Agenda

This carefully crafted program combines inspiring keynotes with informal activities and time to build real relationships.

Monday

17:00

Delegate registration

17:00

Welcome Drinks & Nibbles: Hosted by Material

17:30

TechTalks

Looking to see the latest products available? A fast paced & fun session, our partners have 10 minutes to demo their product’s features and benefits. But when their time is up, it’s up!
This is your opportunity to get updated on the latest technology trends. Grab yourself a drink and pop in to the TechTalks most relevant to you and your business.

View the TechTalks agenda here

Tuesday

8:00

Breakfast & Welcome

8:40

Opening Comments

Nick Barnett, AI Practice Lead, Aware Super

8:50

International Keynote: Data, Infrastructure, Activation – Future-Proofing AI-Driven Marketing Ops

Giovanni Brusetti, Director, Technical Product Management, Marketing Technology, Epic Games (Fortnite)

When it comes to customers, trust and loyalty are hard to build and easy to break, and when using AI, perilously so. With first-party data at the core of modern marketing strategy, MarTech leaders face an almighty struggle in turning data into actionable, personalised communications. In our opening international keynote, Giovanni Brusetti from Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, will examine the foundational layers to prepare for AI-driven marketing operations.

The big three areas this session will delve into are: the data layer, why a robust data infrastructure is non-negotiable, and what practical steps you can take to get it under control; the infrastructure layer, and how to set up the systems that power AI, from machine learning models for segmentation to reinforcement learning; the activation layer, and strategies for integrating AI into multi-channel activation. Giovanni says to expect a build-first mindset, and a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to make AI work in your MarTech stack. No preaching, no BS – just experience sharing!

9:25

The 2026 Marketer’s Playbook – Decisioning, Democratisation and Disruption

Ben Gethin-Damon, Enterprise Account Executive, Braze
Martin Brown, Enterprise Account Executive, Braze

The last five years of marketing automation will look nothing like the next. What was once complex, resource-intensive, and siloed is fast becoming seamless, intelligent, and accessible across marketing, product and technical teams.

This session explores how democratisation of data across all channels coupled with AI decisioning are re-shaping customer experiences and rewriting the job descriptions of modern marketing teams. Attendees will walk away empowered to become change agents within their organisations, unlocking new opportunities for growth, retention, and efficiency by harnessing the next wave of marketing technology.

10:00

Fireside Chat: How SBS Build MarTech Leadership for a Collaborative Cross-Functional Culture of Excellence

Nick Barnett, AI Practice Lead, Aware Super
Uma Oldham, Director of Marketing (Acting), SBS

The art of being a MarTech practitioner is a unique thing, and, as has already been explored on this programme, there is no set template for ownership across different organisations. One thing, however, is clear: the need for cross-functional collaboration is essential. Relying on MarTech unicorns is not the answer. You will either need more tech-savvy marketers, or more customer-focused digital/tech professionals – if not both. Central to this is building cross-functional leaders.

In this conversation, SBS’s Uma Oldham will be exploring how their decentralised model of MarTech ownership, along with their single-stack approach, has allowed for the right collaborations to take place, between the right people at the right moments. Sharing insights from her almost decade of experience at SBS and the changes that have taken place, Uma will discuss how the qualitative art of leadership leads to quantitative results in journey mapping, customer attention and activation.

10:30

Coffee Break & Networking Hosted By Twilio

11:00

Partner Breakout: The Golden Profile – Your Secret Weapon for AI-Powered Marketing

Blake Rowley, Solution Engineer, Twilio Segment

Explore the future of AI-driven marketing with the power of the Golden Profile. Learn how to transform diverse data into actionable insights for personalised and relevant customer communications.

Blake Rowley, Solution Engineer at Twilio Segment, will cover key insights, touching now how a unified Golden Profile captures real-time, persistent, and contextual customer insights to drive smarter marketing decisions. From there we’ll look at how to seamlessly integrate behavioural, transactional, and engagement data into a comprehensive customer view for highly personalised experiences.

Explore how predictive analytics and recommendation engines enhance targeting, engagement, and conversions, and learn how leading brands like Trade Me have leveraged these strategies to boost customer engagement, conversion rates, and revenue growth.

Partner Breakout: Scaling Up, Strategically – Inside Safety Culture’s Content Game

William Lloyd, Enterprise Account Executive, Contentful
Dan Pugh, Head of Acquisition, SafetyCulture

In this Q&A, Dan Pugh (SafetyCulture) and William Lloyd (Contentful) explore how SafetyCulture transformed its marketing function from reactive firefighting to proactive strategic leadership by restructuring its technology stack and empowering teams with greater autonomy.

