Global Speakers

Topic: Service Design Success Stories: Making Strategic Design a Critical Competency for your Organizations

Amrita was the former Head of Customer Strategy and Experience Design. Prior to Suncorp Amrita has held Executive roles in various organisations, including Metro Trains Melbourne. Coming from the USA, Amrita has over 12 years of Management Consulting experience with organisations like Deloitte and Accenture.  She is a dedicated Melbournian, loves the coffee, and on the weekend can be found at a jazz bar with a glass of single malt.

Topic: Service Design – A Crucial Part of Tomorrow’s Organizations

Ipsita Ticku is the Head of Design at Trotjot. She has over thirteen years of experience in service design and digital experience design. Over the years she has worked in both private and public sectors designing and delivering several high profile, high impact, large scale projects bringing together user needs and business goals to create award-winning products & services across multiple channels and digital platforms.

Ipsita is deeply interested in exploring possibilities with technology, that keep people meaningfully engaged in society, and with life at large.

She has a Masters with honours in Design Sciences and Digital Media (Sydney Uni), a Bachelors degree in Architecture (Pune University) and also holds a Graduate Certificate in Interaction Design (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing).

Topic: Service Design Success Stories: Making Strategic Design a Critical Competency for your Organizations

Michael Weeding, Director Digital at AMP, Michael is a member of the customer experience and transformation leadership team and is working to develop compelling digital solutions for all AMP customers and Adviser aligned to the group transformation strategy.

Michael has over 20 years’ experience in Digital strategy, Internet marketing and management roles across a range of industries; in global corporations and start-up companies. Prior to joining AMP he was Head of Digital for Citibank Australia.  He is an active member of the digital community within Australia and Asia and blogs regularly on all things digital.  He has a BA from UTS Sydney, an MBA from Charles Sturt University and has studied Innovation and Design at Stanford University.

Topic: Panel Discussion: Ensuring Relevance and Rigour in Design to Improve Organizational Uptake

Ginger is an executive consultant and practice leader with deep experience in end to end organisational change management. With approximately 15 years of experience implementing change and culture initiatives for complex transformation projects, she has led the design, development and delivery of fit-for-purpose, cross-functional solutions for organisations, both locally and internationally.

She facilitates change and thought leadership with emerging solutions and trends to cope with continuously shifting market trends, competition, technologies, customer demands. As a leader in the field of change management and organisational culture, she fosters and develops teams and leaders. Her experience leading organisation wide programs across multiple industries has provided her with a broad experience in supporting and working with a wide customer base, with complex challenges in major transformational programs and initiatives.

Topic: Embedding Design Thinking and Shifting How Your Organization Runs (Enterprises)

Elizabeth comes from a background in social and public policy research. She is now working in the Service Design and Research team at Uniting Communities, with a focus on Community Service development. She is leading the implementation of the Service Design Toolkit, an innovative way of working with Service Managers and stakeholders to ensure the continuous success of services.

Topic: Co-creating Services: Telstra Designing with Customers, For Customers

Leandro Gama is a design evangelist. Embedding design values and philosophy across organisations is an integral part of my role and my life. He does that by demonstrating the benefits of human-centred design through direct engagement with Telstra enterprise customers, facilitating internal training sessions for various stakeholder groups, and by mentoring staff across multiple levels on design skills and execution.

Topic: Embedding Design Thinking and Shifting How Your Organization Runs

Selena Griffith is an experienced Design Thinker and entrepreneur. She is currently seconded into UNSW Engineering as The Scientia Experience Manager where she facilitates innovation, entrepreneurship and cross-disciplinary collaboration. She also works in the Faculty of Business, as a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Social Impact where she teachers Social Innovation and Design for Social Impact. As a Senior Lecturer of Design Studies at UNSW Art and Design she coordinated courses in Design Management and Practice, Idenity, Branding, Sustainability, Whole Systems Design and Cross Disciplinary Collaboration for Innovation. Originally qualifying for a Bachelor of Industrial Design, Honors, Selena has worked as a Design Manager in a variety of contexts from in-house to international consultancy and in her own consultancy.

