technology to enable greater civic involvement, democratic potential, and personal empowerment. His utmost commitment is to the creation of new options, and the protection of our methods of correcting mistakes. He prefers to use the oxford comma.
James Kyd
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Blockchain Consulting Group
James is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Blockchain Consulting Group (BCCG) where he provides advise to public and private organisations across industries to help them create value from blockchain technology. He formed BCCG in partnership with Bitcoin Group Limited, Australia's largest and most well capitalised blockchain company operating profitably across 7 locations in Australia, China and Iceland.
James is also the Melbourne Director for the Founders Institute, a panel judge for the AIIA Innovation awards, a member of the IoT Australia Alliance, and speaks on enterprise and startup collaboration. He brings 15 years of management consulting and collaborative leadership experience in various leadership roles - including experience operating corporate Innovation Labs.
David Lawrence
Chief Operating Officer
Sydney Stock Exchange
Mr. David Lawrence CCP(Fellow), MComm, BEc (Hons), PgDip Mgmt, Dip ProjMmt has over 25 years’ experience in the development and supervision of financial securities markets.
Mr Lawrence has over 20 years experience in Australian financial markets in a number of Senior Management positions including management of Market Operations, Listed Companies Supervision, Company Announcements, Listing Business Development, Participants Client Relations, Participants Supervision, and Market Surveillance.
Prior to joining SSX on a full-time basis in January 2012, Mr Lawrence provided consulting services to Australian stockbrokers, a developing market in China, and SSX. Mr Lawrence has been a speaker at national and international forums relating to financial markets and compliance related issues in New Zealand, Hong Kong, USA, Japan, China and the UK. He was the Australian representative to the international Inter-market Surveillance Group for a number of years.
Mr Lawrence was the President of the Australasian Compliance Institute, the peak professional body for over 2500 compliance practitioner members in the Asia Pacific region, for over 8 years until March 2013.
Tim Lea
Chief Executive Officer
Veredictum.io
I am a passionate evangelist of the Tech Startup Ecosystem, with particular emphasis on Blockchain. Blockchain as a core technology, reminds me of the first time I got involved entrepreneurially with internet back in Feb 1995 (February 12th at 2.16 pm in the afternoon to be precise... it was that cathartic an experience). Twenty years on, the internet is a far cry from its original basics of TCP/IP & email. Blockchain has the potential to be even bigger...
I am privileged to work with a great team on our Blockchain startup, Veredictum.io, where we are creating a proprietary smart ownership & distribution platform for Film & Video Producers to protect them from theft & piracy, enabling enhanced monetisation through new distribution models. We are currently in active discussions with professional & wholesale investors for our seed round & always happy to open up dialogue with later stage investors so that we can build relationships for further future rounds.
If you are unsure of the power of Blockchain technology, we have created a FREE series of introductory videos. Check Out the link to our Youtube Play list below.
We have also created a suite of Introductory Workshops around Blockchain Technology for business to give business professionals an insight into its power & how it is being used used to solve genuine business problems. Just get in touch for further information on these.
The opportunity for dramatic disruptive change is palpable from the ecosystem & always happy to connect to fellow entrepreneurs & those working with new technologies - there are so many opportunities available by understanding new technologies as they develop - so let's talk - you never know where it might take us...
Sam Lee
Chief Executive Officer
Blockchain Global
Mr Lee is the founder and CEO of Blockchain Global Limited (formally known as Bitcoin Group), a profitable technology company with AU$5.9 million in revenue in FY2016. In addition to operating blockchain auditing hardware that has produced over 20,000 Bitcoins to date, the company has Blockchain Technology Management Consulting capabilities and have incubated startups such as www.ACX.io, Australia's largest Bitcoin Exchange.
With Blockchain Technology poised to disintermediate middlemen on a global scale, Sam through his company applies knowledge and know how to help process, verify and settle transactions on the Blockchain, to reduced friction, fraud and ultimately cost for any company that interfaces with technology.
