Leadership Forum 2023

BUILDING RESILIENCE
NEXTGEN Leadership Forum: Thursday 2 March 2023
4:00pm–6:40pm NZDT | 2:00pm–4:40pm AEDT | 11:00am–1:40pm SGT

This year's Leadership Forum theme “Building Resilience” couldn't have be more timely as cyber crime, economic uncertainty, war, pandemic, climate change (to list a few) continue to impact life and business globally. Today, successfully managing risk is dependent on resilience - the ability to successfully adapt to disruptions, the interplay and long-term consequences of which are impossible to understood at the time of impact.

Watch our internationally acclaimed keynote speakers from across the public and private sectors as they share their amazing stories and unique thought leadership on Building Resilience into our strategic thinking.

DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES, PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE

We thank Speaker Sponsors Oracle, AWS, SolarWinds, oSpace and Elastic Digital for their generous support enabling us to assemble such an amazing line-up of internationally acclaimed speakers from very diverse backgrounds spanning business, government and academia. Their unique perspectives provide practical intelligence for developing, applying and communicating resilient strategies for ethically balancing personal wellbeing and group survival in the organization of groups of people under stress - a continuing challenge for all decision-makers.

SHANE FITZSIMMONS AO AFSM
Former Commissioner Of Resilience NSW

Shane Fitzsimmons joined the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) as a volunteer in 1985. After becoming a salaried officer in 1994, he served in a variety of roles until being endorsed as NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner in 2007. Shane received widespread acclaim for his leadership under extremely difficult circumstances during the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. In 2020, he was appointed Head of Resilience NSW, a new government agency focused on disaster preparedness and recovery until it's disbandment in 2022. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) the same year.

SUDHAKAR RAMAKRISHNA
President and CEO, SolarWinds

Sudhakar Ramakrishna has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of SolarWinds since January 2021, joining the company just two weeks before the Orion security breach. He is a global technology leader with nearly 25 years of experience across cloud, mobility, networking, security and collaboration markets. Prior to joining SolarWinds he held senior leadership roles at Citrix®, Polycom, Inc., Motorola, Inc., 3Com Corporation and U.S. Robotics. Sudhakar is also a partner at Benhamou Global Ventures, a leading VC investing in technology startups.

MAJOR GENERAL
PAUL SYMON AO
Former Director-General, ASIS

Paul Symon graduated from the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1982 and enjoyed a highly successful military career spanning 35 years for which he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2007. Paul served as the Deputy Chief of the Australian Army from 2008-2011, and from 2011–14 was Director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation. Paul left the military in 2015 and subsequently served as Director-General of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) from 2017-2022.

DR LUCY HONE
Adjunt Professor, Canterbury University

Describing herself as a ‘pracademic’, Dr Lucy Hone is a global authority on Resilience who assists a host of organisations ranging from Fortune 500s, government agencies and law firms to community groups and schools to design and implement wellbeing and resilience initiatives. A bestselling author and public speaker, she is also regularly featured in the global media including The Guardian, The Washington Post and the BBC. Her keynote "Three Secrets of Resilient People" has become one of the most-watched TED talks and has been translated into 15 languages.