Elizabeth Owen was Computer Editor of The Age for two years and inaugural Technology Editor for BRW.

Elizabeth is now a communications consultant running her own consultancy, Elizabeth Owens and Associates. She specialises in journalism, publishing, PR and education. Currently her consultancy is to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in a research project.

Elizabeth is also a poet, and her second volume of poems just published is entitled Culinary Delights.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Melbourne University and an MBA from Monash.

Rob Thomsett is an internationally acclaimed project management mentor, teacher, author and practitioner. In his publications and presentations, Rob’s unique narrative style engages the project management practitioner fully and leaves a lasting influence on their project management style.

His client-driven, people-focussed approach to project management, self-managing teams and quality deployments have been adopted by a wide spectrum of Australian organisations.

Sonja Bernhardt, CEO of ThoughtWare, a multi-award-winning software development business, is known for her obvious enthusiasm, visionary leadership, intelligent rational thinking and business acumen. Sonja holds three management and information technology related degrees including an MBA.

Valda Berzins is currently the Chief Information Officer for Victoria Police responsible for all information technology.  Some of her key projects include  IT retender,  new mobile data network, and metropolitan mobile radio replacement.

Prior to this, she was CIO at Australia Post, responsible for strategy, planning and the delivery of all information systems, supporting architecture and facilities management. Before joining Australia Post, Valda held positions of Finance Director, and Executive Director Information Systems, respectively. Most of her career has been spent with Carlton and United Breweries Limited.

Valda has a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Science from Melbourne University.  She is also a certified practising accountant and a member of the Australian Computer Society. Her experience includes various senior accounting positions, company secretarial positions, business planning and information technology roles.

Valda was the IT&T’s Government CIO of the Year in 2002 and was awarded Computerworld Fellow for 2001. In 1993, she won a scholarship to a management programme at the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales.

Valda’s business related interests include speaking at conferences – local and international.  She is a member of the School Advisory Board for the Peninsula School of Computing & Information Technology (PSCIT) at Monash University.

Mike qualified as an applied psychologist and after 4 years' practicing, as such in the Ministry of Defence in New Zealand, he joined Royal Dutch/Shell. During his time with Shell Mike initially worked in various human resource roles before spending time in more general management and business change roles in a variety of Shell’s business units in a number of different countries.

More recently he has been leading the IT professional services business in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East prior to taking up his current appointment as Global Director IT Projects in which he commutes between London and Melbourne.

Ananda Rao heads Australia and New Zealand as the Country Manager for Infosys Technologies Limited. He is also a member of the executive leadership team of Infosys in Asia-Pacific. Infosys Technologies Limited is a global professional services company that focuses on the development and implementation of technology driven business solutions and strategies for growth.

A documentary about Infosys aired on ABC’s Foreign Correspondent program inspired Ananda to approach Infosys with a comprehensive business plan to set up and grow their operations in Australia and New Zealand. He started Infosys in Australia in November 1999. The operations have grown to cover Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Ananda started his career as a boiler engineer and subsequently acquired a master’s degree in mechanical engineering specialising in finite element analysis from Queen’s University, Canada. He migrated to Australia in 1990. Starting off as a specialist in stress analysis, Ananda quickly moved into business development, a role he continues to enjoy even today.

Prior to starting Infosys, Ananda was the Regional General Manager for SE Technologies, a US corporation with responsibilities across APAC.

Christine Christian is recognised as one of the country’s leading authorities on debt management practices. The CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Australasia (DBA), Ms Christian has specialised in this rapidly growing industry for over 15 years, both in Australia and overseas. Throughout her career, she has been noted for pioneering numerous groundbreaking services and setting benchmarks for standards within the industry.

Today, Ms Christian is one of Australasia’s most respected business commentators. She is frequently quoted in national and international media and is a sought-after keynote speaker at conferences and seminars throughout the region.

Formerly the Managing Director of Dun & Bradstreet Australia & New Zealand, Ms Christian led the much publicised management buy-out of D&B’s Australasian operations from the US parent company last year.  Since then, DBA has experienced a growth boom resulting in a 46 per cent increase in revenue and subsequent profits.

Her strategies for future growth include developing DBA’s already considerable commercial credit referencing business to include the $115 million consumer credit reference market; expanding its innovative receivables management outsourcing business; maintaining its lead in the development of unique credit and risk scoring products to identify financial distress and predictability of debt; and building its database which already covers every known entity trading in Australasia.

Before heading up DBA, Ms Christian worked closely with leading specialist credit sector organisations in the USA, Asia, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. During that time, she held a number of senior executive roles including Managing Director, Operations Director and Sales Director.

She holds a BA from the University of Melbourne and is a member of a number of associations both in Australia and internationally.

Gordon Dunbar’s career started off controlling dieback in the South west of WA as a Cadet in the Forest Department (CALM). Seeking more ambitious intentions, he returned to Perth to complete his university studies and commence work as an investigation officer with the Department of Primary Industry prior to spending 15 years with WMC in a variety of commercial roles both in Australia and overseas.

In 2001, Gordon left the mining industry to take up a role initially as Head of E-Commerce and then later as CIO and Head of Strategy for Burswood International Resort Casino. In late 2004, he left Burswood to pursue his personal interest in a jointly invented and unique online social networking and asset management system entitled Check Your Network First (CYNF) which was recently profiled in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

John Brudenell is a principal consultant with UTelco Systems specialising in IT strategic planning, information architecture, data modelling, systems development methodology, and data warehousing. John is the founding president of the Data Administration Management Association (DAMA) in Melbourne and has thirty-two years of experience in IT. He has managed and worked on a number of large and complex IT projects in commercial environments over the years.

In 1984, John was placed in charge of one of the largest data administration functions in Australia at Coles Myer Ltd. From that time on, John has specialised in architectural design, architectural coordination (from concept to implementation), and since 1994, data warehousing.

With responsibility for the managing the accounting team in Perth, Western Australia, Karen has over 14 years' experience within the financial and general consulting fields. An accountant by profession, she spent 9 years in various senior financial positions consulting to national and international IT companies.

In 1999, Karen’s career experienced a significant change when she moved away from hands-on accounting and she joined Hudson as a recruitment specialist.

Karen has recently joined Hudson in Perth bringing with her 8 years' recruitment expertise in the UK and the Netherlands. Karen's career began in 1996 where she specialised in the recruitment of IT&T professionals in the UK. In 1999, Karen moved to the Netherlands joining Lucent Technologies where she was responsible for the recruitment and management of all technical and executive staff for Lucent's European Network Operations Centre.

Prior to her move to Hudson, Karen spent several years working within Michael Page's international team in Amsterdam.