Digital Leadership Day Victoria 2026

Capability gaps are not just skills. They are unclear roles, incentives and decision rights.

• The leadership system for digital: who owns standards, platforms and stop-go calls.
• Building digital literacy in executive teams and boards so risk is understood, not avoided.
• Setting baselines and minimum conditions before adopting new tech.
• Using “decision logs” and playbooks to make accountability explicit.

AI is changing how work gets done — but leading through this shift is as much about people as it is about technology. As public sector teams learn to work alongside AI tools, leaders are being asked to create clarity, confidence, and a sense of purpose amid rapid change. This session unpacks what it takes to build digitally mature organisations — where roles, accountability, and learning keep pace with innovation.

• Moving beyond legacy mindsets to build a curious, adaptive workforce
• Preparing for the “Agent Era”: helping teams work with AI, not against it
• Leadership for digital maturity — clarifying roles, decisions, and ownership in a tech-driven world
• Balancing automation with purpose: redefining roles and responsibilities
• Building digital and AI fluency across all levels of leadership to make risk understood, not avoided

Karin Verspoor

Dean, School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University

Emily Mailes

Chief eHealth Strategy Officer, Victorian Department of Health

Dr Steve Hodgkinson

Chief Digital Officer, Victoria Police

Darshil Mehta

Principal, Data Governance and Capability, Australian Super

By 2026, “digital government” will mean more than online forms and portals. AI and automation are reshaping how policies are delivered, how services operate, and how public value is created. This discussion explores how agencies can redesign processes to make them smarter, faster, and more human — using technology to enhance, not replace, the people and principles behind public service.

• Moving beyond digitisation — redesigning end-to-end journeys for truly digital government
• Building AI and automation into workflows while keeping transparency and accountability front and centre
• Rethinking governance: how to balance control, ethics, and delivery speed in an AI-enabled public sector
• Mapping the new mix of people and machines — defining roles, decisions, and oversight in hybrid workflows
• Automating with purpose: choosing where AI adds real public value without eroding trust or capability

• Shifting from transactional to strategic procurement: How procurement leaders can enable agile, AI-ready service delivery through outcome-based contracts and flexible supplier engagement
• Embedding trust, transparency, and ethics in tech sourcing: Practical approaches to ensure AI systems meet public expectations around bias, safety, and explainability
• Navigating complexity and compliance: Balancing probity, risk, and innovation in procurement frameworks built for a fast-evolving technology landscape

• Evaluating digital and AI investments through a public value lens: Moving beyond traditional ROI to include service outcomes, risk reduction, equity, and trust
• Building compelling, future-proof business cases: How to quantify benefits, manage uncertainty, and make the case for iterative, platform-based, and AI-enabled initiatives
• Partnering across strategy, tech, and delivery: Strengthening collaboration between finance, digital, and operational leaders to ensure alignment, accountability, and adaptive funding models

As AI reshapes how governments plan, deliver, and make decisions, leaders must think beyond pilots and tools — and focus on strategy, structure, and stewardship. This discussion explores how executives can align AI with long-term reform goals, modernise technology foundations, and make confident choices amid uncertainty. The aim: to build an AI-ready public sector that’s secure, scalable, and guided by public value.

• Embedding AI into enterprise strategy and aligning adoption with whole-of-government priorities
• Leading through uncertainty — balancing innovation, reliability, and trust in public service delivery
• Project prioritisation and portfolio decision-making — investing where AI can deliver the greatest value and impact
• Modernising tech foundations — building modular, interoperable architectures that enable responsible AI experimentation and scaling
• Balancing performance, cost, privacy and ethics when developing secure data and infrastructure to power AI-driven services

Jorge Silveira

Chief Digital Officer, Court Services Victoria

Sharon Hakkennes

Chief Digital Health Officer, Victorian Department of Health

Sam Khoury

Chief Information Officer, Victorian Infrastructure Delivery Authority

Adam Carthew

Executive Director, Digital Transformation/CIO, Service Victoria, Department of Government Services