Private Healthcare Australia Conference 2019 – Speakers

Dr. Craig Challen SC OAM is an Australian cave diver, notable for his efforts, together with his friend Dr Richard Harris SC OAM and an international team in saving a soccer team of twelve boys and their coach in the 2018 Thai Cave Rescue.

As one of Australia’s leading technical divers, Craig is a member of the Wetmules, a diving group that takes on some of the world’s deepest and coldest underwater caves. After commencing cave diving in the 1990s, he was an early adopter of closed-circuit mixed gas rebreathers.

Craig’s notable explorations include the extension of Cocklebiddy Cave on the Nullarbor Plain of Australia in 2008 and the Pearse Resurgence in New Zealand over the last 10 years. He has additionally explored caves throughout Australia, New Zealand, China, Thailand, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands.

In 2018, Dr Challen and Dr Harris were invited to assist in the rescue operation of a Thai soccer team trapped in Thailand’s deep Tham Luang Cave, in a story that gripped the world. The pair worked 10-12 hour days making trips into the cave on a daily basis, working cooperatively to ensure the safe evacuation of everyone from the cave.

His unwavering and selfless bravery following the successful rescue of the trapped soccer team saw him awarded the Star of Courage as well as the Order of Australia for “service to the international community”.

This inspirational rescue operation will never be forgotten and will now be immortalised in a book which promises to portray to readers the adverse conditions and difficult decisions which were made to rescue the children.

Norman is Australia’s most experienced and respected health journalist, broadcaster and communicator.

Dr Norman Swan hosts The Health Report on the ABC’s Radio National, and appears on television on such programs as Four Corners, Midday, The Drum, Australian Story and The Project. The Health Report is the world’s longest running health programme in the English speaking world and Norman has won many awards for his work including Australia’s top prize for journalism, the Gold Walkley.

Norman trained in medicine in Scotland and paediatrics in London and Sydney before joining the ABC and has hosted many other programmes on radio and television. He was the medical host on Channel Ten’s Biggest Loser for the past six seasons; in September 2015 made a high impact Four Corners on waste in the healthcare system and in 2018 in a Four Corners on doctors’ high charging practices. Norman has consulted to the World Health Organisation, co-chaired a global meeting of health ministers in Bamako West Africa and has been the Australian correspondent for both the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Norman also co-founded Tonic Health Media and the Aboriginal Health Television Network with a combined monthly audience of 15 million people.

Some of Norman’s popular speaking topics include: ‘The Ageing Myth’ (we’re not an ageing society); “Just when you think it’s safe to go out” (where’s the next pandemic coming from and how to avoid it); “Diet Myths” (an antidote to the latest fads); “Hoe Medicine Invents Disease”. Norman is also a highly experienced MC and facilitator.

Andrew is on a mission to fix markets. Over the last decade he’s studied the harm caused by profit-maximising intermediaries (comparison sites, search engines, aggregators, etc.) and has designed, tested and coded alternatives.

In June he turned his attention to the market for Private Health Insurance and in August he quietly launched hiku.com.au – a neutral and complete PHI comparison site which uses PHIO data to complement privatehealth.gov.au.

Hiku’s purpose is to allow health funds and consumers to bypass profit-maximising comparison sites and, therefore, help PHI to survive and thrive.

Professor Bela Stantic is Professor in Computer Science and Head of School of Information and Communication Technology at Griffith University. He is also the founder and Director of the “Big Data and Smart Analytics” Lab at Griffith University. Professor Stantic is internationally recognised in the field of data analytics and for the efficient management of complex data structures, such as those found in Big Data. He has given many keynote addresses and has been invited to talk at highly ranked international conferences and prestigious institutions. He has been doing journal editorial duties and reviews of many top ranked journals. Additionally, he was involved in organising international conferences and served as a program committee member on more than 100 occasions at top-ranked international conferences in the area of his research. He successfully applied his research interdisciplinary, most prominently applying Big Data analytics to tourism, environment as well as to the health domain. He has published more than 130 journal and conference peer reviewed publications.

Professor Stantic has built a reputation in Big Data analytics. On top of earlier highlights, related to his correct predictions of the US election and Brexit, Professor Stantic recently turned media headlines in Australia with his correct prediction of the 2019 Federal Election results, despite all pollsters and bookies getting it wrong.

Over the last 20 years Ben has been responsible for delivering rapid growth within start-ups & large enterprise organisations within in NZ, Australia and the USA. Ben is currently GM Australia for Soul Machines, a ground-breaking high-tech company of AI researchers, neuroscientists, psychologists, artists and innovative thinkers who are re-imagining how we connect with machines.

Bianca Brown is the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Instant Consult.

Bianca has an extensive background in Accounting, Business Administration and Practice Management.

As a Software Architect, she designed the Instant Consult platform and lead a team of developers from concept to delivery – into a fully-operational cloud based medical practice that has over 17,000 patients and a cohort of 40 doctors, growing every day.

Bianca’s main focus is continual development of the Instant Consult platform and integrating with industry leading partners to ensure the core growth of the business as Instant Consult remains the largest, most trusted and most innovative telehealth platform on the market.

