Digital Leadership Day Victoria 2027

Settle in, grab a coffee, and meet a few friendly faces before we begin.

A few quick tips to help you connect, share, and get real value from the day. We’ll also run a couple of quick polls to see what everyone’s interested in and what people are working on right now.

Victoria’s public sector is at a critical moment. As community expectations rise, fiscal pressures sharpen and AI reshapes the way services can be designed and delivered, senior leaders have a clear responsibility to move beyond hesitation and lead practical change.

In this opening keynote, Helen Silver will focus on the importance of the need to take leadership of delivering better outcomes for Victorians.

• The importance of understanding your authorising environment to drive change
• Rebuilding momentum in digital service delivery across Victoria
• Leading responsibly and proactively in the age of AI
• Strengthening financial literacy as a core executive capability
• Turning public sector talent into measurable community outcomes

Digital transformation is no longer about individual agency initiatives—it is about building a connected, trusted and scalable Victorian Government. Delivering the Victorian Government's digital reform agenda requires strong partnerships across agencies and a shared commitment to whole-of-government outcomes. This panel will explore the role of executive leadership in enabling cross-agency collaboration, scaling common capabilities, and embedding responsible AI, resilient governance and adaptive leadership to meet the challenges ahead.

• Making strategic digital choices amid AI disruption, emerging technologies, fiscal constraint and rising expectations
• Moving beyond agency boundaries to build reusable, whole-of-government capability
• Aligning digital investment with public value, long-term reform and short-term delivery pressures
• Strengthening governance, workforce capability and AI literacy to make reform stick
• Balancing innovation, speed, cyber resilience, privacy and public trust

It's time to grab a coffee - connect, recharge and explore our exhibition floor before the next discussions begin!

Delivering a truly connected government requires more than digital integration - it requires a fundamental shift in how government leaders think about services, systems, and citizen relationships. As Victorians increasingly expect simple, seamless, and personalised interactions regardless of agency boundaries, executives must align policy, operations, technology, data, and workforce capability around shared outcomes. This panel will explore the leadership, governance, investment, and cultural changes required to move from agency-centric delivery to a connected government model that improves human experiences, strengthens trust, and delivers better outcomes for communities.

• Tell us once! How should Victorian Government leaders define a truly connected human experience - not as a digital uplift, but as a whole-of-government leadership outcome?
• The blockers. What are the biggest structural barriers preventing Victorians from experiencing government as one connected system, and what leadership decisions are needed to remove them?
• Shared goals. How can agency executives move beyond agency-level optimisation toward shared accountability for end-to-end customer outcomes?
• Measuring delivery. How should leaders measure whether connected government is genuinely improving outcomes, rather than simply delivering more portals, platforms or digital transactions?
• Vision 2030. What leadership shifts are required to make “one Victorian Government” a lived experience by 2030?

AI is not simply a technology shift — it is a leadership test. The biggest question for government is no longer whether AI will change how we work, but whether leaders are prepared to make the bold decisions required to harness it responsibly. This fireside chat cuts through the hype to explore the choices, risks and opportunities that will shape the future of government — and Victoria’s ability to lead rather than follow.

• Moving from pilots to impact - Are we moving fast enough to turn AI experimentation into meaningful, system-wide improvements?
• Lead the change, not just the technology: How leaders can build AI confidence and capability across their organisations, while bringing people with them
• Balancing courage with caution - How do leaders balance the risks of AI with the greater risk of failing to innovate?
• Redefine the future of work - What happens to capability, culture, jobs and decision-making when AI becomes embedded in how government operates?

Public trust is fundamental to the Victorian Government's ability to deliver services, implement reform and embrace innovation. This discussion will examine how executive leaders can strengthen trust by balancing security, privacy, resilience, inclusion, transparency and ethical decision-making while navigating increasing fiscal, technological and societal complexity.

• Security: Leading a proactive security culture that protects government services, critical assets and the trust of Victorians
• Privacy: Championing responsible stewardship of personal information by embedding privacy into policy, service design and decision-making
• Resilience: Building resilient organisations that balance financial sustainability, service continuity and strategic agility in an increasingly uncertain environment
• Inclusion: Driving inclusive policies and digital services that deliver equitable outcomes for all Victorians, particularly those facing barriers to access.
• Transparency: What does meaningful transparency look like in Victorian Government digital delivery — especially where data-sharing, automation, AI or cross-agency decision-making are involved?
• Ethics: What are the 2027 imperatives to ensure emerging technologies and data are governed with fairness, integrity and a focus on the public interest?

We’ll pull out a few highlights from the day, share what’s coming next, and point you to ways to stay connected.