As an industry leader, Sam founded the Melbourne Blockchain Centre and the Bitcoin/Blockchain Melbourne Meetups. He is a frequent speaker, having delivered presentations as a subject matter expert at the Blockchain Summit and Governance Institute of Australia Forum among others and been interviewed on CNBC, BBC, Sky News and RT.
Joseph Lubin
Co-Founder
Ethereum and ConsenSys
Joseph Lubin’s career has involved various posts in the fields of technology and finance and in their intersection.
Subsequent to graduating cum laude with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton, he worked as research staff in the Robotics Lab at Princeton and then at Vision Applications, Inc., a private research firm, in the fields of autonomous mobile robotics, machine vision and artificial neural networks.
His next project was the development of an autonomous music composition tool with tomandandy music.
Joseph worked as a software engineer and consultant on various projects, eventually being tipped for the role of Director of the New York office of Blacksmith, a Virginia-based software consulting firm.
Software engineering, finance and cryptography were central during employment with Goldman Sachs, eMagine’s consulting work on the Identrus project, and the founding and operation of a set of hedge funds run with a partner.
Switching gears, Joseph moved to Kingston, Jamaica to work on a set of projects in the music industry. Two years into the music project, Joseph co-founded the Ethereum Project, and has been working on Ethereum and more recently ConsenSys since January 2014.
ConsenSys began as a blockchain production studio building decentralized applications, mostly on Ethereum, and continues on this track, but has expanded its activities since inception. Many of those components are core elements that can be used to construct larger solutions as well as being standalone solutions in their own right. Since ConsenSys began operations before the Ethereum ecosystem existed, ConsenSys has also built core infrastructure elements like Ethereum clients, testing frameworks, rapid application development frameworks, and Integrated Development Environments. ConsenSys Enterprise, the professional services arm, works with various enterprises to help them formulate their blockchain strategy and develop business processes for them on private or consortium blockchains, as well as on the public Ethereum network.
Glyn MacLean
Managing Director
Build the Audience
Glyn MacLean has an extensive background in sales, marketing and management both B2C and B2B. Reaching the top of Music and Media, Glyn was an early pioneer leveraging SaaS cloud technology to accelerate growth and achieve record profits. Head hunted into tech, Glyn’s tech career began with Renaissance the NZ Apple distributor, rescuing million-dollar key accounts by resolving supply chain issues. This quick success lead to a key role migrating accountants to the cloud for MYOB. Then promoted through three roles at Attache Software, National Partner Manager NZ, Channel Development Manager ANZ and Head of Advisory ANZ. Glyn’s work pioneering a SaaS accounting Industry transformation program earned Recognition for Best Cloud Product in the 2014 Australian business Awards.
Glyn’s current Blockchain and Cryptocurrency projects include assisting the widespread adoption of Bitcoin and Ethereum mining, pioneering Sia, Steem and Ethereum mining through a global workshop series www.cryptocurrencyminers.com and music and finance industry transformation projects. Glyn has innovated the concepts of Blockchain IDEAology (ideation) and Blockchain Reaction. Glyn eats, sleeps and dreams Bitcoin and was one of the first 1000 people in Australia to buy his weekly groceries with Bitcoin, proudly supporting ADCCA members.
Glyn helps CEOs and Boards with “business development on steroids” (outsourced Channel, Partner and Business Development) through his company www.buildtheaudience.com An aspiring writer, Glyn has over 30,000 blog readers on themes including Wisdom, Democracy, Human Rights and Wealth Democratization and Redistribution as a Life Enterprise coach at www.glynmaclean.com Glyn is now the number one most viewed expert on Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Digital Currency at Quora.com.
Ayako Miyaguchi
Managing Director, Japan
Kraken
Ayako is Kraken’s Managing Director of Japan. She joined Kraken and the cryptocurrency sector in early 2013 in San Francisco and has educated regulators and elected officials, especially after MtGox collapsed. She secured the agreement between the MtGox bankruptcy trustee and Kraken, leading the projects for the investigation and other proceedings. She is a founding member of the self-regulatory body, Japan Blockchain Association (JBA, formerly known as JADA) and spearheads JBA’s foreign relations. With the current growth in the FinTech sector in Japan, she is discussing potential cryptocurrency/blockchain projects with Japanese financial institutions. She travels between San Francisco and Tokyo, connecting Japan and the world.
