Global Speakers

Timothy Kasbe is Zoho’s managing director of A/NZ and large enterprises. In this role, Timothy is responsible for all business in A/NZ, as well as large enterprises globally. Before joining Zoho, Timothy was chief information and digital officer at various Fortune 50 companies across four continents. He led technology transformation and retail startup for Reliance Industries Ltd., (BSE: RIL). Reliance is the largest retailer in India today with over 10,000 stores in every state, and a robust online e-commerce marketplace.

As CIO, he also helped Sears Kmart (NYSE: SHLD) transition from brick and mortar to an online digital business, establishing one of the largest marketplaces and loyalty programs in the world. Timothy also helped build first-of-a-kind supply chains for the development and production of synthetic DNA for Intrexon (NYSE: XON), a company focused on designing and engineering living systems to address the world’s greatest challenges in health, energy, food, and environmental sustainability.

Timothy was also chief operating officer at the Russian fashion apparel company, Gloria Jeans, , and held a similar role at New Zealand’s Warehouse Group (NZX: TWL). Before his CIO/COO career, Timothy served on the leadership team at IBM (NYSE: IBM). He’s on the board of multiple tech companies and has been an advisor to Cerberus Capital Management Company in New York, NY since 2011.

Timothy has studied theology, technology, and business. As a lifelong learner he’s currently doing his doctoral studies in the ethics of artificial super-intelligence at Duke University, and has served as a distinguished visiting scholar at Stanford University. When he’s not leading companies, Timothy is an avid golfer, biker, HIT trainer, and yogi.

Topic: Personalizing CX Across Marketing, Sales and Support

Rob leads Experience Design across R/GA’s five offices in the APAC region to help leading brands transform their customer experience.

Rob leads a team that reinvents how brands, connect, engage and retain customers, combining business consulting and strategy, brand and experience design and technology to develop meaningful products and services that deliver real business growth.

Prior to joining R/GA, Rob spent over a decade specializing in experience design for digital and physical environments including connected spaces, consumer electronics, and digital applications to large scale platform builds. He has worked for AKQA, cloud tech startups and a number of industrial design firms.

Topic: More Shazza than Siri

Lisa is an Owner and Executive Director of OutThought, a company that delivers AI Assistants to clients in the commercial and public sectors.

With over 15 years of experience in the design and execution of Advanced Analytics and Virtual Assistant solutions, she has been twice awarded Architect of the year in Asia Pacific by IBM for outstanding achievements and was most recently awarded ARN 2018 Women in ICT Innovator of the year.

As a regular advisor to the C-Suite, her company was recently shortlisted for the 2018 CIO Magazine Top 10 AI Technology Solution Providers. Lisa is passionate and real when it comes to what’s possible (and what’s not) with Virtual Assistants and enjoys learning from the successes and failures that these new, often overhyped technologies bring to the market.

Topic: AI Assistants, what’s now, what’s new and what’s next

Miles has over 15 years’ experience in leadership, strategy and sales in financial services, with most recent efforts spent on designing and overseeing the people initiatives for Retail Next; a reimagined and incubated people, customer, and environment experience, culminating in what ‘being Bupa’ is and what it will be will beyond 2017. Now 2018 our focus has shifted to using the learning from this program to inform our next steps, Contact NeXt.

CX Panel: What it takes to create the Perfect Customer Experience with AI

Kelly Slessor CEO and founder of Shop You is a Digital Retail Strategist specialising in mobile. Kelly began her career with British Telecom, the UK’s largest telecommunications provider. Kelly has spent her career understanding consumer behaviour, simplifying technology and designing the future based on insights and research to drive results for retailers. She has extensive experience working with major clients including Westfield, Woolworths, Fairfax, Showpo, Big W, Suncorp bank, Le Specs, and LendLease right through to SMEs.

Topic: Personalizing, Curating and Scaling Content Marketing with AI and Machine Learning

Grace is a digital product owner for emerging technologies at AGL Energy. She has spent the last 3 years working on utilising artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve business and customer problems. When she’s not learning about new tech and psychology, Grace likes to play board and computer games and spend time with her greyhound.

