New Chairman for CEBIT Australia

The new Chairman of CEBIT Australia has been announced.

Stephen Scheeler, former Facebook CEO for Australia and New Zealand, will step into the role.

Scheeler’s appointment is part of a wide range of measures aimed at refocusing the event to engage and excite a new audience of technology users and buyers. Having worked with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and other Silicon Valley leaders during his tenure at Facebook, Scheeler saw the Australia and New Zealand business — including Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp and Oculus — grow from a mere start-up into one of the most successful Facebook markets in the world. More recently he has started his own consultancy firm, The Digital CEO.

“The changes being driven across CEBIT represented an opportunity to be part of creating an event of real value for everyone impacted by digitisation. Connections aren’t made wandering the aisles of an exhibition any more, they are made during shared experiences, in the depths of a hackathon, working alongside like-minded individuals to achieve common goals,” Scheeler said.

“The people I observe across my industry want to develop themselves, grow their businesses, solve their challenges, meet that one person that can open the next window of opportunity. I want to drive that opportunity, to create something our industry will thrive on for years to come. The chance to shape this iconic event into something new, something of true value to the individuals and organisations that represent the future of the Australian economy, is something that compelled me to get involved.”

In order to make next year’s CEBIT Australia the best yet, eight esteemed advisory committees are currently in the process of building the framework of the 2019 event. More than 100 influential cross-industry representatives from areas including the future of industry, digital pioneers, technology gurus, technology innovators, start-ups and women in tech will contribute their most innovative ideas to the event.

The upcoming CEBIT Australia 2019 event will also be held for the first time in October at Sydney’s International Convention Centre, in an effort to utilise the warmer spring weather and longer days, for the outdoor component of the program. The event will include new, innovative and interactive activations on site, hackathons, innovation camps, innovative speakers, outdoor displays and CEBIT after-hours networking social events.

“Technology is a disruptive influence across every industry, and one of the great challenges of the next decade will be for both legacy and start-up businesses to navigate the breakneck pace of change technology is enabling. CEBIT exists to connect the dots between the challenges this creates for industry, and the innovators that are striving to deliver the solutions,” said Harvey Stockbridge, Managing Director, CEBIT Australia.

“Stephen is one of the top innovation leaders in Australia. He holds an incredible range of experience gained through shaping the ANZ Facebook business into one of the most successful Facebook markets in the world. He is a perfect fit to lead the growth and development of CEBIT Australia as it enters this exciting new era, representing the capabilities, culture and leadership that we must all embrace.

“Everyone in a business now has an involvement with technology whether they’re working in marketing, finance or human resources. There’s also a multitude of new spaces such as agtech, fintech, Industry 4.0 and healthtech, so we really want to deliver an unforgettable event that highlights the latest trends and technologies available.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/3dmentat

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