Pre-Conference Workshop 1

09:00 AM - 12:00 PM

From HR Operator to Strategic Partner: Step Into Your Power

Aspiring and mid-level HR leaders are often told to “be more strategic” — but what does that actually mean in the real world of business demands, executive relationships, and cross-functional
complexity?

This immersive half-day masterclass is designed to equip you with the tools, mindset and influence strategies needed to elevate your voice and impact as an HR professional. You’ll learn how to frame your ideas for business audiences, build trust with senior leaders, and make a clear case for HR-led initiatives that drive performance, engagement and culture change.

This session is ideal for HR professionals ready to shift from supporting the strategy to shaping it.

The Reality HR Professionals Face:

• Struggling to gain a seat at the table or have ideas taken seriously

• Feeling caught between transactional tasks and transformation goals

• Working hard but lacking visibility or influence with decision-makers

Your 5-Step Strategic Influence Framework:

• How to speak the language of commercial value in your HR initiatives

• Building executive relationships through trust, credibility, and alignment

• Structuring your strategic messages to get a “yes” from the C-suite

• Navigating resistance or competing agendas with grace and confidence

• Positioning yourself as a future HR leader and change enabler

Key Benefits of Attending:

• Learn to frame HR initiatives in strategic, business-first language

• Build your confidence and executive presence as a change leader

• Gain practical tools to map stakeholders and influence decision-making

• Understand what executives want from HR — and how to deliver it

• Walk away with a personal roadmap to elevate your impact in your role

Conference Day 1

9:00 AM:   Welcome to Country

9:05 AM:   Opening Remarks from Chair & TLI Introduction

SESSION 1
9:20 AM: From Influence Broker to Architect: The Redefined Role of HR in AI-Native Organisations

For two decades, HR leadership has chased one goal: a seat at the table. As organisations redesign around AI and speed, that ambition falls short. The real shift isn't about influencing existing systems, it's about designing new ones: performance frameworks that work, progression without hierarchy, reward built for AI-enabled operating models, and learning embedded in the flow of work.

Drawing on his experience leading people strategy inside an AI-native technology business, Gareth Russell will open the summit by challenging HR leaders to move from influence broker to architect. He will share how his organisation is redesigning culture, performance, and progression to support an AI-native operating model, and what it takes for HR to build the systems organisations run on.

Delegates will leave with a sharper lens for the two days ahead, and a clear case for building the systems organisations run on, not just claiming a seat within them.

10:10 AM: Networking Break

10:30 AM: Morning Tea

SESSION 2
11:00 AM: Transformation Without the Trade-Off: Leading AI-Driven Workforce Redesign Without Losing Trust

AI is changing workforce structures and expectations faster than most organisations are ready for, and the disruption isn't just technical. It's cultural. As roles shift, skills are redefined, and decisions move faster, the risk isn't only getting the technology wrong, it's losing trust, inclusion, and engagement along the way.

Drawing on her background leading inclusion and culture reform alongside her current work driving AI-enabled transformation inside a large professional services organisation, Sam Turner will explore how HR leaders can lead workforce redesign responsibly, treating trust and inclusion as design requirements, not afterthoughts. She will share practical lessons on preparing people for large scale capability shifts without leaving them, or the culture, behind.

Delegates will leave with a practical approach to leading AI-driven workforce redesign that protects trust and inclusion, and a clearer sense of what responsible transformation actually requires of HR.

SESSION 3: Rebuilding Trust During Organisational Change
11:50 AM: Leading People Through Uncertainty Without Losing Culture

Restructures, workforce redesign, and changing business priorities can quickly erode trust if they are not led well. As organisations continue to navigate uncertainty, HR leaders play a critical role in helping leaders communicate with clarity, maintain workforce confidence, and protect organisational culture through periods of significant change.

Drawing on his experience leading workforce transformation, employment relations, and large scale organisational change across Australia and New Zealand, Matthew Baldwin will share practical lessons from rebuilding leadership capability, strengthening culture, and guiding organisations through complex change. He will explore how HR leaders can balance commercial priorities with the human impact of change while creating resilient workplaces that continue to perform under pressure.

Delegates will leave with practical strategies to lead change with confidence, strengthen trust across their organisation, and help teams adapt successfully in an increasingly uncertain environment.

SESSION 4
1:50 PM: Leading Organisational Performance Through People
How Great People Strategies Become Business Strategies

High performing organisations don't achieve better results by chance. They build people strategies that strengthen capability, develop leaders, and create cultures where both individuals and the business can succeed. As organisations grow, the challenge for HR is ensuring people strategy keeps pace with commercial ambition.