Mick Motion-Wise
Technology Architect
Federal Government
Mick Motion-Wise is a Technology Architect for a Federal Government. As an electronic engineer Mick began radiofrequency engineering for the Spectrum Management Authority and continued radiofrequency engineering with Air Services Australia. While completing a second degree in computer science, Mick took on a network engineering role with the Federal Government as a Technology Architect focussing on network security, IPv6, cloud and network evolution – and now very focussed on blockchain technology and smart contracts.
Sam Nickless
Chief Operating Officer
Gilbert + Tobin
Sam Nickless is the Chief Operating Officer of Gilbert+Tobin, a leading Australian corporate law firm. Sam joined G+T in February 2015 and is responsible for the firm’s operational functions (Finance, Technology, Marketing, HR) as well as leading strategy for its legal practice. Sam represents G+T on the board of LegalVision, a technology-based legal start-up in which G+T has invested.
Prior to joining the legal industry, Sam’s recent executive focus has been in innovation and responding to changes occurring in mature industries. He was Head of Property Innovations at GPT Group, an Australian property company, leading responses to the disruptive threats of online retail to the mall business and of flexible work practices and densification to the office portfolio. Sam led GPT’s investment in on-demand workspace platform LiquidSpace and represented GPT on its Board. Before that, he ran emerging businesses and strategy for Aristocrat, a gaming technology provider, in particular leading their entry into the regulated internet gaming market.
Sam was previously an executive at National Australia Bank, where he was the General Manager of Strategy & Business Development for the Australian Region (retail, business banking and wealth management) and General Manager of the Credit Cards & Personal Loans business.
Sam spent 10 years and was a partner in the Australian Office of McKinsey & Company, where he served a range of clients in financial services, retail, agribusiness and telecommunications, with a focus on strategy and organisation.
Sam has Economics and Law degrees from the University of Adelaide, and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
Hugo O'Connor
Head of Innovation
Bit Trade Australia
Hugo is the co-founder and Head of Innovation of Bit Trade Australia, the nation's leading fixed-price bitcoin exchange. Hugo currently works as a developer at Bit Trade Labs, a blockchain product incubator, and enjoys solving problems and making things.
John Pellew
CEO and Founder
Othera
John is the creative mind and driving force behind Othera. He has built and sold two U.K. startups and also has over 20 years experience in business and banking. John worked for RBS in the U.K. and CBA in Australia, in both business and international trade finance. These roles provided John with extensive experience and insight into credit and financial markets which he is combining with a passionate interest in blockchain for the development of the Othera platform.
Timothy Pilgrim
Australian Information Commissioner and Australian Privacy Commissioner
Mr Timothy Pilgrim is the Australian Information Commissioner and Australian Privacy Commissioner. Timothy has been Australian Privacy Commissioner since 2010 and was Acting Australian Information Commissioner from 2015. Prior to this, Timothy was the Deputy Privacy Commissioner from 1998 to 2010. Before joining the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Timothy held senior management positions in a range of Australian Government agencies, including the Small Business Program within the Australian Taxation Office and the Child Support Agency.
Timothy has made a significant contribution to the field of privacy in Australia. His achievements include involvement in developing the private sector provisions of the Privacy Act 1988, which included widespread consultation with community, business and government organisations. He also played a key role in implementing the private sector provisions, which took effect on 21 December 2001. More recently, Timothy has led the implementation of the 2014 reforms to the Privacy Act, the most significant reforms to the Act since its commencement. In doing so he worked closely with businesses, consumer groups and Australian Government agencies to build awareness of privacy rights and obligations, and ensure compliance with the new requirements.
Timothy has also worked at the international level to ensure that Australia is equipped to deal with global privacy challenges. He has played an important role in the implementation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Privacy Framework, which aims to promote a consistent approach to information privacy protection across APEC member economies. Timothy has also been closely involved in developing a framework for privacy regulators around the world to cooperate on cross-border enforcement matters.
