Main Stage Agenda

Between shifting IR laws, rapid AI adoption, and ongoing economic pressures, senior HR leaders are managing an exceptionally complex landscape. This opening panel tackles the core operational trade-offs facing today’s people leaders – unpacking how to navigate these practical realities and turn day-to-day pressure into strategic impact. 

Standard generalist HR models are reaching their limit. As AI reshapes workflows and job design overnight, traditional operating structures are facing their biggest disruption in decades. This panel breaks down how to rebuild HR from transactional administration into strategic workforce architecture. Leading HR leaders share how they are restructuring teams and preserving human governance to build a commercially critical function. 

Buying talent on the open market is getting too expensive, but your next top performer is likely already on payroll. This practical session drops rigid tenure requirements to focus on actionable skills mapping. Find out how to break down internal silos, bridge capability gaps, and build seamless internal mobility pathways across your organisation.

Stay ahead of the workplace issues your leaders will be asking you about. Join Australian Business Lawyers and Advisor's plain English legal session that will give you the edge in the room.  Learn about the critical workplace and employment law developments for 2027 that every HR professional should be across. Using real case examples, a top employment lawyer will explain what the law means, what employers need to do and what HR should be addressing now. Get the knowledge you need to brief your leaders, identify risks and confidently guide your organisation through the year ahead.

Restructures, hiring freezes, and rapid workplace changes have quietly shifted tasks everywhere, but almost no one redesigned the job descriptions. Your best people are holding the gap together – and silently burning out. In this candid fireside chat, top people leaders explore the operational reality of quiet role expansion, how to spot overgrown jobs before a resignation letter arrives, and practical ways to rebuild sustainable role architecture.

Brand prestige and basic salary bumps are no longer enough to win the fight for top talent in today’s hyper-flexible market. This session brings together leading companies to decode what it actually takes to build a magnetic employer brand, from radical trust and non-linear internal mobility to genuine capability-building.

Four Olympic Games. Eight medals. One extraordinary journey. From emigrating from Malawi to reaching the Olympic podium at 16, her journey spans world-record triumphs, health setbacks, and navigating intense competition alongside her sister, Bronte.  

In this captivating keynote, Cate shares an unfiltered look at resilience, high-performance leadership, and navigating extreme pressure—offering a powerful lesson in grit, brave leadership, and pushing past perceived boundaries. 

How do you lead large-scale organisational transformation across diverse global markets without losing team culture? Drawing from two decades of senior leadership across Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, this dynamic CEO shares practical insights on building an agile, customer-centric workforce and driving change in a global business. 

As HR remits expand without extra headcount or time, adopting AI has shifted from a strategic choice to an operational necessity. In this session, Anne Tosky, CPO at ELMO Software, shares an honest look at building an AI-driven HR team—from setting up automated workflows to establishing dedicated experimentation hours. Delegates will walk away with practical change tactics to save hours across daily HR processes and position HR as the leader of AI adoption across the business.

The bar for HR leadership is shifting rapidly from generalist execution to commercial influence. In this candid conversation, top people leaders unpack the five non-negotiable capabilities—from financial fluency to sharp "conversation muscles"—needed to drive real business impact and lead the function's next era.