Drawing on her experience leading people strategy across high growth organisations, Alison Newman will explore how HR leaders can design scalable people practices that support organisational performance without losing culture or engagement. She will share practical insights into leadership development, organisational design, capability building, and creating environments where people and business performance grow together.

Delegates will leave with practical ideas to better align people strategy with business priorities, strengthen organisational capability, and position HR as a key driver of sustainable growth.

SESSION 5: The Middle Is Under Pressure
2:40 PM: Strengthening Manager Capability in High Load Organisations

Middle managers are carrying more responsibility than ever before. They are expected to lead change, drive performance, support wellbeing, navigate difficult conversations, and keep teams engaged, often while facing increasing pressure themselves. As expectations continue to grow, many organisations are discovering that the capability of frontline leaders has become one of the biggest factors influencing workforce performance.

Drawing on her experience leading People, Culture and Safety across one of Australasia's largest hospitality organisations, Natalie Tesolin will explore how HR leaders can better equip managers to lead with confidence through complexity. From organisational change and workforce transformation to industrial relations, employee wellbeing and operational performance, she will share practical strategies for building leadership capability, strengthening resilience, and supporting the people who have the greatest day to day impact on organisational culture.

Delegates will leave with practical ideas to reduce manager overload, strengthen leadership capability, and create the conditions for teams to perform at their best, even during periods of sustained organisational pressure.

3:30 PM Afternoon Tea

SESSION 6: Pressure Is Contagious. So Is Calm.
3:50 PM:  The Science Behind Leadership That People Trust

Every leader experiences pressure. But the way leaders respond to that pressure shapes far more than their own performance. It influences the confidence, decision making, communication, and emotional state of every person around them. In today's demanding workplaces, a leader's ability to remain calm, present, and steady has become a powerful leadership capability.

Drawing on the latest neuroscience and her own remarkable journey from trauma to becoming one of Australia's leading nervous system experts, bestselling author Anna Ferguson will explore why our brains and bodies respond the way they do under pressure, and how understanding the nervous system can change the way we lead. Through practical, science backed insights, she will show how leaders can regulate themselves, strengthen resilience, and create the conditions for trust, connection, and high performance, even in uncertain times.

Delegates will leave with a fresh perspective on leadership, practical tools they can apply immediately, and a deeper understanding of why the most effective leaders don't eliminate pressure, they learn how to lead through it.

4:50 PM END OF DAY ONE & NETWORKING DRINKS

Conference Day 2

9:00 AM: Opening Remarks from Chair & TLI Introduction

SESSION 1: Workforce Planning Under Pressure
9:10 AM: Building Capability in Complex, High Demand Organisations

Building a capable workforce has never been more challenging. Skills shortages, increasing demand, changing workforce expectations, and ongoing operational pressure are forcing organisations to rethink how they attract, develop, and retain the people they need to succeed. For HR leaders, workforce planning is no longer just about forecasting numbers. It's about building capability, resilience, and long term organisational performance.

Drawing on her experience leading people strategy across some of Australia's largest healthcare organisations, Kerryn Moore will explore how HR leaders can strengthen workforce capability in environments where pressure is constant and resources are stretched. She will share practical insights into workforce planning, leadership capability, employee experience, and building collaborative cultures that support both organisational outcomes and sustainable workforce performance.
Delegates will leave with practical strategies to strengthen workforce capability, respond to changing workforce demands, and build organisations that are better prepared for future challenges.

10:10 AM: Morning Tea

SESSION 2: HR Credibility at Executive Level
10:30 AM: Building Influence Where Business Decisions Are Made

As organisations face increasing pressure to improve performance, manage workforce change, embrace new technologies, and build long term capability, expectations of HR have never been higher. Today's Chief People Officers are expected to contribute far beyond workforce operations, bringing commercial insight, influencing strategic decisions, and helping executive teams navigate increasingly complex business challenges.

Drawing on her experience leading people strategy across diverse industries and advising at executive and Board level, Krithika Hansen will explore what it takes to build credibility where business decisions are made. From aligning people strategy with organisational priorities to leading transformation, developing future capability, and balancing commercial outcomes with human impact, she will share practical insights into how HR leaders can strengthen their influence while helping organisations perform at their best.

Delegates will leave with practical strategies to build executive trust, communicate with greater commercial confidence, and position HR as a strategic partner in delivering sustainable organisational performance.

SESSION 3
11:30 AM: Belonging by Design: Building Culture That Holds Under Growth and Complexity

Culture is most visible under pressure, when growth, complexity, and change fatigue test whether an organisation's stated values hold up in practice. For many HR leaders, the challenge isn't defining culture, it's protecting belonging and trust while the business keeps moving, and proving that leadership behaviour, not policy documents, is what actually shapes it.

