A member of Prime Minister Morrison’s Cabinet, he is responsible for the Government’s plan, outlined in the 2016 Defence White Paper, to invest $195 billion in building Australia’s Defence capability over the next 10 years.

In 2017 Minister Ciobo worked closely with now Defence Minister Pyne to develop the Defence Export Strategy, including the creation of the $3.8 billion Defence Export Facility managed by the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation.

Previously Mr Ciobo was Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. In this role he pursued the most ambitious trade agenda in Australia’s history, concluding four trade agreements covering 19 countries and launching negotiations with the European Union, Hong Kong and Pacific Alliance. Minister Ciobo concluded the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the history making Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Indonesia, and deals with Peru, Singapore, and Pacific Island countries.

As Investment Minister, Minister Ciobo engaged with the international investment community to promote and facilitate foreign investment into Australia. During his term as Investment Minister the total stock of foreign investment rose by more than $233 billion. In his previous role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, Minister Ciobo assessed more than 800 applications for business investment under Australia’s foreign investment framework.

As Tourism Minister, Minister Ciobo delivered record revenue for Tourism Australia, allowing the agency to promote Australia overseas like never before. During his time as Minister, Australia welcomed a record number of tourists who set new spending records. His stewardship saw the successful launch of the ‘son of Crocodile Dundee’ campaign in the US and the Year of Australia-China Tourism. Minister Ciobo created the Boosting Business Events Bid Fund within Tourism Australia to drive the most successful business events program in Australia.

This is Minister Ciobo’s sixth front bench role. He also served as a Shadow Minister in the Nelson, Turnbull and Abbott Oppositions. Minister Ciobo has previously served as Australia’s Alternate Governor to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Before entering the Australian Parliament as the Federal Member for Moncrieff in 2001 Minister Ciobo built a professional career as an executive in the economic reform unit at international firms Coopers & Lybrand and, later, PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws from Bond University, as well as a Master of Laws from the Queensland University of Technology. Minister Ciobo is married with two children.

Juanita Phillips is one of Australia’s most experienced television news anchors and currently presents the 7pm bulletin on ABC News for New South Wales.

Starting as cadet journalist for The Courier-Mail in Brisbane in 1982, Juanita later became a feature writer and columnist. The early-nineties saw her move to Network Ten in Sydney and Brisbane where she was the lead female presenter for two years.

After a position at Sky News Australia in 1997, Juanita moved to London where she worked as a news presenter at BBC World News while running her own café. She later moved to CNN International which was also based in London, working as co-anchor on CNN Today, before moving back to Australia in 2002.

She is an author, having written A Pressure Cooker Saved My Life: How to Have it All, Do it All and Keep it All Together as well as children’s series; The Newspaper Kids.

Julie Batch was appointed Chief Customer Officer in December 2015. In this role, she heads up Customer Labs, which is responsible for improving customer experiences and product, pricing, marketing and digital innovation through data and insights, customer engagement systems, brand architecture across the group, human centred design and new business incubation and venturing.

Julie was previously Chief Analytics Officer. She was appointed to that role in June 2014, responsible for Group Reinsurance and Analytics.   Prior to this, Julie was the Chief Risk Officer in IAG’s Direct Insurance business (now Australian Consumer Division), where she led a group-wide program aimed at improving our information and analytics capabilities.

Since joining IAG in 2005 Julie has held a number of senior roles in Group Reinsurance including Group General Manager Reinsurance from 2008 onwards.

Earlier in her career, Julie held senior roles at Gen Re Australia, part of the Berkshire Hathaway Group, as well as other reinsurance organisations. She has extensive international experience including time spent in France, Monaco, London and Japan.

Julie holds a Masters of Applied Finance and is a Fellow of ANZIIF.

Layne Beachley AO is widely regarded as the most successful female surfer in history. The only surfer, male or female, to claim six consecutive world titles (1998-2003). Layne then went on to win a 7th world title in 2006 before retiring from the ASP World Tour in 2008.

On Australia Day 2015, Layne was awarded with an Officer of the Order of Australia for her distinguished service to the community through support for a wide range of charitable organisations, as a mentor for women in sport and as a world champion surfer.

Layne achieved yet another first in Australian sport by becoming Surfing Australia's Chairperson in the latter part of 2015. She is the first former female World Champion of any sport to take on the role as Chair in a National Sporting organisation.

Layne is also the proud Founder and Director of her own charity, the Layne Beachley Foundation, Aim For The Stars, fostering courage and self-belief in young girls and women to achieve their dreams in a diverse range of pursuits including science, business, environment, sport and the arts.

In September 2018, more than a decade after winning her record breaking seventh women’s world surfing crown, Layne returned to the water to win an 8th world title, becoming the first female winner of the WSL World Masters Championship with her victory in the Azores.

Now as a motivational speaker, trainer and mentor, Layne inspires individuals and teams to become the champion of their own life and achieve sustained success.

Her exploits are astounding, her attitude unwavering and her achievements inspirational.

As President and Chief Product Officer, Bret Taylor leads Salesforce’s global product vision, design and development, and go-to-market strategy. A respected software engineer and executive with an impressive history of building widely used and loved products, Bret was most recently the co-founder and CEO of Quip, the innovative collaboration platform Salesforce acquired in 2016. Prior to founding Quip, Bret served as the Chief Technology Officer of Facebook and saw the company through its successful IPO in 2012. Credited with the invention of the “Like” button, Bret joined Facebook in 2009 after it acquired his social networking company, FriendFeed. Prior to FriendFeed, Bret started his career at Google, where he co-created Google Maps.

Bret is a member of Twitter's board of directors. He graduated from Stanford University in 2003 with a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science and now lives in the Bay Area.

Rowena Westphalen is Vice President, Innovation, Asia Pacific at Salesforce. In this capacity, Rowena is responsible for a wide range of customer innovation programs that Salesforce offers to customers across Asia Pacific. This includes Ignite, Salesforce’s Innovation practice of Strategists, Designers and Researchers. Part of a worldwide team of innovators Salesforce’s APAC innovation practice is a relatively new function that covers all of Asia Pacific with studios across Asia Pacific.

Previously, Rowena served on the board of directors for the Australian Design Centre. Before Salesforce she was Global Senior Director at SAP responsible for Design Thinking with customers and also lead various Analytics Innovation functions at SAP. In all these roles there’s a common theme of combining technology & analytics with human needs to create meaningful outcomes for communities and businesses.

A regular keynote speaker at corporate and industry events, Rowena had held various technical, sales and design roles in England and South Africa before she moved to Australia in 2000. Since her move to Australia – she’s focused on working throughout Asia Pacific – particularly China, Japan and India.

Rowena’s affinity for Design stems from an innate love of making stuff. She’s a serial hobbyist and curiositarian - always eager to learn new things and play with new ideas. Rowena's two sons are often the chief conspirators in playing with the new ideas and the whole family love travel, enjoy new experiences and having fun together.