Richard Kay has transformed NZTE’s ICT function across 53 global locations. In 18 months he moved his department’s NPS score from -15 to +80, overcoming low engagement and morale.

Starting with fixing the small things when they mattered most, he then developed the 'Way we Work' philosophy, designed via a collaborative process which included new ways of thinking such as 'We say yes', 'We find a way' and 'We keep people informed'. Richard and his teams have migrated systems almost fully into the cloud, with the focus on creating a knowledge environment. Incredibly, these changes have been made without impact to budgets.

He says the secret to success was having full support from the leadership team and the board. They gave him free reign and trust to make broad reaching changes to create a new fun culture; move away from a 'permissions based culture' and instead focus on letting people make their own decisions and feel OK about making their own mistakes.

Auckland based law firm MinterEllisonRuddWatts has a vision to become a digitally enabled market disrupter. Nick Whitehouse is the company's CDO, having secured his role at the law firm after a successful and award winning career as a digital specialist at Spark Digital. Nick has been instrumental in making MinterEllisonRuddWatts' vision become a reality, leading several engaging and challenging technology initiatives.

Valocity have utilised a winning culture and talented people as well as technology and analytics to produce a simple and effective solution that has transformed mortgage lending for financial institutions, valuers, brokers and consumers in innovative ways.

Valocity have shown the ability to not only transform their own business to the changing needs of their customers but also to disrupt an entire industry.

The Code Avengers (CA) program takes a gamified approach to teaching both secondary and tertiary students how to code.

1.5 million students have registered and completed lessons on the CA platform since starting in 2012. Half of NZ’s high schools use CA in their digital technologies programmes, and in the last three years 2,500 business students per year have used CA lessons in the 1st year business course at the University of Auckland.

BNZ identifies the agility and speed of the technology team as a 'core enabler' of the bank's strategy and its 5,000 staff.

Within 24 hours of the Kaikoura earthquake a critical technology team was established to transition 1,500 staff dislocated from their Wellington office and also help BNZ be the first bank to get banking services back up in Kaikoura.

The technology team now talk about what outages mean for customers instead of what outages mean for technology.

US-based Kiwi Claudia Batten will openly admit she is digitally obsessed. From her roots in commercial law, she has been a founding member of two highly successful entrepreneurial ventures. As part of the founding team of Massive Incorporated, a network for advertising in video games, she helped pioneer “digital” as a media buy. Massive was sold to Microsoft in 2006, where Claudia then spent 3 years scaling the in-game network. In 2009 she co-founded Victors & Spoils, the first advertising agency built on the principles of crowdsourcing. After two years in market, V&S was majority acquired by French holding company Havas Worldwide. In 2014 Claudia cofounded Broadli with Ale Lariu and Mary Abraham to redefine how we use digital connectivity to power networking.

Claudia was most recently appointed to run North American operations for NZTE, supporting New Zealand business as they grow internationally into that market. She is a Director of NZX listed digital travel company Serko, and digital advisor to the board of Westpac New Zealand.

Claudia graduated Victoria University of Wellington in 1998 with degrees in Law (Hons) and Commerce. At Russell McVeagh she specialized in contract, IP, and technology law before moving to New York in 2002. She became the youngest person appointed to the New Zealand Government’s Trade and Exchange US Beachheads Board in 2007.

Claudia has achieved great success in the US market, but remains a strong supporter of the New Zealand start up scene. She participates regularly across the ecosystem on boards, advisory groups and as a very active mentor. She believes that New Zealand must be part of the digital world to close the geographic divide, remain relevant, and increase its prosperity. In 2013, she was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from Victoria University in recognition of her commitment to New Zealand and her achievements in tech. In 2014 she was the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious “World Class New Zealand Supreme Award”, in recognition for her achievements and her work inspiring the entrepreneurial ecosystem in New Zealand. Claudia is also a recipient of the Sir Peter Blake Leadership award recognizing her as a Kiwi Leader working to achieve the extraordinary for New Zealand.

She is a regular speaker on the future of marketing, the impact of connectivity, and on building businesses of the future. She is best known for being the author of The Squiggly Line, encouraging people at every stage of their career to embrace intuition and take big leaps into the unknown in pursuit of the remarkable.

Batten’s experience has informed her business savvy, while her appetite for new challenges, unerring sense of timing and intuitive handle on the pulse of the industry guarantee that she will be a force to be reckoned with for years to come.