Topic: AGL Case Study: Seamless Customer Experience with AI-Powered Electricity Meter Reads

Khitish Mohanty is the Data Scientist at Department of Premier and Cabinet, Victoria. He is technically trained with heavy math and static background. He has several years of experience in banking and public sector industries. He has a particular area of interest in text analytics and unstructured data analysis. He is managing and looking into the social media listening platforms, implementation of AI, setting up methodologies and practices for data collection from different sources and responsible for how government can get most out of it and understand the data lake in a more intelligent approach. He is also helping the officers to get 360-degree insights with the help of advanced data architecture, machine learning practices and by creating tools for getting insights from the open text.

Topic: How AI Helps Marketers Determine the Likes and Dislikes of Customers, Determine What Content Should Be Served and Track All their Interactions through the Customer’s Journey

Nicole has been fascinated with people and how they connect for years and has made a successful marketing career finding the common point between brands, our community and people’s needs and wants. Having been a blogger, opinion writer and multi-award winning creative, Nicole has combined that whimsy with a deep curiosity for data and how it provides people with relevant, engaging and helpful information, and companies with the results to grow sustainably.

With marketing and advertising experience across 22 years, including stints with Amex, Dell, AAPT, Pandora Music and now leading the eHarmony team in Australia, Nicole believes creativity and strategic data insights combined is the best future for marketing. She believes that marketing can enhance people’s lives to the point where it can change the world, especially when your company is built to create human connections.

Topic: Creepy but Good: Delivering What They Didn’t Know They Loved Before They Even Knew They Wanted It

Jo is a C Suite Strategic Marketing Executive – Her diverse industry experience and senior career in brand & culture, digital transformation, customer engagement and marketing has given her a unique perspective on how best to build high performing teams and deliver results. Whether its extracting the best possible insights from industry and customers, blending her experience in database interrogation to model various outcomes or creating new programs to provide solutions to customer problems with design thinking or simply creating impactful creative for all channels – her approach is anchored in empowering people and business partners to challenge the status quo with positive thinking to unlock a new possibility and create a new story.

In her current role, her focus is clear. City of Melbourne provides a rich, complex and unique opportunity to contribute to the vision of being a leading organisation for a leading city. Everyday we endeavour to make the difference by connecting with visitors, workers, students, ratepayers, residents, businesses and stakeholders to manage reputation risks and build engaging digital platforms to enhance everyone’s experience of the City.

Previously at Australia Post and REA Group, the challenges were at a national & international level and within the AAMI and APIA brands the challenge was national. All of these roles had the customer and their engagement at the centre of their brand, cultures and marketing. Jo is passionate about finding areas where the business can create new value for customers – striking the right balance between creativity and key drivers | metrics to achieve results.

Topic: City of Melbourne’s Voice Experience with Alexa 

Melissa is focused on addressing problems worth solving working with the startup community accelerating ideas into value generating opportunities. Sometimes this means daring to be different and pushing the boundaries relative to the business environment. Coupled with the right balance of research, planning and strategic intent, Melissa believes appetite for managed risk can equal reward for customers, partners and the organisation. With extensive experience in the commercial, government and NFP sectors, Melissa has a strong track record in enterprise social networks, program management, organisational development, business improvement, portfolio change management and leading business and people transitions.

Topic: CUA case study on How Rosie Helps to Automates Online Customer Experience and Increase its Member Base

Chris is a senior marketing leader with broad experience across multiple marketing functions in Australia and internationally, among his previous marketing positions held includes PayPal, eBay, and Tesco. His key competencies include building & leading large teams, strategy & brand building, media planning, large ATL campaign planning and execution, driving customer retention programmes, as well as experience & knowledge of marketing operations.

He managed large teams and annual budgets of $25m+, strategically plan and manage multiple campaigns across all on- and offline channels focusing on both acquisition and retention. Strong number driven and analytical marketing skills with a commercial eye on what marketing activity delivers for the business. Proven record of building brands and delivering successful innovative campaigns.

He has also led the current Mumbrella Sports marketing team of the year 2017 & 2018.

Topic: AI & Sport – Increasing Fan Engagement Through Accurately Predicting the Future

It is Jimmy’s passion to discover new opportunities through data, increase sales, acquire more customers, and reduce the operating costs for your business. He is at the cutting edge of data analytics with broad exposure to advanced analytics, data science & BI, delivering projects utilising sophisticated approaches including the use of predictive analysis, machine learning algorithms & Geo-spatial location analysis.

