Our first 2023 Keynote Speakers are

Gus Balbontin

Advisor, Adventurer and Alternative Futurist

Born and bred in wild Patagonia, Gus never allowed his small town and humble beginnings get in the way of his big dreams. A healthy disrespect for authority and a severe case of FOMO (fear of missing out) landed him in Australia at the Young age of 17.

By the age of 22, he had dropped out of uni, hitchhiked South America, set up his first business, and landed his dream job at Lonely Planet. Fast forward a few years and he was leading the company globally working with companies such as Google X, Nokia, and Amazon on the latest technology, creative cultures, and high-performing teams. 

Over the last 3 years, Gus has presented around the world. From audiences of 10 to that of 10,000, the simplicity of his message and his counterintuitive way of looking at the world will motivate you to do things differently.

He is involved in the start-up scene as a founder, investor, and advisor and is on the board of Startup Victoria and Director of Above All Human. He currently runs a small Creative Studio and Innovation agency called Roshambo, is the co-founder and partner at Atessa, and is the Entrepreneur in Residence and Executive Director of VU Innovations at Victoria University which keeps him close to large public corporate challenges as well as small business puzzles.

Amantha Imber

Founder of Inventium 

Dr. Amantha Imber is an organisational psychologist and founder of behavioural science consultancy Inventium. She is also the co-creator of the Australian Financial Review’s Most Innovative Companies list and the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list. Amantha has helped companies such as Google, Apple, Disney, LEGO, Atlassian, Commonwealth Bank and many others reinvent the way they approach their work.  Amantha has been named as one of the Australian Financial Review’s 100 Women of Influence, she’s won (twice) the Thinkers50 Innovation Award (described by the Financial Times as the ‘Oscars for Management Thinking’), which recognises the thinker who has contributed the most to the understanding of innovation globally.

Currently, Amantha is the host of the number one ranking business podcast How I Work, which has had over 3.5 million downloads, where she interviews some of the world’s most successful people about their habits, strategies, and rituals.  Amantha’s thoughts have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur and Fast Company and she is the author of two best-selling books: “The Creativity Formula” and “The Innovation Formula”. Her latest book Time Wise has just come out.

Robert Brittain

Independent Marketing Consultant

Robert Brittain is an independent marketing consultant and strategic advisor to CMOs, focused on enabling enterprise-wide marketing effectiveness capability. A published writer and speaker in his field, Robert is co-author of the “Advertising Effectiveness Rules” series of reports from the ACA Effectiveness Database with the globally renowned Peter Field. These include “Winning or Losing in a Recession”, “To ESOV and Beyond” and “Attention and Effectiveness”. Prior to becoming an independent marketing consultant Robert spent 20 years in client-side commercial roles including leading Marketing Effectiveness at ANZ Bank Banking Group and Marketing Analytics at Mondelez International across the Asia-Pacific region.