Join us…
for an unforgettable “NJA” experience!
Thursday //
13th March 2025
Agenda
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Grab a lanyard, coffee/juice and light breaky to start your day! Meet & greet fellow attendees @ Fishburners in Wynyard, Sydney
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Travelling all the way from the UK, global talent extraordinare Hung Lee joins us onstage for our opening keynote, followed by another incredible keynote all the way from Canada - Vanesa Cotlar (VP of People & Culture at PolicyMe) 🙌💛
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Morning tea …with an optional twist!
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Choose which breakout sessions to attend, happening in parallel across Mainstage and on Level 1.
We know it’s gonna be a super tough choice between sessions so believe us when we say - if we could slide into a parallel universe to attend both sessions… we’d absolutely do it to avoid FOMO!
Sneak peak at our upcoming session topics include:
🙌 How Airtasker Built Talent Experiences Like Products: Rethink Your Candidate Journey for Maximum Impact
🙌 Blow Up the Performance Review: Fresh Approaches to Measuring What Really Matters
🙌 Data-Driven Storytelling: Crafting People & Talent Dashboards That Inspire Action
🙌 People as a Product: Innovating People Practices Like Product Pioneers -
We’re all about great food and even greater company - cheers to happy collisions and banter with industry friends both new and old!
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There are THREE sessions running in parallel! Choose which session to attend, happening across Mainstage and on Level 1.
Our workshops are designed to give you highly practical insights with real-world examples and a tonne of useful templates/resources to take with you - ready to go for your next day of work (or whenever you need to pull something from your “back pocket”!)
Sneak peak at our session topics include:
🙌 How to Build an impactful People Strategy
🙌 The power of Influence - why didn’t someone tell me this sooner?
🙌 Transforming Interviews to Find the Hidden Gems
🙌 From Bots to Boss: Leveraging AI to Empower your Stakeholders
🙌 Lessons Learnt: Tips to build an Effective Talent Strategy (From Scratch!)
🙌 How to give feedback that doesn’t suck
🙌 The World is Your Talent Pool: Must-Know Strategies and Insights For Scaling Your Team Globally -
We absolutely love a good afternoon tea spread! Ours will not disappoint ;)
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More workshops and more panel talks! We guarantee you’ll walk away with a head full of new knowledge and a heart full of new connections :)
Speak peak at upcoming sessions:
🐠 The FishBowl… not to be missed!
🤩 Employer Branding Excellence: Achieving Big Results with Smart Investments -
We can’t share too much about our grande finale here but in true NJA style, it *should* be something unforgettable! 🤞😍
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Join us for an afternoon wind-down as we mix and mingle the night away! And of course, be sure to take your goodie bag on the way out! 💛

Meet our remarkable speakers
Vanesa Cotlar
🇨🇦 Coming in hot from Canada!
VP People and Culture, PolicyMe
Vanesa Cotlar is an ambitious HR leader who has worked in over 20 countries, bringing a global perspective into everything she does. She is passionate about building flexible workplaces and advocates for open communication and recurring feedback to increase attraction and retention of top talent, evident in her work as VP of People & Culture at PolicyMe. Previously, Vanesa Co-Founded an HR tech start-up focused on removing bias in application and hiring processes, led People Operations at iQmetrix, and worked as a Management Consultant at Monitor Deloitte Canada where she provided strategic guidance to F500 companies.
In her spare time, Vanesa contributes to People & Culture thought leadership and offers guidance to start-ups that need help structuring their HR practices. In 2023, Vanesa was named a top 25 Emerging Culture Creators by Culture Amp and was a finalist for HRO Today’s HR Excellence category. In 2024, Vanesa was named one of the Top 10 CHROs/CPOs by DiversityCan Magazine. Vanesa holds an MBA from Queen’s University.
Hung Lee
🇬🇧 Coming in hot from the UK!
Editor of leading industry newsletter Recruiting Brainfood.
Hung is an industry professional with over 20 years of experience as an agency recruiter, Recruitment manager, internal Head of Talent, recruitment trainer, award-winning recruitment tech founder and, now Editor and Community builder at Recruiting Brainfood - the best weekly newsletter in recruitment!
Hung lives and works in London… but absolutely loves visiting Sydney whenever he can! ☀️
But wait… there’s more speakers! 🫶
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Joris Luijke
Co-Founder (ex CPO Atlassian, Squarespace, Typeform)
PYN
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Conor Donoghue
Head of People, Culture & Talent
ZIP -
Bec Jenkins
Chief of Staff to the Head of People
CANVA
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James Nau
VP Product
AIRTASKER
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Carlene Kemp
Chief People Officer
BLACKBIRD VENTURES -
Yaniv Bernstein
Co-host (ex COO Airtasker)
START-UP PODCAST
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Mitch King
Principal Talent Acquisition Manager
FLEET SPACE TECHNOLOGIES
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Haren Krishnadasen
Head of Talent Acquisition
COMMONWEALTH BANK -
Mandy Gooch-Smith
Chief People & Operations Officer
PET CIRCLE
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Manoj Kenadath
Senior Principal Strategist, TA
ATLASSIAN -
Matt Jones
Co-Founder
FOUR PILLARS GIN
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Sophie Hirst
Founder (ex Senior Marketing Manager, Google)
WORKBABY
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Bec Donnelly
VP People
SITEMINDER
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Tom Morish-Randon
TA Lead
AIRTASKER
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Pavi Iyer
Head of People & Talent
MINDSET HEALTH
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Tova Angsuwat
Founder (ex People, Recruitment Google)
SERIES BUILD
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Ella Cullen
Employer Brand Lead
WOOLWORTHS GROUP
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Jessica Gibson Jones
VP Talent Acquisition
TOLL GROUP
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Teresa Lilly
VP People
GROW
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Graham Moody
Chief People Officer
JOBADDER
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Eloise Littlejohns
Director of Operations & People
ACORN PLMS
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Emily Robinson
GM Operations (ex-Senior Director Linktree)
KIC
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Hiam Sakakini
Founder (ex Head of Manager Development, Google)
THE CULTURE EQUATION
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Cloë Stanbridge
Talent Lead
AIRTREE VENTURES
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Anna Volkova
Head of People
HIBOB
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Lisa Lie
Founder (ex Head of P&C, Half Dome)
LEARNA
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Chris Long
Founder
ELEV8
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Carrie Ball
Talent Acquisition Lead
RIPPLING
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India Morish-Randon
Senior Manager, Global Strategy & Employer Brand
THE MARTEC -
Hassanah Rudd
Head of People & Culture
(ex-Canva)P&C ADVISOR
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Lauren Humphrey
Co-Founder
THE MINTABLE -
Ellie Miller
Chief People Officer
LEONARDO.AI
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Fiona Warren
Business Director APAC
HAVAS PEOPLE
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Hayley Bucur
People Lead (ex Disney & Wise)
CANVA
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Lucy Natalie Kratky
Talent Lead
SQUARE PEG
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Deepak Singh
Head of People Experience (ex Uber Carshare)
MISSION & RHYTHM