DAY ONE
8.30 Registration
9.00 Chair’s opening remarks
9.10 KEYNOTE – Breaking the silence: Using courage and resilience to influence and lead
- Finding your voice and the impact of speaking up
- Exploring the responsibility of influence: How compassionate leadership begins with courage and accountability
- Learning how collective advocacy creates safer workplaces and communities through empathy and awareness
- Becoming a ‘champion for change’ and using your story and strength to raise others will mark you as inspirational.
Leigh Sales, Award-winning Journalist and Author
10.10 Networking as an Executive Assistant: Acquaint, accommodate, ally
- Leveraging both online platforms and face-to-face events to build a diverse, valuable network and the benefits of each
- Creating beneficial connections, step-by-step, using commonality, clarity, and continuity to deepen relationships
- Understanding the advantages and pitfalls of networking, and striking the right balance for your personality and goals
- Breaking into established circles as a new EA, or deepening your network as experienced EA.
Avril Henry, Founder and CFO, Avril Henry & Associates
11.05 Morning tea
11.30 EA PANEL – The ‘quiet achiever’ v ‘recognised achiever’: Executive Assistant leadership and influence through delegated authority
- Understanding why influence, not authority, is foundational to effective Executive Assistant leadership
- Using fresh perspectives to create and innovation versus using depth of knowledge to drive change
- Leading without authority’s upside and downside – foster creativity, encourage collaboration, reduce resistance, overcoming limited resources, lack of recognition of success
- Crafting strong relationships and engaging alliances across teams.
Eliza Clark, Government Affairs Coordinator, Government Affairs, Westpac Institutional Bank & Reputation Strategy; NSW Co-Chair for Women of Westpac, Employee Advocacy Group, Westpac
Maria Ferlito, EA to Director Urban Planning & Environment and Chief Financial Officer/EA to Chief Operating Officer, NSW Office of Local Government/Sydney Olympic Park Authority
Sarah Bishop, EA to Leader of the Corporate Advisory Group, Gilbert + Tobin
Lidia Catalano, EA to the Director Corporate Services, Central Coast Council
12.15 From the sideline to spotlight: Mastering verbal and non-verbal communication for EAs
- Understanding assertive communication in whatever your career phase
- Appreciating where verbal precision and non-verbal cues intersect and what approach is required
- Setting boundaries as an Executive Assistant to avoid the always saying ‘yes’
- Using assertiveness as a tool to elevate strategic influence.
Lindsay Leigh Hobson, Speaker + MC, Lindsay Leigh Hobson
12.55 Lunch
13.50 Peak Performance Playbook: Time, tech, and energy for EAs
- Decision-making and prioritisation using the 4N’s: Now, next, negotiate, never – a clear framework for handling conflicting requests and managing your tasks list and emails.
- Leveraging the in-built automation tools and incorporating Generative AI into your productivity system
- Creating a personal ‘energy audit’ template to identify your peak performance periods and align high-level tasks with your natural energy cycle
- Incorporating reflection sessions to review progress, recalibrate priorities, and celebrate achievements in how you manage your time.
Mario Halouvas, CEO and Founder, MHPP
14.35 Balancing technology with professional judgement
- Using AI where it genuinely helps, and where your judgement still matters more
- Navigating varying levels of access, policy, and organisational readiness in the real world
- Adapting at your own pace to build confidence with new tools without needing to master everything at once
- Balancing new technology with the human awareness and discretion the EA role depends on, making you indispensable
Linda Viskovic, Senior Executive Assistant, Australian Public Service
15.05 Afternoon tea
15.30 Maintaining calmness and professionalism in challenging settings
- Designing personalised wellbeing frameworks to accommodate changing support required to manage changing health dynamics
- Designing policies for the neurodiverse and the gender-diverse and tailoring support for gender specific health issues
- Creating inclusive health action plans for gendered needs and chronic conditions, informed by Australian case studies
- Implementing risk-tracking tools paired with data encryption on a need-to-know basis
Isabelle Phillips PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Connector, Mindfulness for the Global Village
16.15 SENIOR EXECUTIVE PANEL – Aligning understanding and direction between Executive/Executive Assistant
- Defining priorities and measuring success from the Executive’s point of view
- Developing the balance between autonomy and collaboration with your Executive Assistant
- Maintaining proactive foresight and diplomacy in stressful circumstances
- Evolving from support roles to strategic advisers.