You’ll gain insight as to why future-proofing your content strategy is critical amidst rapid AI-driven disruption and shifting digital demands, and how to maintain simplicity in content operations as you scale across teams, regions, and use cases.

Learn practical lessons from a major content platform migration, including how to streamline systems to enable speed, enhance team autonomy, and sharpen strategic focus, letting you stay ahead on the fast and unpredictable path AI is propelling us forward on.

Partner Breakout: Get Your Data Right to Unlock Agentic AI for Marketing

Mark Drasutis, Head of Value, APJ, Amplitude

AI only delivers true value for your organisation when it’s powered by clean, governed, and trusted data. That’s why leading marketing teams are prioritising strong foundations in data governance and literacy.

In this session we’ll explore how those data foundations enable the rise of Agentic AI in marketing and how this can enable marketers to automatically identify key customer moments, optimise campaigns and customer journeys in real-time, driving measurable impact.

We’ll also delve into cross-industry use-cases of AI-driven marketing, and the role of a composable stack, with Amplitude’s integrations bringing agility across leading customer engagement platforms and CDPs

Whether you’re just starting your AI journey or looking to level up, you’ll walk away equipped to start building a clear roadmap to develop smarter, faster, and more autonomous marketing engines.

11:30

Panel Discussion: Ownership in MarTech – Who Should, and Who Does, Own What in the Digital Marketing Ecosystem?

Moderated By: Nick Barnett, AI Practice Lead, Aware Super
Colin Cantlie, General Manager, Marketing Technology, Ticketek
Lucy Jack, Head of Media, Member Marketing & Analytics, HCF
Lauren Dawber, Senior Director Media, Operations and Performance, Optus

There are tech savvy marketers, and there are customer conscious technology/product leaders. There are MarTech stacks owned by the product and/or the technology function and there are organisations where that ownership of marketing platforms and related customer data fully, or partly, sits in marketing. No one is scaling the cliff-face in quite the same way, but there are some trends emerging that indicate a maturity curve as to where this function is more likely to sit, or what is more likely to work for an organisation at a certain maturity.

With marketing technology now encompassing everything from data analytics and personalisation to content supply chains, in this panel we’ll explore the best organisational design for MarTech success and get into the real issue of what sits with marketing and what sits with other teams (such as Product or Technology) when owning MarTech capabilities.

Join as we discuss:

Where does the scope of MarTech start and stop, should it encompass all related tools and platforms to support and enable Marketing including data, automation, and measurement or are some of these tools/platforms outside of this function?
Does it matter where MarTech sits? Should a B2B, for example, conceptualise their ‘maturity’ level against not having MarTech ownership under their CMO?
Who should ultimately be accountable for ROI from MarTech investments – Marketing, Digital, Product, Technology or a dedicated MarTech function?
How do you build the exec level sponsorship into your MarTech strategy, and how do you asses the maturity of that ELT in MarTech terms?
Marketing are the key end users leveraging the platform to deliver value/benefit, but Technology wants to maintain control of the platform, who should have the final say in vendor selection and tool configuration?
How do you ensure that wherever the function sits, there is still buy-in and support from all required teams to enable ongoing capability health and optimisation?

12:15

Partner Breakout: Trust, the Hidden Currency of Growth – How Leading Brands Turn Integrity into Impact

Ian Dejong, Principle Strategist & Certified Information Privacy Technologist, Digital Strategy Group, APAC, Adobe

Trust is no longer a feel-good concept — it’s a hard-edged, measurable, and monetisable business asset. Where competition is fierce and misinformation abounds, trust determines whether customers engage, stay loyal, and spend.

This session will reveal the trust strategies that separate market leaders from the rest. You’ll discover why brands with higher trust scores enjoy stronger NPS and retention, why transparency and control remain untapped growth levers, and how privacy can be transformed from a back-office obligation into a customer-facing advantage.

In an era of declining institutional trust, the brands that operationalise trust will win more than loyalty — they’ll secure sustainable, long-term growth. Leave with a blueprint to make trust your most powerful competitive advantage.

Partner Breakout: The Experience Dividend – How Better Journeys Drive Business Growth

Bella Ho, Corporate Account Executive, Contentsquare
Simon Darcy, Head of Product, PointsBet
Donovan Yong, Principal, Services Business Development, Mastercard

In today’s competitive market, businesses are no longer judged solely on products or price, but on the quality of experiences they deliver. Every interaction — from browsing to purchase to service — either strengthens or erodes the customer relationship.

