Australia's Leading MBA Conference

Emilio Romeo was appointed CEO & Managing Director of Ericsson Australia and New Zealand in January 2016 following eight years as a member of the ANZ leadership team.  He is member of the Leadership team for Market Area South East Asia, India and Oceania.  

Emilio was formerly the Director, Telstra Customer Unit where he was responsible for securing and building Ericsson’s strategic partnership over five years.  Prior to this he was the Director, Vodafone Hutchinson Australia Customer Unit and Director, Hutchinson and 3GIS Customer Units.  

An active contributor to the industry, bilingual Emilio is also a Board Member of the the European Australian Business Council, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (including Chair of the Finance Committee) and the Melbourne Networked Society Institute (The University of Melbourne) in an advisory capacity. 

Darrell Wade is the co-founder of Intrepid Travel and Executive Chair of the Intrepid Group, the world’s largest provider of adventure travel experiences.  In 1989 Darrell and his best mate Geoff Manchester created a style of travel that would benefit travellers and the places and people they visit.  

During the course of his career, Darrell has been recognised as a leader in entrepreneurship and as a passionate advocate for sustainable tourism. He spearheaded Intrepid’s climate management programme, with the company realising its goal of becoming carbon neutral in 2010. Darrell was selected as one of the first group of Australians to complete Climate Project training with the Hon Mr Al Gore. In 2016 Darrell he was one of 17 Australian business leaders to sign a statement of support for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

His achievements include winning the NAB SmartCompany Award, and being named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002. Darrell is a board member of Melbourne-based social enterprise Good Cycles, a mentor for the University of Melbourne’s entrepreneurship programme, and he is also on the Executive Committee of the World Travel and Tourism Council. 

Georgia began her career studying entrepreneurship at Babson College, Boston and RMIT, Melbourne. Shortly after finishing her University degrees, Georgia raised seed capital to found wine startup Lupé Wines in 2011. Lupé Wines specialised in supplying events, airlines and hotel minibars with the world's first single serve glass of wine designed for ease of use. The company expanded quickly across Australia, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China. In 2016 the company was successfully sold.

Georgia took on the CEO role at Startup Victoria in 2016 to help organise the startup ecosystem from her experience as an Australian entrepreneur. At the start of 2018 Georgia joined Realestate.com.au to run an internal high growth venture Spacely.com.au.

Georgia sits on the Board of Second Bite, the Advisory Board of Law Squared, the Advisory Board of Pride Cup, the Policy Advisory Committee for the Ethnic Communities Council of Victoria and an Expert Advisory Member for the Australian Federal Government Accelerating Commercialisation Programme. Georgia was listed as Top 50 Entrepreneurs to watch in 2015 and her company Lupé was listed as top 10 startups to watch by BRW. Georgia has had involvement with the G20 where she was a key note speaker on entrepreneurship at the 2015 G20 Summit in Turkey.