Griffith researches in Design Management, Sustainability, Collaboration, Social Innovation, Futures and Education. Her interest in creating positive futures through transformative design thinking as led her to produce tools and methods to assist with the development of innovation, collaboration and design thinking skills. Selena is very interested in how organisations can most effectively utilise design thinking to deliver more sustainable products and services. Co-creation and nexus – where people from different backgrounds and professions come together in collaborations that result in innovation or new perceptions has fascinates Griffith and she not only researches in this area but has also developed courses to teach the skills needed to run multidisciplinary creative collaborations.

Griffith was awarded a Global Future Leaders Award from the World Human Resources Development Congress in 2011 and has been accepted into the highly competitive Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Catalyst Program for her work on The Island Innovation Lab.

Topic: Delivering Positive Customer Experiences Through Human-centered Service Design

Rohit is a senior leader with over 18 years’ experience in strategy and customer experience, across Financial Services, Government and Consumer Goods. Rohit is driven by curiosity and passionate about solving problems that truly make a difference to the lives of customers and communities.

He is currently the Customer & Digital Program Director at the Department of Planning, Industry & Environment, responsible for Customer Experience, Digital & Innovation. Prior to his current role, Rohit spent 10 years at AMP, and in his last role there was the Head of Business Growth and Performance, responsible for driving customer centred growth.

Rohit has a Master’s in International Business from Melbourne University, an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, is a Design Thinking Practitioner and a Certified Practising Marketer (CPM) from the Australian Marketing Institute.

Topic: Human-Centered & ITIL Service Design

Katrina Macdermid is an ITIL4 Global Ambassador, Author and Creator of an innovative framework; Human Centred ITIL Service Design. Holding the revered certification of ITIL Masters, Katrina has a solid background in designing and implementing innovative IT operating  and support models that puts the customer experience at the heart of all ITIL processes.  Katrina has been responsible for the successful implementation of key strategic programs and design thinking service management frameworks of Australia’s largest and iconic global organisations.  Katrina is a well-known speaker and lecturer on Human Centred ITIL Service Design, speaking frequently at conferences on the subject.

Katrina’s framework integrates the “human experience” of IT Service Management.  The framework focuses on needs, environment, motivations and perhaps most importantly, the desire to of users; shifting the design of IT Services from features and functions to a focus on customers and customer outcomes.

Topic: Data-driven Design: How Big Data & Analytics Will Empower the Future of Customer Experience and Service for NAB

Michael is a Director with the ATO; his current role is in design and implementation of the Single Touch Payroll program. Michael has over 25 years’ experience in tax administration with most of the last 20 years focusing on the implementation on new Government initiatives including the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, Tax Consolidations as well as working on the ATO Change Program. For the previous two years Michael was seconded to the Treasury where he was the policy lead on the development of Single Touch Payroll.

Michael chairs the Single Touch Payroll Design Working Group which works collaboratively with a broad range of industry stakeholders on Single Touch Payroll design issues.

Topic: Roundtable Discussion: Service Design Tools to Supercharge Your Service Design Game

Shawn’s former role as Director of Service Systems Reform in the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet coordinated a whole-of-government approach to the design and delivery of social services across the state to ensure all Victorians have the capacity and opportunity to realise their potential.

Prior to this Shawn worked as the Director of Strategy and Development in Aboriginal affairs with responsibilities for managing strategic planning, business operations, policy implementation, and aligning strategy and culture for high performance.

Shawn holds a Bachelor of Business and an MBA is currently completing a Masters of Law and an Executive Masters of Public Administration.

Shawn has a passion for bringing business, government and the community together to create shared value and achieve collective impact outcomes.

Prior to working in government Shawn worked in various roles for the AFL in Victoria and Queensland focused on growing engagement across traditional and emerging markets.

Topic: Moving Between Complicated and Complex – How Articulating “Value” in Different Environments Can Help Large Organizations and B2B Corporates Make Impact

Currently leading the design and research stream for a complicated and complex variety of customers in Westpac Institutional Bank’s Customer Journey Lab Tobias is advocating for a variety of sophisticated customer and partner needs.