Businesses are rewarded for getting these journeys right: higher retention, stronger loyalty, and increased revenue. This session explores how brands can orchestrate and optimise better customer journeys, and why those journeys are now central to sustainable growth.

Partner Breakout from Branch: Don’t Lose Your Customers! Lessons Learned from Consulting with Top Brands on their Digital Strategy

Reed Kuhn, Head of Business Strategy, Branch

In this session, you’ll hear the unvarnished lessons from years of advising brands on their digital initiatives and mobile strategies—what works, what tanks, and why.

From spotting your “killer” use case to dodging the traps others fall into, you’ll walk away with quick wins you can deploy immediately in your companies and a clear-eyed view of how AI will reshape the way users discover, use, and engage with your brand.

12:40

Networking Lunch

13:40

Think Tank 1: Future-Proofing the Key Pillars of MarTech for an AI-Driven Ecosystem

Giovanni Brusetti, Director, Technical Product Management, Marketing Technology, Epic Games (Fortnite)

Getting the foundations of your stack is hard, it’s not easy to make sure all the hands are holding together.

Join to discuss:

What’s the biggest data infrastructure nightmare you’ve encountered when trying to implement AI in your marketing stack?
How do you decide which infrastructure components to build versus buy when setting up for AI with limited budgets?
How are you measuring success when AI is making activation decisions across multiple channels simultaneously?
How do you balance delivering quick AI wins to stakeholders whilst laying the proper implementation groundwork?
What’s your strategy for evolving your MarTech stack to integrate new AI tools without creating fragmentation?

Think Tank 2: Why We Need to Work Out Our MarTech Operating Models

Alison Wilson, Group Solution Manager – Marketing & Loyalty, Endeavour Group
Hayley Spring, Senior Marketing Manager, Targeted Marketing – Retail, Endeavour Group

It’s a struggle working out who should own which components of a complex ecosystem.

Join to discuss:

How do you define the boundaries of MarTech ownership between Marketing, IT, Data and Operations teams?
What skills and competencies are most critical when building a team to manage your MarTech operating model?
How can organisations structure themselves to deliver seamless omnichannel experiences when MarTech systems are distributed across teams?
Where should data enablement and digital analytics capabilities sit to maximise marketing effectiveness?
What governance models work best to balance innovation, compliance and operational efficiency across your MarTech ecosystem?

Think Tank 3: Bringing Creativity to the Content Supply Chain for Personalisation at Scale

Michael Drew, Senior Director, Digital Commerce, Customer & Commercial Leadership, ASEAN and South Pacific, The Coca-Cola Company

AI has disrupted the traditional content creation process, which means it’s more important than event to maintain brand authenticity.

Join to discuss:

How do you ensure your tech helps build customer trust rather than fracture it?
How can AI enhance rather than replace creative teams in the content supply chain?
What practical steps can organisations take to implement “customer contextual content automation”?
How are leading brands successfully integrating AI into their DAM and CDP ecosystems?
What are the realistic applications of generative AI for content personalisation beyond the initial hype?

Think Tank 4: Navigating and Implementing MarTech’s Role in CX Journeys

Anna Bohler, Head of Digital Experience, Big Red Group

The last piece of the personalisation puzzle; the opportunities transformative and the challenges complex.

Join to discuss:

What strategies are working to solve email deliverability challenges in a complex consent and privacy landscapes?
How should we approach agentic AI for marketing applications beyond customer service?
What shifts are needed in web design and development to optimise for both AI uptake and evolving customer behaviour patterns?
How can marketing and CX collaborate to create unified journeys that delight customers?
What’s the right balance between automation and human interaction in loyalty programmes that bridge online and offline experiences?

14:40

Wine Tasting Hosted by Bynder

Golf

Paint & Sip

Sit back and have fun while our talented artists guide you step-by-step to create your very own masterpiece.

Session details TBC

Pickleball

Workshop: The Trust Recipe – A Practical Workshop on Cookie Compliance

James Hartwright & Joel Leslie, Martech Specialists

What would you do if a user asked for all their personal data or wanted cookie tracking stopped? What are cookies really doing on your site? And in the world of 2024 web traffic, why does this matter?

For our 2025 workshop you’ll walk away with an understanding of what it is you’re using, how to make smarter decisions about consent and build in trust to your digital estate.

You’ll get hands on, running a free scanner on your own page, review the cookie owners you see and decide on the level of appropriateness. You’ll gain an insight of global consent expectations and where we might be headed in Australia.