Timothy has extensive experience in corporate management, covering fields such as human resource management, industrial relations and parliamentary liaison. More broadly, at the corporate level he has been responsible for providing high level advice on strategies for implementing large scale cultural change.
Timothy Pilgrim was awarded a Public Service Medal in the 2015 Australia Day Honours List for ‘outstanding public service in the development and implementation of major reforms to the Privacy Act 1988’.
Timothy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Sydney.
Peter Randall
Chief Executive Officer
SETL
SETL was launched in July 2015 to deploy a multi-asset, multi-currency institutional payment and settlements infrastructure based on blockchain technology. The SETL system will enable market participants to move cash and assets directly between each other, facilitating the immediate and final settlement of market transactions. The SETL system maintains a permissioned distributed ledger of ownership and transaction records, simplifying the process of matching, settlement, custody, registration and transaction reporting.
SETL can process over 1.3 bn movements per day at speeds in excess of 10k tps into full production environment featuring dedicated control function contracts, real world business models and a deep respect for adoption, integration and innovation at participant financial institutions.
From early 2013 I have worked with various PE firms and other investors to explore ownership and control opportunities in the European platform space. I maintain a strong conference and seminar presence and have chaired a multitude
As founding CEO of Chi-X Europe Ltd, I led the company from 2005 until 2009 which coincided with its growth from an unknown platform to be one of the top 5 platforms in Europe by volumes traded. Subsequently, as CEO of Equiduct, I turned it into the fastest growing platform in Europe in 2012.
Prior to these assignments I was COO at Instinet Europe Ltd, and Executive Director of FIX Protocol Ltd.
Dilip Rao
Managing Director
Ripple
Dilip Rao heads up business development and operations for Ripple in the Asia Pacific region. In this role he engages with leading banks, regulators and central banks to enable innovation on the Ripple platform. Dilip has over 25 years of experience in senior management with technology multinationals in technical, sales and marketing roles in Asia. He has consulted major banks and corporates in Australia on innovation and was founder of Australia's first person-to-person payments startup.
He holds degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India.
John Riggins
Head of Operations, Asia Pacific
BTC Media LLC
As Head of Operations, Asia Pacific of BTC Media LLC, John Riggins is a leader in digital currency and distributed ledger communications. After realizing the disruptive potential of blockchain technology for global trade while working in revenue strategy at FedEx, John joined BTC Media, a corporate group that includes The Distributed Ledger, Distributed Events, Bitcoin Magazine, yBitcoin, and the Mandarin language property GongShi Tan.
BTC Media is now the world’s preeminent Blockchain and digital currency focused media group, reaching readers worldwide and representing over 130 fintech advertisers ranging from startups to multi-billion-dollar Fortune 500 companies.
Wyatt Roy
Managing Director, Australia
Afiniti
Wyatt heads up the Afiniti Australia team and is responsible for Afiniti’s expansion into Australia. Prior to joining Afiniti, Wyatt served in the Australian House of Representatives and as Australia’s first Minister for Innovation. At age 20, he was the youngest person elected to the Australian Parliament; at 25, he was the youngest Minister in the history of the Commonwealth.
During his six years in the House of Representatives, Wyatt chaired the House and Senate’s Joint Standing Committees on Treaties. He oversaw three major free trade agreements with South Korea, Japan, and China. As Australia’s first Assistant Minister for Innovation, Wyatt led the National Innovation and Science Agenda, consisting of 24 policies designed to expand innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia.
Wyatt was raised on a strawberry farm on Queensland’s sunshine coast. He has been named GQ Magazine’s Politician of the Year and listed in Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30 in Asia.”. In his free time, Wyatt enjoys boating, sailing and fishing.
Andrea Siodmok
Deputy Director at the Cabinet Office
UK Government
Andrea is a Deputy Director at the Cabinet Office where she heads up the Government’s policy innovation lab. Launched in 2014, the Policy Lab is a creative space where civil servants can experiment with new approaches to policy problems from data science to design.
With a first class honours in Industrial Design and a PhD in Virtual Reality Andrea operates at the intersection of user-needs and innovative technologies.
