2025 Speakers
Keynote Speaker
John Bertrand
Challenge, Adventure & Disruption in Leadership
International yachtsman, businessman, and philanthropist, John Bertrand skippered Australia 11 to victory over the US team Liberty to win the 1983 America’s Cup.
The victory was considered by the Confederation of Australian Sport as the greatest team performance in 200 years of Australian sport’.
The victory broke 132 years of American domination, the longest-running streak in modern sporting history.
John competed in five America’s Cups and two Olympic Games over 25 years of international competition. He is a triple world sailing champion.
He has a Master of Science from MIT in Boston, graduated from Monash University with a Mechanical Engineering Honours degree and has an Honorary Doctorate from Victoria University. He is a Vice Chancellor Professorial Fellow at Monash University.
John is an entrepreneur. He built companies in the marine industry, property development and media industries, including co-founding and launching a digital media company on NASDAQ in the United States.
He was chairman and president of Swimming Australia from 2013 until October 2020 with the simple vision of becoming the world’s best in everything they undertook. Athletes, coaches, Administration.
He led the greatest turnaround in Australian Olympic history when as chairman in 2013 he took over a largely dysfunctional organisation coming out of the 2012 London Olympics with one gold medal to becoming the most successful Australian Olympic swim team of all time. The swim team’s 9 Olympic gold medals won in Tokyo represented over 50% of all gold medals won by the entire Olympic team.
John is chairman of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, whose members are the Legends of Australian sport. www.sahof.org.au
He is Patron of the inaugural Australian Youth and Women America’s Cup challenge / Barcelona 2024. www.teamaustraliachallenge.org
A Legend of the America’s Cup Hall of Fame and the Sport Australia Hall of Fame, John continues to mentor young aspiring Olympians and business start-up founders.
He still competes at the highest level, and loves it.
Event MC
Gemma Acton
Gemma Acton has worked across finance and broadcast media for more than two decades and is currently the Event MC and Director of News Operations at Seven West Media as well as a regular guest commentator and host on the network’s broadcast programs. Prior to moving into this senior leadership position, she spent seven years as the Network Finance Editor and a presenter at Seven News.
Before moving home to Australia in 2017, she was a presenter at CNBC in London and also spent a decade in investment banking and wealth management between Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and PIMCO in Europe, the U.S and Middle East. Gemma has an MBA/MA from Wharton and the Lauder Institute and is a CFA charterholder.
Away from the screen, Gemma is also the co-founder and director of the personal branding and presentation skills business, Everyday Showstopper, which helps clients to fundamentally restructure and improve their approach to how they present in public. She regularly joins private and corporate functions and charity events as an MC, facilitator or keynote speaker.
Sarah Court
Sarah commenced as an ASIC Deputy Chair on 1 June 2021.
Prior to joining ASIC, Sarah was a Commissioner at the ACCC for three terms from May 2018 to May 2021. At the ACCC Sarah led the Commission’s enforcement and investigation work, and contributed extensively to strategic priority setting, statutory decision-making and leadership across the agency on a range of complex economy-wide legal and economic issues.
Prior to her time at the ACCC Sarah was a Senior Executive Lawyer and Director at the Australian Government Solicitor where she led national teams in government litigation including restrictive trade practices, competition and consumer law, administrative law, employment law and law enforcement litigation.
Sarah has held board positions with the Law School and Centre for Regulation and Market Analysis at the University of South Australia.
Sarah holds a Bachelor of Arts (Jurisprudence) and a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) from the University of Adelaide, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Australian National University. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Appointment as Deputy Chair, Treasurer’s media release, 29 April 2021.
Stephanie Elliott
Stephanie Elliott is COBA’s Chief Operating Officer, leading COBA’s strategic engagement, reputational and business initiatives. Her team includes government relations, media, marketing and communications, events, business services and member functions.
Prior to joining COBA, Stephanie served as a judicial associate, a lawyer, a federal and state public servant, a ministerial adviser and a senior manager of government relations within the financial sector.
Outside of work, Stephanie is a board member of a non-profit organisation. Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Laws, a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Laws from the Australian National University.
Luci Ellis
Luci Ellis is Chief Economist for the Westpac Banking Group. She was previously Assistant Governor (Economic) at the Reserve Bank of Australia from December 2016 until October 2023. Prior to that, Luci was Head of Financial Stability Department at the RBA for eight years, spent two years on secondment at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, and held several other senior positions at the RBA over a three-decade career in central banking. Luci has been a member of the Australian Statistics Advisory Council, the statutory advisory body to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, since November 2015.
Luci holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales, a Masters in Economics degree from the Australian National University and a first-class Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree from the University of Melbourne.
Toby Evans
Toby Evans is the Head of Economic Crime at the Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet), overseeing all areas of economic crime related to the payments industry, including fraud, scams, money laundering, cybercrime and child exploitation. Toby participates in various public-private & industry groups, including the National Anti-Scams Centre and Economic Crime Forum. Before AusPayNet, Toby had a 20-year career in various leadership and operational roles within international and domestic intelligence, anti-corruption and law enforcement. Toby holds various academic and industry qualifications in leadership, investigations and economic crime.
Bob Hedges
Bob Hedges is Senior Advisor (former Chief Data Officer), and now a Senior Advisor to the business. During his time with Visa, Bob has been responsible for driving the company’s value creation from data and Visa’s global data programs. In this role, Bob drove the development of strategy and program execution for how Visa collects, manages, and uses data to create value for banks, acquirers, retailers, governments, and consumers. Bob led Visa’s data-related activities including data policy, data governance, product development, data analytics, consent management, data for purpose, and responsible data use. As Chief Data Officer, Bob chaired Visa’s Data Leadership Team and provided strategic and execution leadership to day-to-day data activities as well as efforts to explore new data technologies, consumer privacy, and strategic partnerships as potential sources of strategic differentiation. He was the principal architect of the creation of Visa’s Data Values, the company’s “North Star” for data use.
