Executive Assistant Melbourne Congress Agenda

Day One

08.30 Registration

09.00   Chair’s opening remarks

09.10 – Keynote address – Food for thought: turning obstacles into opportunities and doubt into hope

  • Embracing self-awareness
  • Building resilience through continuous learning
  • Cultivating assertive communication
  • Leveraging strategic relationships

Julie Goodwin, 1st Winner of MasterChef, Australia’s favourite home cook, Julie Goodwin

10.10 Building your network to support success

  • Developing high levels of trust and reputation to enhance your personal value
  • Sharing with and learning from your network to be the ‘early adapter’
  • Strengthening your social capital and your influence through your network
  • Leveraging your network’s talents to enhance your expertise

Phyllis Vellu, Executive Assistant to Dean and Deputy Dean, The University of Melbourne

10.50 Morning tea

11.20 40 Years of Transformation:  The evolving role of the Executive Assistant in modern administration

  • Enhancing strategic value as the EA role shifts from support to being crucial in decision-making and business operations
  • Becoming proficient with evolving technology tools, from basic office software to AI-powered systems
  • Expanding responsibilities to include project management, event coordination, and data analysis, requiring a diverse skill set beyond traditional administrative tasks
  • Increasing influence and leadership to add value to corporate culture, leadership support, and operational excellence

Ann Dougan, Executive Assistant, City of Melbourne

12.00 Panel Discussion – Leveraging high-level administrative skills to change direction

  • Knowing your ‘why’ to inform the desire for change
  • Identifying your toolbox of skills and how they will support career change
  • Evaluating your transferrable skills against desired role descriptions
  • Demonstrating your broader expertise by showcasing adaptable skills to leverage opportunities

Jade Bermingham, Executive Assistant to Barni Evans, CEO, Sportsbet

Domenica Inserra, C-suite EA, Freelance and formerly EA to Chairman, Treasury Wine Estates

12.45 Lunch

13.45 Combining confidence and knowledge to boost your assertiveness

  • Stepping out of your comfort zone to increase self-confidence
  • Understanding the part information plays in being assertive
  • Creating ‘thinking time’ strategies to push back the bulldozers
  • Asking open and investigative questions to support your capability

Speaker to be advised

14.30 Becoming strategic as an Executive Assistant

  • Understanding what it takes to be strategic
  • Developing a managerial mindset
  • Managing your executive’s mindset to foster ready acceptance of your inputs
  • Strengthening business skills with training to create growth opportunities

Marise Maechler, Business Partner to CEO, Aon Reinsurance Solutions; President, The Association for Women in Insurance NSW

15.10 Afternoon tea

15.35 Managing your relationship with your Executive more intentionally

  • Adapting different communication styles and ways of working to create a ‘dream team’
  • Gaining awareness of your Executive’s goals and objectives and those of the organisation
  • Thinking like your Executive to anticipate their needs
  • Ensuring mutual success using effective communication.

Megan Green, Executive Assistant to the CEO, Reliance Real Estate

16.15 Senior Executive Panel – Exceeding expectations – how does my Executive Assistant do this?

  • Knowing your Executive to act as them when needed
  • Forward planning, problem-solving and communicating to prevent obstacles
  • Using great interpersonal skills to build stakeholder relationships and improve office culture
  • Mapping processes to meet deadlines

Jaime Cortes, CEO, Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment (OET)

Craig Henderson, Partner, Family & Relationship Law Specialist, Landers & Rogers

Steve McMenamin, CEO, House + Land Co and Lux VIP Events

17.00 Congress photo

17.10 Networking drinks

 

Day Two

09.00   Chair’s opening remarks

09.10 Panel Discussion – Thriving as an ‘exceptional’ Executive Assistant

  • Fostering strong and collaborative relationships across the organisation to building trust
  • Developing underestimated soft skills to enable greater organisational involvement
  • Finding your unique selling point
  • Developing your brand to enhance your value

Vanessa Ashby, Executive Assistant – Private Markets, Future Fund

Julie De Maria, Executive Assistant to Deputy CEO, AU & NZ, ESR Australia & New Zealand

Amanta Giesen, Executive Assistant, Choice Hotels Asia-Pac

Tammy Tantschev, Executive Assistant to the CEO, Envato

09.50 Conducting difficult conversations to encourage progress and growth

  • Understanding the person to adapt conversation tone
  • Providing feedback that encourages improvement
  • Planning discussions to allow flexibility of approach
  • Ensuring a satisfactory outcome for all participants

Anneli Blundell, Professional People Whisperer, Anneli Blundell

10.30 Morning tea

11.00 Enhancing your strategic value using Artificial Intelligence as your ally

  • Shifting your thinking to embrace a 21st century mindset to boost productivity and performance
  • Exploring the myriad AI offerings to help you create your AI support suite
  • Humanising AI for enhanced solutions
  • Creating a personalised reference library at your fingertips
  • Keeping up as AI evolves to continuously develop your career

Mario Halouvas, CEO and Founder, Mario Halouvas Productivity Professionals

12.00 Understanding emerging technologies to improve productivity – an overview

  • Evaluating various software and apps to manage your workload
  • Streamlining expense reconciliation, capturing financial documents, and integrating tracking and reporting
  • Building visually appealing presentations, infographics, and visual content
  • Producing better engagement and outcomes through communication strategies, tailored writing styles, and rephrasing content

Tania Sabatino, Executive Assistant to Dean, School of Business, Law and Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology

12.45 Lunch

13.45 Panel Discussion – Managing time and tasks to effect efficiency and productivity in your day for you and your Executive

  • Developing routines to prioritise your ‘best time’ to set up your day to allow you to tackle your ‘hit list’
  • Creating and triaging a ‘master list’ using strategic thinking, forward vision, and your executive’s consideration to focus on the ‘urgent’
  • Planning, prioritising and being goal-focused to demonstrate a can-do attitude and initiative
  • Establishing open communication, questions, and corporate knowledge to know who and what is important to timely completion of any task

Samantha Webb, Board Secretariat, Beyond Blue

Kayla Morgan-Jones, Executive Assistant to CEO, Cora Group

Amy Waters, Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive, IFM Investors

Boli Meng, Executive Assistant to the Director of Finance, Business Operations and Special Projects, Province People

14.30 Increasing your influence to lead as an Executive Assistant

  • Developing trust by promoting your integrity and reliability
  • Being the First Follower or Force Multiplier to amplify power and influence
  • Sharpening your strategic approach and business acumen
  • Building good relationships across the team to foster commitment to goals and objectives

Katrena Friel, Success Coach for Intrepreneurs, Refresh Your Thinking

15.15 Afternoon tea

15.45 Close of Congress