From her early work at BT’s Adastral Park Research Labs, through to her more recent Policy Lab projects, she has focused on humanising the technologies that promise to transform people’s lives.
Andrea has worked with global corporations, entrepreneurs, charities and social enterprises on multi-award winning projects. Her early work on smart wallets in the 1990s with De La Rue Fortronic EFTPOS systems, pre-dated the internet and led to her research visualising the stock-market and applying virtual reality technologies in retail. Over 20 years her projects have demonstrated innovative, practical ways to improve people’s lives using emerging design, data and digital technologies.
Andrea has been invited to run workshops across five continents, regularly speaking and writing about human-centred design and innovation. In 2015 she became the 10th female in its history to be awarded the distinguished Royal Society of Art's Bicentenary Medal where she received a lifetime fellowship. Andrea is a Policy Fellow at Cambridge University and student of the London School of Economics, Executive Masters in Public Policy. In 2016 she received an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from Northumbria University for her work as a world leading design thinker
Julian Smith
Co-founder & CEO
Blockfreight
Michael Southwell
Director of Payments, Global Transactions
Westpac
Michael Southwell is the Director of Payments - Global Transaction Services at Westpac. He leads new product development & innovation in transaction banking and cash management for Westpac's corporate, government, and institutional clients.
Specialties: ACH, Banking & Securities, Branch Banking, China, China - Macroeconomic Evolution Of The Country, Corporate Banking, Credit And Debit Cards, Debit Card, East Asia, International Capital Markets, International Payments, International Trade, Middle East Banking, Payments, Payments Infrastructure: Network & Processing, Payments Strategy, RTGS Systems
Steven Spizer
Vice President, GTS Banks & Public Sector Group Australia & NZ
Citigroup
Annabel Spring
Group Executive, Wealth Management
Commonwealth Bank
Annabel Spring joined the Wealth Management Division of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), as Group Executive, in October 2011.
She is responsible for Colonial First State, Colonial First State Global Asset Management, Wealth Management Advice and CommInsure, and is a member of the Group Executive Committee.
Annabel joined the CBA Group in March 2009 as Group Head of Strategy where she was responsible for corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and government relations.
Before joining the CBA Group, Annabel was Managing Director and Global Head of Firm Strategy and Execution at Morgan Stanley based in New York. Previous to that she held various positions in Leveraged Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance. Annabel has worked in the USA, Asia and Australia.
Annabel is a member of the Advisory Board for the Salvation Army Australian Eastern Territories, Co-Deputy Chair of the Financial Services Council (FSC) and Co-Deputy Chair of the FSC's Administration and Risk Board Committee. She is also a member of Chief Executive Women.
Annabel holds a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Economics, both with honours, from the University of Sydney and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a George F. Baker Scholar.
Mark Staples
Group Leader and Principal Researcher
Data61
Dr Mark Staples is a Principal Researcher and a Group Leader in the Software and Computational Systems program at Data61, CSIRO, and is a Conjoint Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW. His research areas are in software engineering (software architecture, empirical software engineering, formal methods, software reuse, and development processes), and in the philosophy of engineering.
Previously at NICTA he led the creation of the Future Logistics Living Lab. He has also worked in industry in Australia, on implantable medical devices, electronic payments systems, and distributed industrial control systems. He holds a BSc and BInfTech (Hons) from University of Queensland and a PhD from University of Cambridge.
Mark Toohey is an experienced commercial lawyer who has worked with both major law firms and as general counsel in the media, telecommunications, software and IT industries.
Mark is also Australia's leading legal expert on blockchain technology and its implementation. He is a co-founder of TBSx3, a brand protection company.
TBSx3 uses the power of blockchain technology and their patented three layers of protection to detect supply chain anomalies and to defeat counterfeiters. The TBSx3 technology is backed by a free mobile app that alerts consumers if goods are fake.
Govert Van Ek
Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder
Ledger Assets
Dr Gov van Ek obtained a Ph.D from UMIST, U.K in Total Technology in 1996. After some time in investment banking and as a Managing Director of various successful companies, he co-founded Ledger Assets, a leading Australian Blockchain commercialization company, where he is an Executive Director.
