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Financial Services Symposium: Sydney

Location

Illumina, 1 Elizabeth street, Sydney CBD

Date

10 September 2025

Agenda

Timing
Sessions
9:00am - 10:00am

Registration, Networking & Coffee

10:00am - 11:20am Keynote Room

Keynote
Push the limits of possible in Financial Services

Hear from global and local AWS executives, alongside some of Australia's most successful financial services thought leaders, who will share their perspectives on how they are reinventing how they build and deliver for customers, transforming customer engagement at scale and reimagining modernisation.

Speakers
David Hyman - CEO, Lendi
Ana Marinkovic - Group Executive Personal Bank, NAB
Robert Schulz - Senior Vice President, Global Technology, NASDAQ
Scott Mullins - Managing Director, Worldwide Financial Services, AWS
Jamie Simon - Director of Financial Services, AWS

11:20am - 11:50am

Morning Tea

11:50am - 12:20pm Breakout Room

Breakout Room 1
Mantel Group Breakout

Breakout Room 2
From Infrastructure to Innovation: A Unified Security Journey for FSI in the Cloud

How do you navigate the intersection of innovation and security in financial services cloud adoption? Join PEXA's Anish Dharmakkan for an insider's look at how they've mastered secure cloud transformation with AWS and Palo Alto Networks. Learn how to confidently deploy AI-powered services while maintaining ironclad security. This practical session delivers actionable strategies for FSI leaders ready to accelerate their cloud journey without compromising protection. Discover how unified security platforms are becoming the cornerstone of successful cloud innovation in finance.

Speakers
Anish Dharmakkan - Head of Security Services, PEXA
Riccardo Galbiati - Regional CSO - JAPAC,  Palo Alto Networks

12:30pm - 1:00pm Breakout Room

Breakout Room 1
Eightcaps journey to autonomous operations

Dive into Eightcap's groundbreaking implementation of autonomous AI that's revolutionising global trading operations. Learn how they transformed traditional SRE and SOC functions into an intelligent, self-operating system using Q Developer CLI, Strands, and AgentCore. With a 94% reduction in investigation time and significant cost efficiencies, Eightcap shares their practical blueprint for deploying autonomous agents supporting their rapidly scaling operations without adding headcount. Their journey from initial SRE automation to enterprise-wide "agentic everywhere" demonstrates how organisations can align business structure and technology strategy to rapidly capitalize on the agentic AI opportunity.

Speaker
Bryn Newell - CIO, Eightcap

Breakout Room 2
Redefining Payment Infrastructure: The TNS Global Cloud Journey

Discover how Transaction Network Services (TNS) transformed from a regional payment gateway to a global payment orchestration leader by leveraging AWS's innovative cloud-native services. This journey showcases the evolution from on-premises data-centre challenges to a truly modern, API-first, omnichannel, payments processing platform. Hear how the platform has scaled to support hundreds of millions of transactions monthly across diverse payment environments such as retail point-of-sale, convenience stores, unattended terminals, EV charging stations, vending machines, parking systems, and mass transit ticketing worldwide.

Speaker
John Tait - Global Managing Director Payments Market, Transaction Network Services

1:00pm - 1:45pm

Lunch

1:45pm - 2:15pm Breakout Room

Breakout Room 1
Rising Risks, Smarter Solutions: Insurance's AI Revolution

Unlock the practical roadmap to AI-powered insurance transformation. Through real-world case studies, discover how leading insurers are using AWS to revolutionise underwriting, claims, and risk assessment. Learn how to implement generative AI and advanced analytics to automate processes, enhance customer experience and improve decision making, all while maintainong security and regulatory compliance. Your essential guide to navigating insurance's AI revolution.

Speakers
Jayme Hart - World Wide Head of Insurance, AWS
Emily Cornock - Executive Manager Data Platforms, Suncorp

Breakout Room 2 
How CBA are reimagining modernisation with AgenticAI

Hear how CBA are revolutionising legacy modernisation using AWS Bedrock's agentic AI architecture. Learn how their groundbreaking solution is slashing application assessment time from 6 weeks to under 1 hour and reducing modernisation cycles from 16 weeks to just 1. You’ll gain insights into how through specialised AI agents, CBA automatically analyze legacy code, detect vulnerabilities, and orchestrate complex transformations while maintaining strict banking compliance. 

