CONTENTS 5 ACS WELCOME SPEAKER Q&A 2 ROSS DAWSON Futurist & author 10 3 JODIE FOX Shoes of Prey, Co-founder & chief creative officer 4 CLIVE WHINCUP Woolworths, CIO 5 SHENG YEO OrionVM, CEO 6 BEN HEYES Commonwealth Bank, GM Cyber Security, Privacy & Operational Risk 7 JOSH GUEST B2Cloud, managing director & founder 8 GABE ZICHERMANN Gamification.co & EQ Magazine, Founder 9 MICHAEL WOODS Co-founder and creative director, Media Saints 10 MARTIN JANSE VAN RENSBURG Cisco, Alliance Manager Industry Solution Partners 11 BENJAMIN CHONG Partner at Right Click Capital 12 COERT DU PLESSIS Deloitte Analytics, Partner 13 NAOMI HENN Founder, TapIn 14 KEN MATTHEWS CIO Advisory, Founder & Director 15 STEPHANIE BENDIXSEN Co-host ABC’s Good Game 16 NISHAN DAVID Project manager, Adappt www.acs.org.au FUTURE PERFECTION What has made you an innovator? big picture, while others hone in on I am a futurist and entrepreneur, details. By having the flexibility to look ROSS DAWSON and that has come from always at, for example, big trends, while also futurist and author being interested in and excited being nit-picky, you can select what about what we are becoming and is being done correctly. Whatever where we are going. I have had a our natural preferences, we can all future-oriented perspective as to try to have both views. This can also what I want to become, and I have be done by having business partners managed to build that over time. and other forms of collaborations to Thinking about the future combine the two traits. is one thing, but it is also about What is the cornerstone for doing; actually making a change. competitive innovation? Collectively, what I am trying to Everything starts from curiosity; do with the companies is provide being able to always look into an example of what is possible. I ‘why’; why things work, how am not interested in doing what they work, what happens when other people have done. I want to you try something. Curiosity is do new things, and as a result, show fundamentally important and a different possibilities. The role of starting point for innovation. the futurist is to help people think You also need to have the tech about the future so they can act foundation to understand what is better today, and ultimately create a possible and how that can be done better future for humanity. using software and hardware to What traits have allowed you to understand the execution. That does maintain an innovative mindset? require experimenting and learning. Recently I re-did a list of current and The innovation then requires upcoming projects that I want to take some kind of a vision, and an on. It is about getting ideas from what absolutely critical part is collaboration. I see happening and filtering those As we move into an increasingly to prioritise and try to act on them. specialised world, collaborating with I am fortunate because of the others to achieve is key. nature of what I do in communicating Studies have shown that most with a lot of people. I have been successful people focus on two exposed to many things. That gives things: getting deeper expertise, Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, me exposure to different perspectives and building their own network; not entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, bestselling and ideas, and that is where I start to just who you know, but effectively author and media commentator. He is the Founding Chairman of see ideas to put on the project list. collaborating. The pace of change four tech companies. There are many traits, but one of is accelerating, and unless you are the very critical ones is to be about developing, you are a commodity. to consider both detail and the big You have to choose a space and say picture. Most people tend to have a you will become world class in that preference for either having a very space. Keep a t-shaped skillset; deep macro view of change by seeing the and broad. 2 www.acs.org.au CREATIVITY & OPPORTUNITY What was the genesis of your journey taking a risk is a normal and towards innovation? necessary part of the process. Not JODIE FOX The solving of a problem. I was only will you sound like the crazy Co-founder and chief creative officer, solving a problem of my own, in person in the room when you Shoes of Prey that I’d always liked shoes, but I explain the idea, but you will also never loved them because I couldn’t need to invent the process that find exactly what I was looking takes it from the too-hard-basket to for. Either it wasn’t quite the right the real world. colour, there was an embellishment At a broader level, the thing you I didn’t like, not quite the right need to remember is to just make heel height, and so on. When I a decision and see what happens. was travelling, in the same way Your bias to action is critical. Also, that you find someone who will do everything before you’re ready. make a custom suit for you, I You can bet you aren’t the only one found someone with whom I could thinking of doing this. First to move commission shoe designs. to action with slick execution wins. My shoe collection became Finally, believe passionately in what really exciting, and my girlfriends you’re doing. You’ll face a tonne of asked me where I was getting my nay-sayers, rejections and failures footwear. When I explained, they along the way. You’re going to need asked me to create shoes for them to passionately believe in this to too. Concurrently, my two business make it a successful reality. partners Mike and Michael were at Google and becoming really excited about the opportunities in online retail. They just needed an idea. We all came together and Shoes of Prey Jodie Fox is the chief creative officer (CCO) was born. and one of three co-founders of Shoes of How did you follow-up after that Prey, a website where women can design their initial step? perfect pair of shoes. Launched in 2009, Shoes We built a business plan to of Prey was the first company to offer women understand the opportunity better the opportunity to design their own shoes and map out next steps. We also online, breaking even within two months and gave it a name, met with potential hitting multi-million dollar revenues within suppliers, and started to look at two years. Today, Shoes of Prey is a global how the experience would work. multi-million dollar company with a syndicate With the benefit of hindsight, what of influential investors including Techcrunch would your advice be to others who founder Mike Arrington. Jodie Fox was named are keen to innovate? National Telstra Businesswoman of the Year, It’s hard to set out to innovate, private and corporate, in 2011, and has been but it’s easy to set out to solve a named in SmartCompany’s ‘Hot 30, Under 30’ problem that hasn’t been addressed. for the past three years. Innovation is the by-product; www.acs.org.au 3 FRESH FOOD FOR THOUGHT How did you get your start in the IT So the relevance of technology industry? has steadily progressed from the My first attraction to IT was workplace, into the home and through programming. I used finally into the pocket. The next Fortran at University and step is onto our wrists and then on afterwards decided to take a and in our bodies. This is such a programming course to include fertile ground for innovation, I don’t COBOL and BASIC. My first job see an end to it any time soon. was programming pre-PC micro- What do you personally wish to computers running CPM in Z80 achieve over the next few years when assembly language. I was always it comes to innovating within the role fascinated by the combination you play at Woolworth’s? of technology and the creative In Woolworths we are pushing on process of programming. There our Google journey which is really is a deep satisfaction in taking transforming the way we work. a ‘dumb obedient machine’ and Collaboration and the technology making it do useful things for that supports our workplace and humans. Unfortunately I don’t get provides our people with flexibility much time for programming these is a big area of innovation. I think days but I am really excited by back to the time before email and the opportunities in Woolworths. mobile phones and how differently Learning a new industry, after so we used to work then. Going many years in Financial Services, is forward I think we will see even a real motivator for me. greater changes in the way we work CLIVE WHINCUP What is it that you love most about driven by the ubiquity of computing CIO, Woolworths technology, and what is your power and high bandwidth favourite gadget? connectivity. Clive has delivered large scale transformation programs with What I love most about technology My proudest achievements have strategic business outcomes, delivers technology innovation and is that there is always something always been around working with new ways of doing business. He has held senior leadership positions new to learn. My favourite ‘gadget’ people and helping them to develop with Westpac, Lloyds, Banca Popolare di Milano, Bank of Scotland at the moment is Garmin GPS their careers by realising their and CariVerona Banking Group.