Bob has more than 30 years of experience in payments and financial services, including two decades of experience in financial services strategic consulting and 12 years of experience in senior operating and leadership roles at financial institutions. Prior to joining Visa, Bob was a partner at the global consulting firm A.T. Kearney where he led the global financial services practice. At A.T. Kearney, Bob’s work focused on retail banking, digital commerce, innovation and growth in retail financial services, and consumer data privacy. A hallmark of Bob’s consulting work was his consistent and persistent application of a data-driven analytical approach to assessing and modeling unmet consumer needs and developing solutions.
Bob has held senior executive leadership roles at Shawmut Bank, FleetBoston, and Fidelity Investments, with operating responsibilities for retail banking, retail investments, digital channels, consumer credit, and payments. Managing the digital evolution of financial services has been a major operating theme in all of his past executive roles. Bob is the past Chairman of NYCE, the regional ATM/debit network, and served on the advisory boards of multiple past industry groups including Integrion, Managing Your Money, and the Consumer Bankers Association. Early in his career, Bob gained consulting experience at the MAC Group (now Gemini Consulting) and First Manhattan Consulting Group. Bob is a highly regarded and widely-quoted industry commentator and author.
Bob earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Simon Kuestenmacher
Simon Kuestenmacher is a Director and Co-founder of The Demographics Group based in Melbourne, Australia. Simon holds degrees in geography from leading universities in Berlin and Melbourne and worked for several years as a business consultant with KPMG Australia.
In 2017 Simon, with Bernard Salt, co-founded The Demographics Group. The group provides specialist advice on demographic, consumer and social trends for business.
He presents on demographic and global trends that are shaping Australia today and into the future and his presentations and quirky observations are enjoyed by corporate, government and industry audiences alike.
Simon is a columnist at The New Daily newspaper and a regular contributor to The Australian newspaper; and he is also a media commentator on demographic and data matters.
Simon has amassed 600,000 global followers on social media, reaches over 35 million people every month and ranks as one of the world’s Top 10 influencers in data visualisation. If you can’t get enough of data that explains how the world works, make sure to follow him on Twitter or any of his other social channels.
Chris Riddell
PROVOCATIVE… POWERFUL… PERSUASIVE… THIS IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE FUTURIST. CHRIS RIDDELL IS AN AWARD-WINNING HUMAN FUTURIST, FORENSIC OPTIMIST AND ENERGISING CATALYST—COMBINING INSIGHT AND ENERGY TO PROVOKE, INSPIRE AND SURPRISE.
In the chaotic state of our world today, there’s never been a more critical time for optimism with rigour. The uncertainty, unpredictability and sheer pace of our hyper-connected world is Chris’ passion—and life’s work. His obsession with making sense of the discomfort and challenges of this rapidly changing landscape has powered his thinking for over 15 years.
Equally potent across myriad industries, Chris’ insight and expertise has benefitted trail-blazing start-ups, government bodies, and Fortune 500 companies. As a renowned strategist and senior business advisor, Chris has worked globally with some of the biggest and most influential brands and businesses on the planet including Jaguar Land Rover, Facebook, Australia Federal Police, Ebay, Vodafone and Macquarie Bank. His intuitive and instinctive approach to tracking global patterns and unlocking opportunities has had significant impact on how businesses—and humans—can take purposeful steps towards creating real and lasting positive impact.
And making an impact is what Chris is arguably most famous for… because being in a room with Chris Riddell is an immersive and transformational experience. A combination of rigorously detailed insights delivered with unparalleled enthusiasm, and dynamic screen content… all wrapped up in sensational showmanship—any amount of time spent with Chris is a wildly entertaining and deeply revolutionary experience.
His unique skill of taking what we know—and fear—about our world and encouraging changes in attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and mindsets—is critical to business and social transformation. No sector, subject or stone is left unturned in his quest to make sense of the challenging and disrupted world of ‘the future’.
This is the power of the Chris Riddell experience. It’s real… relatable… relevant… and revelatory.
Katrina Stuart
Katrina works at Australian Payments Plus as executive sponsor for the industry programme of work focusing on modernising Australia’s payments and migrating payments to the NPP. Prior to the formation of AP+, Katrina was Head of Engagement at NPP Australia working with financial institutions and fintechs to grow volumes and services on the NPP. Katrina has also worked for American Express in Sydney, Singapore and London, where she was responsible for growing third-party issuing and acquiring volumes in markets across South-East Asia. Katrina started her career with Booz Allen & Hamilton as a management consultant in their Financial Services Practice.
Luke Wilson
Luke Wilson is the Chief Operating Officer of AusPayNet, who specialise in collaborating with the Industry to ensure our vibrant network of more than 150 members and participants work together to support Australia’s thriving payments system.
Before joining AusPayNet, Luke served as Chief Customer Officer at Indue for over five years, and prior to that spent more than ten years working for First Data across the Asia Pacific region. These roles spanned many payments products and services including payments processing, card and merchant services, and fraud monitoring technology.
A key part of Luke’s current role is working with participants in the Australian payments market on driving transformation. This includes key initiatives such as the Cheques Transition Program, the High Value Clearing System ISO 20022 migration, the upgrade of the Community of Interest Network and the Future of Bulk Electronic Clearing System Program.