Speaker
Ash Moollan - GM Cloud Acceleration, CBA

Chifley Room Lvl 4
(This workshop is 90 mins till 3:15pm)
Agentic AI in action: Hands-on strategy workshop for industry leaders

This interactive workshop brings together industry leaders to explore real-world generative AI implementation strategies. Through collaborative exercises and peer-to-peer learning, you will gain practical insights into identifying and capitalising on generative AI opportunities. Take part in an immersive role-play exercise, where you will step into the role of various AI agents to prioritise the most compelling generative AI use cases. This experiential learning approach provides valuable insights into how AI agents think and process information, enabling better decision-making when designing AI solutions.

Speakers
Ben Moir - Digital Innovation Lead, AWS
Tatjana Pandurevic - AI/ML Specialist, AWS

2:25pm - 2:55pm Breakout Room

Breakout Room 1
A New Approach to Business Banking: Inside Westpac and RDCs AI innovation

Dive into a groundbreaking collaboration between Westpac and RDC.AI that's reshaping business banking through AWS-powered AI solutions. Learn how the Portfolio Assistant and other innovative tools are delivering measurable outcomes while maintaining compliance and transparency. Westpac will share their first-hand experience in implementing AI solutions that create real business value, offering a blueprint for financial institutions looking to accelerate their AI journey. Discover how RDC.AI's self-explaining framework and AWS's GenAI Innovation Centre are making trusted, practical AI adoption a reality in banking.

Speakers
Gordon Campbell - Co-founder & Chief Market & Strategy Officer, RDC.AI
Dr Martin Anderson - Head of Technology and Business Lending, Westpac

Breakout Room 2
Engineering Excellence in Cloud Transformation: The Allianz Technology Approach

Gain insights into Allianz Technology's strategic approach to engineering excellence in legacy transformation. Learn how one of the world's largest insurers has built scalable patterns and reusable mechanisms to accelerate cloud migration while maintaining robust security and compliance. Discover how the implementation of the Cloud Control Library has revolutionised their risk framework, enabling seamless APRA governance and creating a blueprint for large-scale digital transformation in financial services.

Speakers
Bobby Karim - Head of Data Centre and Cloud, Allianz
Joshua Sadek - Head of Infrastructure and Security, Allianz

2:55pm - 3:30pm

Afternoon Tea

3:30pm - 4:00pm Breakout Room

Breakout Room 1
A Leaders Guide to Advanced Team Structures in an Agentic World

As AI agents transform the workplace, organisations must adapt their structures and methodologies to harness new opportunities. The probabilistic nature of AI requires continuous iteration and intelligent oversight, creating new ways of working across business functions. To thrive, organisations must combine clear capability assessment with agile planning while leveraging their unique domain expertise and data assets. This session explores how leadership is evolving to meet these needs, covering new organisational models and roles that coordinate human-AI hybrid teams. Leaders will learn strategies for balancing rapid decision-making with strategic oversight, finding the optimal mix of centralised guidance and decentralised innovation

Speaker
Jonathan Allen - Director Enterprise Strategy, AWS

Breakout Room 2 
Customer Experience Reimagined: Amazon Connect in Action

Join industry pioneers from nib and Bendigo Bank as they provide insights into how they’re transforming customer experience with Amazon Connect. You’ll hear how they’re reshaping customer experience through cloud-based contact centers; highlighting their successes, challenges, lessons learned, and what the future of customer experience looks like. Essential learning for organisations ready to revolutionise their customer service operations.

Speakers
Brian Remmel - Director CX GTM Solutions, AWS
Megan Papadopoulos - GM Customer Contact, Bendigo  Bank
Mathew Finch - Head of Data & AI, nib

4:10pm - 4:40pm Keynote Room

Locknote
Australia's Productivity Challenge: Navigating the Path to Future Prosperity

Australia stands at a critical economic crossroads. Despite our legacy of prosperity, we face unprecedented challenges in productivity and living standards. Join us for an essential discussion on how technological innovation and strategic investment can reignite Australia's economic engine. Discover why traditional growth models are failing, what emerging technologies offer, and the bold policy choices needed to secure Australia's future prosperity. Essential insights for business leaders, policymakers, and investors shaping Australia's economic trajectory.

Speaker
Dr Philip Lowe - former Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia

4:40pm - 5:40pm

Networking Drinks