Drawing on her experience leading culture and people strategy across a wide range of industries, Marissa Alley will share how deliberate practices, from genuine two-way flexibility to consistent leadership behaviour, have measurably lifted belonging and engagement in her own organisation. She will also explore why equity and inclusion require ongoing intention rather than a one-off initiative, and how leaders can be held accountable for the culture they create.

Delegates will leave with practical, evidence-based approaches to building belonging and trust at scale, and a clearer sense of how leadership behaviour, not policy, ultimately determines culture.

12:20 PM LUNCH

SESSION 4
1:20 PM: Reinventing Capability at Scale: Building the AI-Ready Workforce

Every organisation says it wants to be AI-ready, but few have built the infrastructure to make that real. Capability doesn't shift because a strategy document says so, it shifts when people get a genuine path to build new skills, and leadership treats reinvention as core business, not a side project.

Drawing on her experience leading people strategy across a large, multi-market global organisation, Pauly Grant will share how she built a personalised AI-upskilling model that meets employees where they are, tailored to their role, current fluency, and ambition, rather than a one-size-fits-all training rollout. She will explore what it actually takes to reinvent capability at scale without losing the people the reinvention is meant to serve.

Delegates will leave with a practical model for building genuine AI capability across large, complex organisations, and the confidence to move beyond AI strategy into AI readiness.

SESSION 5
2:10 PM: Making Culture Visible: Scaling Authentic Stories, Not Corporate Video

Culture is usually described in corporate video: polished, expensive, and produced once a year if at all. It rarely captures what a workplace is actually like, and it rarely reaches enough people to matter. For many organisations, the real story of their culture is trapped in a handful of professionally produced clips, while everyone else stays invisible.

Drawing on his experience leading culture and people experience inside a large, guest-facing entertainment and hospitality business, Naz Wilson will share how he moved his organisation away from rare, expensive video shoots toward fast, everyday storytelling from employees themselves, used to bring an otherwise invisible company culture to life for candidates, capture frontline expertise that used to live only in people's heads, and speed up leadership communication across multiple countries.

Delegates will leave with a practical, low-cost model for making culture visible at scale, and proof that authentic beats polished every time.

3:00 PM Afternoon Tea

SESSION 6: Closing Panel Discussion
3:20 PM: What High Performing Organisations Are Doing Differently in 2026 and Beyond

High performing organisations aren't succeeding by accident in 2026. As disruption, AI adoption, and workforce pressure continue, a small group of businesses keep pulling ahead, not through one big move, but through deliberate choices about culture, capability, and how they treat their people.

This closing panel brings together senior leaders from organisations that are genuinely getting it right, to unpack what's actually working and why. Joining the panel is Carly Lloyd, whose organisation was recently named the number one place to work in banking, financial services and superannuation, built on deliberate investment in flexibility, wellbeing and genuine career growth, not gestures. She will share what that looks like in practice, and what it takes to sustain it at scale. Further panellists to be announced.

Delegates will leave with real examples of what separates high performing organisations, and practical ideas they can take back into their own teams.

4:20 PM CLOSE OF CONFERENCE

Post-Conference Workshop 

9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Shifting from Reactive Hiring to Proactive Workforce Design

The workforce is changing — fast. New technologies, evolving expectations, and rapid disruption are making old HR plans obsolete. That’s why strategic workforce planning is no longer a “nice to have” — it’s essential. This full-day workshop gives HR professionals the practical tools to plan for future workforce
needs, map current capability, and align talent strategies with business growth. You’ll learn how to  create skills frameworks, identify gaps, and build future-focused plans that your executive team will  respect and use. If you want to future-proof your people strategy, this is the session for you.

The Reality HR Professionals Face:

• Constantly reacting to hiring needs instead of planning ahead
• No clear picture of the organisation’s future capability requirements
• Struggling to engage business leaders in proactive workforce conversations

Your Strategic Planning Toolkit:

• How to conduct a workforce planning needs analysis
• Identifying critical roles and future skill sets in your organisation
• Building a simple but effective capability framework
• Mapping internal talent potential and development needs
• Aligning people plans with business and technology strategy

Key Benefits of Attending:

• Learn practical workforce planning models and apply them live
• Understand how to build capability maps that guide investment decisions
• Gain confidence engaging leaders in strategic HR planning
• Identify workforce risks and future-proof your talent pipeline
• Walk away with a draft strategic workforce plan ready to refine