Clifford Rosenberg is a highly experienced leader and strategist with a deep passion for technology and social media. He was most recently the founder and Managing Director of LinkedIn ANZ & S.E. Asia and previously the Managing Director of Yahoo! Australia NZ. During his tenure he led both companies through significant growth.

With a Bachelor of Business Science (Hons) and Master of Science in Management, Cliff’s journey from South Africa to the top of one of the world’s most prominent and influential digital platforms in our region, is truly inspirational.

In 2009, Cliff was hired as the first APAC employee to open the Australian NZ office of LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network. During his tenure, Cliff grew the ANZ business from ~1m Australian members in 2009 to over 8m in 2017, and hired a team of ~300 across the Sydney and Melbourne offices. In 2000, Cliff joined iTouch as the Australia NZ founder and Managing Director, growing and transforming the business into the leading wireless application service provider in Australia.
Three years later, as Managing Director of Yahoo! Australia and New Zealand, Cliff was responsible for several key initiatives within the organisation, including the launch of Yahoo! Music.

He started his business career as a management consultant with the likes of Cap Gemini and Bain Consulting and specialised in business transformation and corporate strategy. Cliff then went on to join Vodafone Australasia as Head of Corporate Strategy, where he led a team responsible for launching the first mobile content services for Vodafone Australia.

Cliff is an active investor, advisor and board member, with Non-Executive Directorships on 3 ASX listed companies: Afterpay, Pureprofile and Nearmap. With a passion for the start-up space, Cliff was instrumental in helping start and grow Australia’s leading online restaurant booking platform, Dimmi.com.au, which was sold to Tripadvisor in 2015.

As crossword maker in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, as well as Wordplay columnist with Spectrum, David Astle is a full-time word nerd. You might even catch his words and tangents on ABC Radio Melbourne, most weeknights 7-10pm.

His latest book – Rewording The Brain – investigates recent neural studies into puzzle-solving, seeing how twisty clues empower your brain. There’s also a primer to help you solve such clues, plus the nerve to conquer the book’s crossword finale.

David also composes such diversions as Wordwit and Omega for Fairfax. While on telly you can catch his regular word spots on News Breakfast, looking at Hinglish, Trumpish or whatevs.

David was also part of a conspiracy to invent a new word. And of course, you may also recall his face (or flamboyant shirt collection) from the past SBS cult show, Letters and Numbers.

David Hansen is CEO of the Australian e-Health Research Centre, a joint venture between the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Queensland Health and CSIRO’s national digital health research program. David leads a research program of over 100 scientists and engineers developing information and communication technologies to improve the safety, quality and efficiency of healthcare. The e-Health research program tackles the challenges of the healthcare system across Data, Diagnosis and Services.

David is also the Chair of the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA).

David is passionate about the role of information and communication technologies in health care and the role of Health Informatics professionals in developing a safe, high quality efficient and sustainable healthcare system in Australia.

Jodie is the Uber Eats General Manager for Australia and New Zealand. Uber Eats is an on-demand food delivery platform, that aims to make eating well effortless for everyone, everywhere.

Jodie is an energetic leader with a unique combination of medical expertise, top-tier management consulting experience and business leadership in high-growth tech startups. She fiercely believes in asking ‘why’ – challenging common wisdom and thinking from first principles to solve problems and develop people.

Jodie started her professional career as an Emergency doctor where she learned the art of hypothesis driven problem solving and triage. After completing her MBA at Melbourne Business School, Jodie spent two years at Bain & Company building her business foundation. Jodie fell in love with start up life as GM Operations at Scoopon, before moving to San Francisco in early 2013 to be at the heart of tech innovation in Silicon Valley.

At Uber Eats, Jodie feels lucky to work on the complex operational challenges of a three sided marketplace, as well as building and motivating teams of exceptionally talented people. She enjoys the immense pace of growth and change at Uber, and the constant internal reflection and drive the company has to be an inspiring place to work.

Jodie lives in Melbourne with her partner Rachael, their 8yo son Miles and their 3yo daughter Juliet.

Dr Jordan Nguyen, is one of Australia’s most innovative biomedical engineers, who’s committed his work to improving the lives of as many people as possible.

An internationally renowned engineer for humanity, Jordan designs life-changing technologies to transform the lives of people with disabilities and the elderly through his role as founder of Psykinetic, a social business committed to bringing positive, sustainable and life-altering change, and shares his adventures through documentaries across the world. Inspired by human endeavour, Jordan has big ambitions to see our world step consciously and creatively into a better future.

Inspired by human endeavour, Jordan has big ambitions to see our world step consciously and creatively into a better future. Throughout his adventures, he explores the intersection between technology and humanity. Amongst his many inventions, Jordan has created a mind-controlled wheelchair, virtual interactive avatars to preserve memories of loved ones, an instrument that enabled a friend with cerebral palsy to play music with her eyes and blinks, and tech solutions that make it possible to turn on appliances and drive a car using only the tiny electrical signals created from eye movements!

