The people behind the programme.

Annie Liao is the founder and CEO of Build Club, the company behind Solaris, an AI adoption platform helping enterprises become AI-native. What started as a global community of 70,000+ AI builders across 60+ cities has evolved into a platform for enterprise AI transformation, combining diagnostics, upskilling, champion programs and ROI tracking. Annie was named in Forbes Australia 30 Under 30 for her work making AI more accessible.

Bridget has extensive experience in marketing, advertising and tech to drive growth for major businesses. She is passionate about leveraging technology to achieve better outcomes, and simplifying the complex in brand science, data, tech, team building and life.

Dave King is co-founder of Radical Intelligence, an AI-native transformation company that builds radical AI capability inside organisations across Australia and APAC. He has been building AI products and systems since 2017, working across creative industries, legal, finance, property and more. Prior to Radical Intelligence, Dave founded The Royals, an independent creative agency with clients including Spotify, Qantas, Mercedes-Benz and AustralianSuper. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Deakin University and has spoken at TEDx, SXSW and Vivid Sydney and others.

Jenni Ryall, the founder of Other Labs, has two decades of experience working in and with media organisations and technology platforms, including Mashable, TEGNA, Meta and Google. She is currently focused on building collaboration between the news media industry and technology companies to secure the future of high-quality news and content. Other Labs is a media capability and AI advisory business working with newsrooms, funders and platforms across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific to shape the future of media through practical AI capability, organisational change and sustainable business models.

Jeremy Somers is the founder of Not Content, an AI creative agency working at the frontier of what AI makes possible in brand and creative work. Before that, he founded We Are Handsome, the cult Australian fashion label that pioneered digital-first fashion globally, and spent years as a creative at agencies. Jeremy brings a rare combination of founder instinct, creative craft and first-hand experience building with AI tools — making him one of the most practical and provocative voices on what AI actually means for creative work.

Joana Barros is a senior marketing executive who has been building brands and driving commercial outcomes across listed and high-growth digital-first businesses for more than two decades.

She has held global and regional leadership roles in e-commerce, travel tech and consumer lifestyle spanning Temple & Webster, Expedia, Orbitz Worldwide and TouchNote. Joana has built a reputation for developing modern marketing systems that integrate brand and growth, powered by creativity and marketing science. Most recently as Chief Marketing Officer at Temple & Webster, she led marketing through the company’s growth into the ASX200.

Joana brings an operator’s perspective on how AI is reshaping marketing drawn from leading brands and digital businesses through transformation and scale.

Karen Powell is a commercial and operational leader who partners with founders of tech, SaaS and creative services businesses to turn complexity into investable growth. Over 20+ years she has helped scale B2B and media‑adjacent companies across APAC, integrating acquisitions, rebuilding revenue engines and preparing businesses for capital events. She founded Omnipresence, a GTM and Sales AI advisory, and previously built and exited an AI‑enabled sales platform developed in collaboration with major cloud platforms. Karen is also a cotutelle PhD candidate researching AI‑mediated B2B buying and how AI reshapes the relationships between agencies, platforms, publishers and brands. She spoke at humAIn 2024 on trust, deepfakes and “AI as media’s extinction‑level event”, and now serves on the humAIn Advisory Panel.

Nofil is the founder of Avicenna, a Sydney-based AI consultancy operating at the intersection of AI strategy, product development and enterprise transformation. He also writes a global AI newsletter read by thousands of leaders at some of the world’s largest companies. Nofil is passionate about the appropriate adoption of AI and ensuring the general public is aware of its transformative nature.

Springboards helps keep creative people in the creative equation by using AI to spark ideas, not replace them. Its proprietary model, Flint, is the worlds only divergence model and designed to push AI beyond predictable outputs into more original, unexpected thinking. With 15+ years across advertising, media, and marketing, Pip is focused on building tools that keep people at the centre of the creative process.

Ross Dawson works globally as a futurist, board advisor, keynote speaker, and entrepreneur. He is Founding Chairman of the Advanced Human Technologies group of companies, including Humans + AI startup Informivity, and the bestselling author of five books, most recently Thriving on Overload. Strong global demand has seen him deliver keynote speeches to business and government leaders in 35 countries, while frequent media appearances include ABC TV, BBC, The Guardian, New York Times, SkyNews, Today and Sunrise shows, VICE, and many others.

Sarah Yassien is a Sydney-based AI strategy executive and founder of deliberate ai, an advisory practice helping mission-driven, not-for-profit and regulated organisations move from AI experimentation to responsible, value-generating adoption. Her career has been defined by leading organisations through existential industry shifts — rebuilding operating models, platforms and audience relationships at the BBC, Amnesty International and SBS, where she served as Executive Director Corporate Strategy overseeing growth to 14 million registered users on SBS On Demand, while also leading the organisation to be recognised among the AFR's most innovative companies in 2021 and 2023. Sarah now advises boards and executive teams on AI governance, value realisation and responsible deployment, with particular focus on ensuring AI tools don't outpace organisational readiness. She is Chair of the Technology Committee at Cerebral Palsy Alliance, and brings a long-standing commitment to inclusive, community-grounded approaches to technology adoption. She joins humAIn's advisory panel to bring an inclusive and value-realisation lens to the conversation between media, marketing and AI.

Tea Uglow is a Peabody-winning creative director & brand strategist, a non-executive director, and CMO who spent 18 years building Google’s Creative Lab working with global brands and orgs. She currently mentors creatives online & consults for clients, agencies, cultural orgs and creative leaders on AI innovation and strategy and how to bring their workforce with them on that journey.