What sets Jimmy apart from others is his diverse real-world industry experience. Demonstrating the end to end process from data to insights and providing actionable goals, he has helped shape the strategic direction for a number of high-profile companies.

Jimmy has over 12 years’ experience in data analytics across a range of industry segments, specialising in retail & FMCG. He has worked with many influential brands including Coca-Cola, Coles, IGA, Subway, Donut King, Michelle’s Patisserie, Night Owl, Tatts lottery – The Lott, UBET, and most recently heading up the Data & Insights Division for The Coffee Club.

Topic: How Brands are Increasingly Tapping into Text Analytics & Sentiment Analysis to Improve Customer Experience Delivery

Tony is a dynamic individual with a range of commercial experience across a number of competitive industries throughout Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand.

He has worked for many companies, including Lyris Technologies as a digital acquisitions consultant and also Six Physio as a digital strategy consultant. Then after working as the Head of Online Analytics at Sportsbet, became Sportsbet’s General Manager of Customer Operations.

A resourceful leader with proven experience at mixing numerical and analytical acumen with the proven ability to develop and implement high level and operational strategic initiatives.

A strong passion for working in fast moving, competitive, transformative and entrepreneurial environments coupled with high levels of intellect, motivation and interpersonal skills, resulting in the implementation of numerous highly successful challenging projects.

Has specialties which include digital marketing, digital strategy, web analytics, commercial Analysis, customer insights, online acquisition and big data analysis.

Topic: Sportsbet Using Machine Learning and AI Capabilities to Improve on Its Customer Experience

An energetic senior leader, appointed by the Group CFO to disrupt from within and bring Finance into the future; responsible for driving the vision and strategy of Finance & Commercial Services through innovation and behavioural change to support Australia Post’s aspirations.

Silvio established and leads the Group Data Science capability at Australia Post, applying artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive modelling, robotics and other funky stuff with data to improve safety, service and customer experiences.

Topic: Key tips to imbue your Chatbot with a personality and ensure its conversation resonates with you customers

Santi Vela is the Digital transformation Lead of PACCAR Australia, he works with PACCAR executives to envision and build what’s next by strategically balancing People, Processes and Technologies. Located in Melbourne Australia and open to the world through the internet, Santi combines strategy, sentiment analysis, data science and creative design with deep industry expertise and insights, to develop new digital solutions and business models of the future. Recognised by his peers and the industry, Santi is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of PACCAR Australia opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital, narrow AI and CRM platforms. Building on a strong 20-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, he enables organisations and empowers business leaders to realize their business ambitions through an array of insights from strategy to operations. Santi is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people.

Topic: CX Panel: What it takes to create the Perfect Customer Experience with AI

Sarah is the Process Automation Manager for Bupa Australia & New Zealand where she is overseeing the creation of advocacy for automation and establishing delivery model for successful process for Bupa. Prior to this role, she has taken several on roles with Bupa in establishing business process transformation including setting up a Robotic Process Automation centre of excellence.

Topic: How Bupa Leverage on AI and Chatbot Technology to Improve on Customer and People Experiences

Catherine Cherry is known for her innovative and forward-thinking approaches to improving outcomes for the university, no matter the industry. She joined the University of Adelaide in 2009 after moving from Brisbane and roles within private enterprise. Catherine manages a team of 12 staff who work to deliver an exceptional future student experience across inbound enquiries, self-service and outbound digital communication; as well as customer feedback and behavioural insights.

Chatbot in Education: Provide personalized learning environment for students

David Watts is one of Australia’s leading data protection experts with experience as a regulator, policy maker, public and private sector lawyer.

As Victoria’s privacy commissioner until 2017, David was responsible for an extensive change management program designed to reconceptualise the value of privacy and security for the state.
He is a leader in strategic advice and has developed guidance to support information sharing, implement privacy by design and adopt safeguards for big data and technologies such as cloud computing and biometrics.

Expanding on his Victorian role, David is Professor of Information Law and Policy at La Trobe University’s Law School and Adjunct Professor of Law at the Deakin University Law School.

He leads the task force on Big Data and Open Data for the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy and is a member of the Privacy Advisory Group for UN Global Pulse.

David is now taking on international projects and challenging new assignments in other Australian jurisdictions.

