Nic Marchesi is a Co-Founder of Orange Sky and a recognized entrepreneur, innovator, and storyteller. He was named 2016 Young Australian of the Year and received the 2020 Order of Australia Medal.
Nic helped create Orange Sky as the world’s first free mobile laundry and shower service for people experiencing homelessness. Today, his role centres on positively connecting communities – living Orange Sky’s mission by connecting people with the Orange Sky story, connecting teams with each other and their mission, and connecting ideas from inside and outside the organisation.

Nic shares Orange Sky’s impact through speaking engagements, podcasts, and media, amplifying the voices of volunteers, friends, and supporters. He convenes problem-solving sessions that bring together diverse perspectives to drive practical innovation.

As a member of the Senior Leadership Team, Nic helps shape the organisation’s long-term direction while ensuring Orange Sky continues to innovate at the intersection of connection and impact.

As Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Orange Sky across Australia and New Zealand, Lucas Patchett leads the organisation’s vision, strategy and growth. He has built Orange Sky from a grassroots idea into a trans-Tasman service supporting thousands of people experiencing homelessness and hardship.

A 2016 Young Australian of the Year and 2020 Order of Australia Medallist, Lucas is an entrepreneur, innovator and storyteller.

A former professional cricketer and Ironman competitor, Kath Koschel has faced unimaginable hurdles. In her twenties, she broke her back and was told she may never walk again. Shortly afterwards, she lost her partner to suicide. Then, piecing her life back together, she was hit by a 4WD and learned to walk again a second time.

Kath’s resilience helped her to not only overcome these challenges, but to see the good in the world. In 2015, Kath founded Kindness Factory.

The not-for-profit, now based across three countries, has inspired over seven and-a-half million acts of kindness. Its curriculum teaches the power of kindness to children at more than 3,500 schools across Australia and had been downloaded over 60,000 times globally.

Kath’s work has been celebrated globally, most recently being named the 2025 NSW Australian of the Year and recipient of the Australia Medal for courage inovercoming extreme adversity.

Louise has been CEO of the Sydney Opera House for over 13 years, after careers as a lawyer, corporate adviser, chair and board member of a range of organisations.

As CEO of the Opera House, Louise has led a far-reaching decade of renewal to prepare the Opera House for future generations of artists, audiences and visitors, and in the years since the Opera House’s 50^th anniversary in 2023 has been focused on making real the Opera House’s ambition to be Everyone’s House.

Louise is also Chair of the NSW Government’s Creative Communities Council.

In 2024, Louise received the Sydney University Alumni Award for Professional Achievement.

Michelle L. Malkin, JD, PhD, directs the Gambling Research and Policy Initiative (GRPI) at East Carolina University, where she also serves as an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology. Her research examines how gambling affects individuals, families, and communities — with a focus on behavioral risks and gambling-related harms in under-studied populations. Dr. Malkin’s scholarship bridges research, policy, and practice to promote evidence-based responses to gambling harm. She has earned national recognition, including awards from the National Council on Problem Gambling and multiple honors from ECU for innovation, research excellence, and community engagement. She is the creator of the Gambling-Motivated Crime Diversion Checklist, an innovative tool used to guide criminal justice interventions and diversion programs, and co-creator of the Emerging Adult Gambling Screen (EAGS), a gambling-related harm screening tool specifically designed and validated for adults under the age of 25.  

Stephen Scheeler is the former Facebook CEO for Australia and New Zealand, where he guided Facebook’s rise from quirky startup to media and technology titan. Working with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook’s Silicon Valley leaders, his tenure at Facebook saw the ANZ business — including Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp and Oculus — become one of the most successful Facebook markets in the world.

Today, he is co-founder and CEO of Omniscient — the world leader in using AI to decode the human brain — often called “the Google Maps of the brain”. In 2022, Omniscient won the South by Southwest Innovation Award for AI.
He is also founder of The Digital CEO, senior advisor to McKinsey & Company, and executive-in-residence at the Australian Graduate School of Management.

As a speaker, Stephen has appeared on the highest-profile keynote stages — including TEDx and South by Southwest. He is a frequent media commentator on AI, technology, leadership, and the future of business and society, and is a member of the Australian Prime Minister’s Knowledge Nation 100, top innovation leaders in Australia.

Stephen has a unique ability to excite audiences on the power of technology, the future of business, and the new paradigm of 21st-century leadership with his rare insight, humour, and humility.
Stephen is one of Australia’s most sought after speakers on digital disruption, transformation, culture and leadership, and the future of technology, data, and AI.

Jessica Sansom is a globally recognised sustainability and impact leader with more than 20 years’ experience helping organisations embed environmental and social responsibility at the heart of business strategy. She currently serves as Chief Impact Officer at EIT Food, Europe’s leading food innovation community, where she leads efforts to transform the food system by accelerating innovation, collaboration, and investment in solutions that deliver healthier, more sustainable outcomes for people and the planet.

Prior to joining EIT Food, Jessica held senior sustainability leadership roles at major global consumer brands including Huel, Innocent Drinks, and McDonald’s. As Sustainability Director at Huel, she integrated sustainability into core business decision-making during a period of rapid international growth. Earlier, as Head of Sustainability at Innocent Drinks, she helped shape responsible sourcing, packaging, and stakeholder and consumer engagement strategies, while her work at McDonald’s focused on transforming complex global supply chains and advancing industry standards in sustainable agriculture, environmental impact, and animal welfare.