Tobias believes that design is a force for positive change, and is interested in how we can better approach the complex problems facing the world today to create a better future for people and our environment.

Tobias has experience in large scale architectural projects, financial services and airlines experiences. Most recently he has worked with a travel IT services providers to improve traditional approaches to designing and implementing new services to their partner airlines.

His approach to Human Centred Design and the world is informed by his experience as an architect, university educator and human being.

Topic: Customer Journey Mapping: What to Do When They Don’t Work

Ben Crothers has been in the digital industry from when Netscape ruled the web, and putting ‘Under Construction’ banners on websites was seen as the right thing to do. During this time, he has accrued a wealth of experience in brand, customer research, design, development and strategy across a diverse range of organisations including Vodafone and Telstra, Bendigo Bank, Resmed, and the Australian Human Rights Commission. He is currently Principal Design Strategist at Australian software company Atlassian, where he trains and coaches in design practice (including service design), and facilitates strategic workshops.

Ben combines Design Thinking practice with sketching and visualization techniques, to explore problems, explain concepts, and envision new experiences more effectively. He is currently one of the judges for Good Design Awards Australia, and author of “Presto Sketching: The Magic of Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design” and “Draw in 4!”.

Topic: Workshop: Service Design That Delights – Establishing Solid Design Systems To Inform Better User Experience – Explore Different Ways To Generate Ideas For Different Touchpoints And How To Communicate The New Service

Hayden McDonnell has been part of the fabric at the Bendigo Bank for the past 20 years, and is on a mission to bring a different way of problem solving to the organisation using Design Thinking, and Lean Start up as the way. Hayden’s expertise in customer experience design has helped shape the way that Bendigo’s retail stores can engage with its customers and communities into the future. With a people over process mindset and a dress code of band T-shirts before business suits; Hayden brings energy and engagement to make sense of complexity from the problem at hand.

Topic: Panel: Service Design Success Stories: Making Strategic Design a Critical Competency for your Organizations

As an Experience Lead for Microsoft Global Consulting, she works across the APAC region helping organizations on their digital transformation journey by helping them re-imagine and transform their employee experiences, customer engagements, business models and operations. Envisioning transformative experiences by bridging the gap between people and technology, and empowering organizations to achieve more. Truly understanding end-user’s needs and creating solutions through human-centricity and inclusiveness, bringing experiences to life through useful, usable technology.

Topic: Roundtable Discussion: Service Design Tools to Supercharge Your Service Design Game – User Journey Mapping

Tudor is a senior user experience design professional and has been developing user centred interventions since the mid 90’s. He believes that computer systems and websites should be simple, easy and enjoyable to use. This means his work is centred on people and the real world needs and issues they encounter day to day.

Tudor’s experience has been gained working for some leading organisations within Australia, including: Transport for NSW, Vodafone, Optus, Compaq, Freehills, Thomas Dux and Macquarie University. Some of his many user experience assignments included; designing real-time GIS based mapping systems, complex GUI interfaces, large scale intranets and online customer sales & service portals. He has GradCert in Human Computer Interaction and Master of Internet Communications. Tudor is also a dynamic and entertaining speaker and loves presenting.

Topic: Roundtable Discussion: Service Design Tools to Supercharge Your Service Design Game – Service Blueprinting

Sharni Allen-is a digital professional with 20 years of experience delivering digital experiences across web, mobile and platform. Working with Sydney’s best and brightest has enabled her to hone her craft. From coordinating multidisciplinary agile teams, engage with stakeholders across all levels of business and government to planning and delivering product roadmaps has led to award winning success delivering digital products and services for both the Private and Public sector, across a broad range of roles from Digital Producer, UX Director and Product Manager.