Ledger Assets released the solar powered PoS "EcoChain" Blockchain in 2016, which has its own in built Smart Contracts technology referred to as Blockchain Dapps.
In 2015, it released the world's first commercial Blockchain App, Uproov.com which verifies photos, videos and audio.
Dr van Ek also co founded PowerLedger.io, now a world leading solar energy Blockchain technology company and Enome.io a high tec medical records company with extensive patents.
Ledger Assets remains at the technological forefront of Blockchain technology development, and is also active in the Insurance, agriculture and arts businesses and is based in Perth, W.A, with views of the ocean in the "Silicon Beach" area.
Emma Weston
Chief Executive Officer
Full Profile
Emma has had a varied corporate career as a lawyer, consultant, senior manager and CEO. She has enjoyed working in traditional executive roles as well as in dynamic entrepreneurial environments, including as founder.
With a legal and agribusiness background, Emma left the Australian Wheat Board in 2004 and since that time has worked with a number of start up businesses; including co-founding the Clear Grain Exchange and working as an executive director with Agfarm Pty Ltd and Featherston Resources Limited.
In 2015, Emma co-founded Full Profile with Bob McKay and Ben Reid. With over 60 years agribusiness experience between them and a passion for technology; Full Profile is Reimagining Australian Agriculture. The Full Profile team is working to solve deep or entrenched problems in the agricultural sector. All agri-blockchain and SaaS end to end commodity management systems solutions are housed in Full Profile’s AgriDigital business.
As CEO, AgriDigital, Emma is directly responsible for leading all blockchain and agri-software development as well as managing the wider operational environment for Full Profile including HR, Marketing, Legal, Company Governance and Culture.
Emma holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and a Masters of Business Administration. She has held a number of board and advisory positions across the agribusiness, technology and mining sectors. Additionally, Emma works as an executive and organisational coach and has been mentoring for over 10 years with organisations such as the University of New South Wales School of Business and the Australian Graduate School of Management
Emma is a member of the International Coaching Federation and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She has a particular interest in mindful leadership, is an accredited practitioner of Conversational Intelligence® (C-IQ) and an associate of The Creating We InstituteTM of Australia and New Zealand.
Discovering Bitcoin in late 2012 and seeing the potential of this disruptive and innovative technology, Jason seized the opportunity to make a difference.
During 2013 Jason co-founded the Bitcoin Sydney group, became a founding member of the Bitcoin Association of Australia, started BitPOS, a bitcoin payment processor, began Bitcoin Professionals and is an acclaimed international public speaker.
He believes Bitcoin is a technology set to revolutionize the world and wants to play his part to help it grow and mature into an everyday technology for everybody.
Rick Wingfield
Partner
Australia Post Accelerator
Rick has a passion for entrepreneurship and helping Australia become an innovation nation. He is leading a program re-imagining the future of financial, government and other trusted services with a focus on digital identity. He drives customer-led innovation through incubating and investing in startups and exploring emerging technologies.
He is a strategic, customer focussed leader with a proven track record of successful digital transformations and product launches. Rick has 2 decades of digital and strategy experience with executive roles in retail, logistics and financial services across Europe, Australia and Asia. He has worked for large institutions; Barclays, AIA, NAB, Australia Post as well as with startups as a founder and consultant.
Liming Zhu
Research Director of Software and Computational Systems Research Program
Data 61
Dr/Prof. Liming Zhu is the Research Director of Software and Computational Systems Research Program at Data61, CSIRO. He holds conjoint full professor position at University of New South Wales (UNSW). His research program has more than 200 people innovating in the area of (big) data platforms and cyber security. He has published more than 150 academic papers on software architecture, dependable and secure systems and data analytics infrastructure. His recent book is DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective.
Speaking opportunities are available!
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Contact Bill Gatsis on +61 (0)2 8488 9948 or 0481 353 550 or email billg@questevents.com.au to find out how we can put you in front of a highly engaged and receptive audience.