A sought-after keynote speaker, Jessica regularly addresses global audiences on purpose-driven leadership, systems change, scalable innovation, and how organisations can create long-term value through positive impact. Her work has been recognised with multiple awards, including the Guardian Sustainable Business Award, the Community Big Tick Award, and the Rainforest Alliance Frog Award, and she has been named among leading environmental voices by Forbes.
Jessica brings a pragmatic and optimistic perspective to the challenge of building resilient, future-fit organisations — demonstrating how collaboration, innovation, and purpose-driven leadership can unlock sustainable growth at scale.

Saroo Brierley was born in a small Indian town. In 1986, aged only five, he lost all contact with his family when he was separated from his brother at a train station. He never saw his brother again.

After living on the streets of Calcutta for three weeks by himself, Brierley was placed in a local orphanage before being adopted by an Australian family. He grew up with his new parents in Hobart, Tasmania, for the next 25 years. But he was unable, and unwilling, to forget the land of his childhood.

Determined to rediscover his past, he embarked on a virtual odyssey of his homeland and, after many hours pouring over Google Earth, armed only with the images etched into his memories as a five-year-old, he managed to recognize his hometown and track down his mother.
Their reunion in 2012 made headlines across the world, and his full story is recounted in his #1 international bestselling autobiography, A Long Way Home.

The film Lion, based on his autobiography, was released in November 2016 and nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and six Academy Awards. The film stars Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel.

Brierley’s journey is a remarkable and touching story of survival and sheer determination.

Holly Ransom is a leadership trailblazer. As the founder and CEO of a top leadership consultancy, she has driven real-world results for such leading organizations as P&G, Microsoft, Cisco, and KPMG. She has also led discussions with such luminaries as Barack Obama, Malcolm Gladwell, and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus. Having interviewed and worked with hundreds of the world’s top leaders, Ransom distills key learnings and strategies to help audiences bridge what she calls the “knowing-to-doing” gap to catalyze real change.

Ransom has compressed a power-packed career into a decade, spanning corporate, non-profit, and public sectors. Today, she is the founder and CEO of Emergent; author of The Leading Edge; and co-founder, chief curator, and catalyst at Energy Disruptors. Recognized as a global leader at a young age, Ransom was chosen to chair the G20 Youth Summit in 2014 and the United Nations Coalition of Young Women Entrepreneurs in 2016.

Ransom is a renowned speaker and master interviewer who has devoted her life and career to inspiring audiences around the world to stand up and lead the change they want to see. She has hosted influential figures from across the world, including Billie Jean-King, Condoleezza Rice, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and the world’s first humanoid robot, Sophia. Ransom even delivered a Peace Charter to the Dalai Lama.

A Fulbright scholar, Ransom is a fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School Class of ’21, where she received the prestigious Anne Wexler Public Policy Scholarship. She has been named one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review and was awarded the US Embassy’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Leadership Excellence. Ransom was also nominated for WIRED magazine’s “Smart List” of future game changers to watch by Sir Richard Branson, and has been featured on Reuters, CBS, and Australia’s ABC.

Ransom’s fierce dedication to inclusivity and equity drives her work as Chair of Pride Cup Australia, a non-profit organization and movement devoted to eradicating LGBTQ2+ discrimination within sporting clubs. A two-time Ironwoman, Ransom is also the youngest director ever to be appointed to an Australian Football Club.

Anders Sörman-Nilsson is a visionary futurist and a global authority at the intersection of digital transformation, artificial intelligence, and sustainability. As the founder of the avant-garde think tank, Thinque, Sörman-Nilsson offers data-driven insights and strategic foresight to global brands, helping them navigate the complexities of the modern world. With an impressive client roster that includes industry giants such as Apple, Meta, Google, McKinsey, Lego, and Rugby New Zealand, Sörman-Nilsson is trusted by leaders across the world to provide guidance on the cutting edge of technology and innovation.

Holding a Global Executive MBA and an LLB, Sörman-Nilsson’s unique blend of strategy and entrepreneurial acumen, combined with his forward-thinking approach, makes him a sought- after and award-winning keynote speaker. He specializes in decoding complex trends and turning challenging questions into actionable strategies, inspiring audiences to embrace change and future-proof their organizations in an ever-evolving digital and AI-driven landscape.

Sörman-Nilsson is the acclaimed author of three pivotal books on digital transformation and innovation: Digilogue, Seamless, and his latest, Aftershock. He is also a brand ambassador for Adobe, and his thought leadership extends to impactful trend reports like “How Artificial Intelligence is Powering Australian Retail,” commissioned by Microsoft; the creation of award- winning marketing tools like the Adobe Creative Intelligence test; and brand collaborations with Meta, ING Bank, Jaguar Land Rover, and Zurich.

A recognized figure in global thought leadership circles, Sörman-Nilsson is a member of TEDGlobal and the Entrepreneurs’ Organization, where he serves as the Leadership Impact Chair for the Sydney Chapter. His nomination to the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders in 2019 underscores his influence and commitment to shaping a sustainable future.

Sörman-Nilsson’s insights have been featured in prestigious publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the BBC, establishing him as a leading voice in the realm of futurism. As the host of the 2nd Renaissance podcast and the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Scaling Impact podcast, he continues to explore and share revolutionary ideas that expand minds and inspire a change of heart.