Jordan is the founder of Psykinetic, a technology futurist, TEDx speaker and an award-winning documentary maker and presenter. His achievements have been recognised locally with selection as a NSW Finalist for Australian of the Year 2017, and globally with his appearance in the Top 100 Global Influencers on Virtual Reality in Onalytica’s Top 100 Influencers and Brands report in both 2016 and 2017. He has spoken at large events all around the world and recently had the honour of being Master of Ceremonies for an Evening with President Barack Obama.

Jordan is a passionate ambassador for STEAM education, adaptable mindsets and big-picture thinking, and has taught university engineering master’s students in Artificial Intelligence design and Biomedical instrumentation. He believes our young generations are the change-makers of tomorrow and have the potential to create solutions to the world’s greatest challenges.

Until April 2019 Megan was a partner at PwC and the National Leader of the Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) Industry. In her practice she performed strategy, due diligence, forecasting, and market analysis work for clients.

Megan has over 25 years’ experience in media, marketing and managing digital disruption, ranging from designing cross-media strategies to assessing new digital opportunities. Megan also led PwC’s thought leadership program: The Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook, providing forecasts and commentary on twelve media and telecommunications segments, covering consumer and advertising spending.

Megan is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD), holds an MBA from The Australian Graduate School of Management, a Bachelor of Arts with Honours from the Australian National University and an LTP (Leadership Talent Pool) Certificate from INSEAD.

Moe is Founder and Managing Director of Dialysis Australia. His extensive experience in complex stakeholder relations, ability to forecast specific health demands and lead teams in developing the appropriate models of care to meet this demand hold Dialysis Australia in good stead as the health system struggles to cope with capacity concerns. Dialysis Australia currently works with Australia’s largest Private Health Insurer (PHI), Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Department of Health, National Ministries of Health as well as not-for-profit organisations.

Dialysis Australia is a respected and experienced provider of home-based dialysis services. Typically, haemodialysis patients travel to and from hospital three times per week for 5 to 6 hours at a time. This greatly affects employment prospects, quality of life and overall mental health. As an enabler of in-home dialysis care and in an Australian first, Dialysis Australia is changing the landscape for people living with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) by allowing a greater number of patients to receive dialysis treatment in the comfort of their own home through the use of their PHI with zero out-of-pocket (OOP) costs or gap payments. This exciting form of health disruption has successfully enabled people to receive their ongoing dialysis treatment at home with an experienced dialysis nurse present for the entire treatment without the need to travel to and from hospital, with a view to transition patients to self-administered dialysis. Overall, this provides greater flexibility and improved quality of life indicators for patients in where and when they receive their care and has associated financial savings to PHIs, patients and the health system as a whole.

Rami was appointed as HealthShare’s Chief Executive Officer in 2014, having previously spent three years leading the company’s Product Development & Strategy teams. As CEO, Rami is focused on driving HealthShare’s vision as an innovator in the digital health space, building strategic partnerships in Australia and abroad as well as guiding the future direction of the product roadmap.

Rami previously founded Boomerater.com, an online decision guide helping the 50+ demographic make better-informed life choices. Under Rami’s leadership, the website formed partnerships with major players across the financial planning, legal, senior housing and health verticals, providing a one-stop portal for Baby Boomers to research, compare and find service providers in these areas.

He is also a founding mentor in Startmate, an Australian startup accelerator which offers mentorship and seed financing to founders of Internet and Software businesses based in Australia. Rami has a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Technology from the University of New South Wales and also studied at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.

Rocky Scopelliti is a world-renowned futurologist. His pioneering behavioural economics research on the confluence of demographic change associated with Millennials, and digital technology, have influenced the way we think about our social, cultural, economic and technological future. His new book ‘Youthquake 4.0 – A Whole Generation and the New Industrial Revolution’ was launched in September 2018.

As a media commentator, his unique insights have featured on SKY Business News, The Australian Financial Review, ABC Radio National, The Economist, Forbes and Bloomberg. As an international key note speaker, his presentations have captivated audiences across Asia Pacific, the USA and Europe including Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. As a thought-leading Chief Juvenescence Officer, over 150 boards and leadership teams, including Fortune 100 corporations, each year seek his advice on strategy, emerging technologies and their future impact.

A distinguished author, his 15 thought leadership research publications have become internationally recognised for their influence including the World Economic Forum’s Disruptive Innovation in Financial Services Program.

In an executive capacity, he is a member of the Optus Business Leadership team as the Director, Centre for Industry 4.0 where he leads the specialist team creating world class thought-leadership and innovation to guide enterprises on the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

In a non-executive capacity, he is a director on the board of Community First Credit Union, on the technology advisory board for REST Super, member of the Australian Payments Council and on the advisory board of Wake by Reach.

Educated in Australia and trained in the USA at Sydney and Stanford Universities respectively, he has a Graduate Diploma in Corporate Management and an MBA. He is also a graduate and member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Tess van der Rijt is a health system policy and reform specialist. She has worked with the World Health Organisation in Geneva; in public health governance in Singapore and as a management consultant in Sydney, advising government health agencies and health care service providers. Tess is the CEO and Founder of Patient Connector, an online platform that gives patients upfront access to information about specialist doctors, so they can make more informed decisions about their health care. Patient Connector also helps specialist doctors proactively grow their private practice.