Chanelle McEnallay, Group Chief Safety Officer, Ramsay Health Care; Principal Executive Officer, Comcare; President – Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Licensee Association, Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Licensees Association (SRCLA)
Kim Grady, Chief Health, Safety & Wellbeing Officer , University of Sydney
Lucy Poole, Deputy CEO – Digital Strategy, Policy and Performance, Digital Transformation Agency
Rex Wood, Founder and CEO Advisor, Performance HQ
17.00 Congress photo
17.10 Networking drinks
DAY TWO
9.00 Chair’s recap of Day One
9.10 FIRESIDE CHAT – Thriving in the ‘fast lane’: How EAs and Executives master adaptability together
- Building a resilient EA–Executive partnership that stays composed, solutions-focused, and effective under pressure
- Aligning quickly to shift priorities and pivot strategies with clarity and confidence as business needs evolve
- Turning uncertainty into opportunity through proactive communication, shared foresight, and decisive action
- Strengthening habits and ways of working that keep both EA and Executive agile, responsive, and ahead of change.
Marie Purchase, EA to the Chief Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Officer, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability, Westpac
Michael Chen, Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer, Westpac
9.55 EA PANEL – Supportive versus strategic: Reinventing the EA-Executive dynamic
- Growing business acumen and understanding organisational priorities to translate your Executive’s vision into actionable strategies
- Building your strategic toolkit – building trust, setting priorities, anticipating the good and the bad, ‘how are we doing’
- Knowing what partnership success looks like and using partnership elements to maintain that success
- Leveraging emerging technology for predictive scheduling, analysis, and decision-making, whilst keeping your high human value to the forefront
Nonie Veness, Operations Manager, GCQ Funds Management Pty Ltd
Nikki Mackin, EA to Group CEO and Chairman, Corporate Travel Management
Kym Hassett, EA to the Vice President Legal Asia and Japan/ANZ, Medtronic
Madeleine Allan, EA and Business Manager, M&C Saatchi Group
10.40 Morning tea
11.10 Using your ‘high human value’ with Copilot to build synergy and rhythm in your day
- Automating repetitive administrative tasks with Copilot to make time for high-value task focus
- Using Copilot Agents for real-time research, reporting, and data analysis
- Achieving greater efficiency in writing, scheduling, and document creation using Copilot’s features in Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint
- Building a modern digital toolkit to position yourself as a tech-savvy, future-ready Executive Assistant.
Mario Halouvas, CEO and Founder, MHPP
12.10 The growth mindset EA: Building your career in today’s workplace
- Leaping into leadership from the EA role
- Practising skill-stacking to break free from the promotional hierarchy
- Elevating your strategic capabilities with emerging technology while maintaining your ‘high human value’
- Seeking ‘stretch’ opportunities to test leadership capability.
Kim Kane, EA to Deputy Head of Pastoral Care, Sydney Church of England Grammar School
12.55 Lunch
13.55 The wisdom of emotional intelligence for EAs: Aligning inner values with external success
- Cultivate your leadership style grounded in authenticity, empathy, and calm authority
- Enhance your decision-making so you can respond intuitively, ethically, and with confidence in high-pressure moments
- Create conscious impact by building relationships that uplift your executive, your team, your organisation, and the wider world
- Beyond being “good with people” – it’s about becoming an emotionally intelligent leader in the engine room of the business, where your presence and perspective truly matter.
Katrena Friel, International Speaker, Award Winning Author, Corporate Trainer, Executive Coach, Business Mentor, Refresh Your Thinking
14.40 EA PANEL – Mastering competing demands in high-pressure environments
- Resetting decision-making using next generation AI tools to analyse task importance and urgency
- Mapping impact versus urgency to categorise stakeholder importance and task impact
- Leveraging your resources to delegate beyond ‘traditional’ teams
- Thriving under competing demands by anticipating conflicts before they escalate.
Rachel Bain, Executive Assistant, Westpac
Rebecca Cooper, EA to Director City Assets, Blacktown City Council
Sally Guerreiro, EA to the Chief Executive Officer, Slice
Emma Collier, EA to Deputy CEO, Digital Transformation Agency
15.25 Chair’s closing remarks
15.35 Afternoon tea
16.00 Congress concludes