Topic: Feeding Service Design into The Broader Organisation Practices and Moving to A Service-Driven Mentality

With over 21 years’ experience in the field of design, both as a practitioner and leader, Paras has worked across the globe helping large enterprises in their design transformation journey. In his last few roles in Australia, Paras has lead design teams at Commonwealth Bank, WooliesX, and ANZ Bank. Currently, heading the UX Design team at Tabcorp, Paras is responsible to uplift experience design capabilities and bring customer centricity to the business.

Topic: How Organizations can Use Their Service Design and Customer Experience to Better Fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibilities

As a Digital Advisor, Melissa assists business leaders in imaging, envisioning and designing their future digital state.

This is done through relationships with the CxOs of Microsoft clients, existing and new, guiding them through established and delivering transformation programs, in partnership with Microsoft, to ensure successful outcomes.

Her passion is as a digital transformation evangelist within Microsoft and the wider business community.

Melissa has over 20 years’ experience designing and implementing leading-edge digital and technology solutions and strategies across a wide range of clients in multiple industries and government, in Australia, the United States and Europe.

Melissa has worked as a global product manager for Australian and multi-national technology companies, managing clients on the Forbes 100 list. This experience has provided her with the in-depth knowledge required to deliver large complex solutions to meet client requirements.

Her expertise in digital, knowledge, information and data systems means she is able to create innovative outcomes for her clients founded on proven technologies and platforms. Since 2009 Melissa has focused on the development and delivery of digital customer communication solutions. These solutions focus on ‘anywhere’ personalised messaging ensuring an engaging customer experience.

Melissa is passionate about digital and new media innovation. She has published papers on the application of digital technologies on the customer experience and the impact of digital on the future of information management. She has presented at multiple industry and technical forums on the application of new and future technologies to improve the customer experience.

Topic: Workshop: Service Design That Delights – Establishing Solid Design Systems To Inform Better User Experience – Explore Tools and Approaches for Designing and Communicating a Service

Fran, one of IDEOs original Partners, pioneered service design in companies across the USA and Europe. Innovating services and helping organisations become self-sufficient by developing their own capability. The startup bug bit Fran in her time in Silicon Valley and she left IDEO to immerse herself in emerging technology businesses. Then shifting gears again, she joined the Westpac Group to embed design at all levels inside the large corporation.

Fran founded ThinkingDesign with Michelle Houtman to help companies scale the adoption of service design with a combination of bespoke tools and coaching, so teams could ‘learn by doing’.

Topic: Workshop: Service Design That Delights – Establishing Solid Design Systems To Inform Better User Experience – Learn Different Ways to Gain Empathy for The User and Translating It Into Meaningful and Tangible Insights

Peter is the Founder of The Shopper Collective, a specialist shopper strategy consultancy, which uses shopper research to develop growth strategies for clients.

Peter’s enduring fascination with shoppers has lasted more than 25 years and has led to projects with many of the global brands in FMCG, Liquor, Pharma, Telco, Banking and Fashion.

Before founding The Shopper Collective, Peter worked for some of the world’s largest market research and advertising agency groups, including stints at TNS (now Kantar) as Head of Retail & Shopper Research, at Y&R as Head of Shopper Marketing, and at Cheil as Retail Planning Director

As a seasoned keynote speaker on shopper marketing, Peter has spoken at industry events in Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Australia.

Peter is currently writing a book on shopper marketing strategy, which is due for release later this year.

Topic: Workshop: Service Design That Delights – Establishing Solid Design Systems To Inform Better User Experience – Explore Different Ways to Generate Ideas for Different Touchpoints and How to Communicate the New Service

Jason has twenty five years experience as a retail designer and retail brand strategist working with some of London’s top brand agencies. In 2001 he started Futurebrand’s design studio in Sydney with Dan Cooper.

Two years later they co founded Public Design Group. Specialising in service retail, the team are now working in nine different countries across Asia and partnering with world-class digital agencies such as Protein One in Sydney and Fitch HK.

Jason is a believer in the efficacy of design thinking as a tool for business improvement. “Good design influences every aspect of a brand, from customer experience, to internal culture, to business performance. Our work penetrates far beyond the walls of the store, ensuring integrity in the delivery of an idea”.