Topic: What Tighter European GDPR will Mean for Marketers and CX Professionals

Nathan is the CEO of Greater Than X and creator of Data Trust by Design. He’s been designing ethical, verifiably trustworthy data-enabled propositions for most of his career working extensively in Europe, North America and Australasia. He’s a former startup CEO, Entrepreneur in Residence and going even further back, an elite athlete.

Topic: What Tighter European GDPR will Mean for Marketers and CX Professionals

There’s a growing market emphasis on personalised service, better customer experiences, and being available when and where the customers are. The challenges currently being experienced by organisations and their customers can be solved in new ways using next generation technologies such as conversational interfaces, machine learning, and A.I.

Mark co-founded inGenious AI to enable organisations to create a customer experience based on conversational language, as it’s the most natural interface for humans to use and understand. The inGenious AI chatbot CMS platform enables simple, familiar interactions via voice or text that people enjoy connecting with, and will change the way great customer service is perceived.

Chatbot Panel: Is Chatbot Failing? What can be done to optimize its Benefits?

Scott is a Corporate Venture Capitalist & Start-Up enthusiast. Partner with business leaders to help them identify and understand strategic opportunities, then help them deliver transformation to achieve customer growth. Scott is currently the Director of Commercial Development of IAG Firemark Labs and responsible with the development of opportunities between IAG and the companies they are investing in.

Topic: Chatbot in Financial Sector: Chatbot in improving FS customer satisfaction and engagement

Yelda is a passionate, data led and strategic loyalty marketer with over 14 years’ experience. Yelda has delivered growth of loyalty or member based programs and has managed high performing teams across a number of industries and brands including Coles, FlyBuys, Amcal and Guardian pharmacies and Officeworks. Now heading up the Customer Marketing team at Kathmandu, Yelda is responsible for the research and Insights of it’s 2 million strong loyalty member base as well as customer and marketing analytics, marketing automation and lifecycle programs. Yelda takes a customer centric view to business performance and is fascinated with how the human mind ticks. This inquisitive nature, provides a foundation for customer marketing strategies that not only enhances the customer experience but also improves the bottom line. Yelda has a vision and understands that data, strategy, technology and people are the key to successfully delivering on that vision.

Topic: Personalising the Customer Experience with Advanced Analytics

Christina is a content designer and analyst in a team driving the development and delivery of emerging channels at NAB with a focus on digital self-assist including NAB’s Virtual Assistant on chatbot, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa and Facebook Messenger. Prior to her role with NAB, Christina has also involve in customer engagement, CRM, and market research role with Queens Victoria Market, Jackie Duke Insights and CRC Research.

Chatbot Panel: Is Chatbot Failing? What can be done to optimize its Benefits?

Vicki is currently the Head of Advanced Analytics, Data Enablement and Visualisation for Commonwealth Bank’s Data and Analytics Centre of Excellence. She also heads up the Customer Engagement Engine (CEE) of CBA that combines both real-time and daily data and intelligences that drive the right customer experiences for its customers. She helps to create a comprehensive view of the customer, use advanced techniques to decide how best to interact with customer to meet their needs, delivering a consistent, seamless experience in every customer interaction, knowing them and helping them in the moments that matter.

Topic: CBA Case Study: How CBA leverage data and advanced analytics to meet customers’ needs and improve their experience

Tash is a forward-thinking business leader with more than 15 years of experience in successfully delivering strategic marketing outcomes across corporates, SMEs, and public sector organisations. Tash is passionate about helping organisations leverage digital strategies to streamline marketing processes, drive product innovations and deliver exemplary customer experiences.

Currently, Tash leads the Product, Marketing, Partnerships and Insights teams at State Trustees and is responsible for devising integrated marketing programs for diverse and fragmented markets with a focus on demand generation, retention, brand building and thought leadership.

Topic: Building a Digitally Engaged Brand

Dr. Tam Cao is currently working as Head of Technology at Intelex Vision Australia where he works on multiple projects that apply cutting edge AI technologies to the company’s products and services. Prior to working at Intelex Vision, Dr.Cao worked as Senior AI Software Engineer at Carsales.com where he helped to develop the image recognition tool Cyclops, Carsales’ innovative AI engine. He is passionate about artificial intelligence, machine learning and real-time image/video processing. He has been awarded Bachelor of Engineering from Swinburne University of Technology and a PhD in Electronic Engineering and Computer Vision from La Trobe University.

Topic: AI/ML for Targeted Marketing: From a Video Analytic Point of View