OPEX 2026 - Day 1 Program (Monday, 26 October)
8:00 am - 9:00 am
Registration & breakfast networking
8:55 am - 9:00 am
Event Director's Opening of the Event
9:00 am - 9:10 am
Opening Remarks — ANZ State of Play 2026
9:10 am - 9:40 am
LEADERSHIP PANEL | Transforming while the world breaks: Leading enterprise change when stability is a myth
Garth Worboys -
Chief Operating Officer - Health Services,
Bupa UK
Anat Hassner - Chief Operating Officer, OneSchool Global
What does enterprise transformation look like when you're simultaneously managing AI disruption, regulatory change, post-COVID cost pressure, and a talent cliff? A candid account of leading transformation at scale under real conditions not success theatre
9:40 am - 10:10 am
Partner Keynote | Projects to Performance: Making operational excellence repeatable in construction
Thomas Kohlenbach -
Principal Consultant,
GBTEC
Jerome Harris - Head of National Quality, Built
- Why "project is king" makes standardisation so hard
- How Built mapped its project lifecycle and connected it to its digital strategy
- Early wins, from faster onboarding to cutting unneeded software
- Lessons learned, including why "good enough" beats perfect
Sponsored by: GBTEC
10:10 am - 10:40 am
Operating model redesign: When the strategy is clear but the organisation won't move
Anat Hassner -
Chief Operating Officer,
OneSchool Global
The strategy is right. The business case is approved. So why is nothing changing? Structural inertia, legacy incentives, and the gap between transformation on paper and transformation in practice
10:40 am - 11:00 am
Speed Networking
11:00 am - 11:30 am
Morning Break
Fuel up, connect, and explore - your chance to grab a coffee, meet solution partners, and spark new conversations across
Interactive Discussion Groups - Unscripted. Unfiltered. Unmissable
IDG A
11:30 am - 1:00 pm What does "good" actually look like? Debating operational excellence standards that stick across a changing organisationIDG B
11:30 am - 1:00 pm Change that lands vs. change that lingers: Why some initiatives embed and others quietly dieIDG C
11:30 am - 1:00 pm Service delivery under pressure: Maintaining customer and stakeholder outcomes when your operating model is mid-transformationIDG D
11:30 am - 1:00 pm AI in risk, compliance & fraud detection: What's working in production and what's still a promise
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Networking Lunch and VIP Hosted Lunches
Join us in the expo hall for a relaxed networking lunch with the full Shared Service community - connect with peers, explore the exhibition, and recharge for the afternoon ahead. For invited guests, exclusive VIP lunches will run concurrently - bringing senior leaders and select partners together for high-impact conversations in a more intimate setting.
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm CASE STUDY | Adoption Is Not a Change Problem: Why transformation is built back to front, and what designing from the human forward takes. Jess Tayel - :Transformation Executive Director for AI, Transformation, International Olympics CommitteeAdoption is usually treated as something to drive once a programme is built. This session reframes it through three pillars: capability, capacity and context. Capability is whether people can take the change on, capacity is whether they have the room for it, and context is the conditions around them, shaped by how earlier change has landed. Designing for all three from the start does more than land the current programme. It builds the organisation's ability to take on change, so the next one moves faster and lands better. Jess's approach has improved the speed at which transformation reaches its outcomes by 37%, raised C-level confidence by 41%, and activated discretionary effort by 31%.
Jess Tayel
:Transformation Executive Director for AI, TransformationInternational Olympics Committee
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm CASE STUDY Change management at the speed of disruption: When your change curve is shorter than your programme timeline Maria Ramos - Senior Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementation, GPC Asia PacificTraditional 18-month change programmes don't survive contact with a world moving at AI speed. How do you redesign change management methodology itself, shorter sprints, embedded change agents, continuous feedback loops?
Maria Ramos
Senior Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementationGPC Asia Pacific
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm PANEL | When the burning platform isn't burning fast enough: Manufacturing urgency without manufacturing a crisis Gino de Castro - Head of Business Strategy & Transformation, WaterNSWJo Prideaux - General Manager - Transformation, Anglicare Sydney
Hamza Dhedhy - Director - Organisational Transformation, Victoria Government
Most transformation programmes stall not because the case is weak but because competing priorities win. How do transformation leaders build and sustain organisational urgency especially mid-programme, when fatigue sets in and the original threat feels distant? Real tactics, not communication plans.
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Afternoon Tea BreakFuel up, connect, and explore — your chance to grab a coffee, meet solution partners, and spark new conversations across Australia's Operations leadership community.
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
4:00 pm - 4:30 pm Case Study | Lineage-driven transformation: how a semantic operating model powers modern enterprise AI Nafees Butt - Operational Excellence Chapter Lead, Agl
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm PANEL DISCUSSION | The EPMO under pressure: Governing a transformation portfolio when every project is urgent and the budget is shrinking Kirstin Reblin - Head of operational excellence, GWFCaroline Ferris - Head of Strategy and Transformation, Bank of Sydney
Ram Rajaraman - Head of Transformation, Virgin Australia
When everyone has a stake and nobody has final say, AI initiatives stall in committee - this session maps the ownership models actually working in ANZ enterprises and how to stop accountability gaps killing your roadmap.
OPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
5:00 pm - 5:10 pm Closing Keynote Remarks from ChairpersonOPEX & Continuous Improvement - The practitioner track
5:15 pm - 6:15 pm Networking Reception and Cocktail PartyCTO Boardroom
2:00 pm - 2:30 pm THOUGHT LEADERSHIP | Understanding the enterprise AI execution gap: Why change programmes keep losing the knowledge that makes them work David Brudenell - Executive Director, SugarworkThe knowledge you're transforming away from.
Sponsored by: Sugarwork
CTO Boardroom
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm LEADERS TALKS | Finance transformation meets operational excellence: Closing the gap between the CFO's world and the OPEX leader's world Kirstin Reblin - Head of operational excellence, GWFAlicia Bezkhmelnitsyn - Head of Financial Planning and Analysis, Eat Club
Shashank Pandey - Head of Transformation - Procurement, Coles Group
OPEX delivers outcomes the CFO measures, but the two functions rarely co-design. How do you align financial close transformation, cost optimisation, and operational improvement into a single coherent programme?
CTO Boardroom
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm STRATEGIC CASE STUDY Living in Transformation: Building a Workforce That Thrives in Ongoing Change Glen Babington - Chief Operating Officer, University of Technology
CTO Boardroom
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm Afternoon Tea BreakFuel up, connect, and explore — your chance to grab a coffee, meet solution partners, and spark new conversations across Australia's Operations leadership community.
CTO Boardroom
4:00 pm - 4:30 pm SOLUTION PANEL | Process architecture at scale: Building the foundation that AI can actually run on Maria Ramos - Senior Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementation, GPC Asia PacificAI transformation fails when process foundations are weak. How do you build process intelligence, documentation, and governance infrastructure that actually enables automation not just describes it?
Maria Ramos
Senior Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementationGPC Asia Pacific
CTO Boardroom
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm What you're taking back to the office and what you're leaving in this roomIn a high-uncertainty environment, CFOs tighten and boards want proof before commitment. Yet the organisations that have emerged strongest from previous disruption cycles are those that invested through them. A frank executive discussion on how transformation leaders are making and winning the investment case when the macro environment argues against it.
