Boa Speakers

Allan Dib

Author and Founder, Lean Marketing

Allan Dib is a serial entrepreneur and the author of The One Page Marketing Plan and Lean Marketing, with over a million books sold. He built multiple businesses from the ground up, including one that made the BRW Fast 100 list, and started his career as an IT technician before reframing himself as a marketer of IT services. He now runs a marketing accelerator and coaching program that helps business owners fix their targeting and messaging before they spend on tactics.

1 session

Amanda Delosa

Founder, Yellow Panda

Amanda Delosa is the founder of Yellow Panda, a PR agency helping brands get seen, heard and remembered, and the host of the podcast Next Season (NXT SZN). She holds a double degree in journalism and public relations and spent six or seven years in politics as a communications advisor, including working one of the most contested seats of the 2013 federal election. She left with three months of mortgage repayments saved, replaced her income in year one, then doubled revenue year on year with her biggest year on record during COVID.

1 session

Anaita Sarkar

Co-founder, Hero Packaging

Anaita Sarkar is the co-founder of Hero Packaging, a compostable mailer and packaging brand she runs with her husband and co-founder Vic. She wrote the book Sell Anything Online and co-hosts the Marketing ATM podcast with Jess Rufus. She also runs Hero's entire marketing function herself and speaks openly about the two years it took to trade the business out of a bad patch.

4 sessions

Andrew Raso

Founder, Online Marketing Gurus

Andrew Raso is the founder of Online Marketing Gurus, a digital marketing agency he started with $500 that now has more than 200 specialists and offices in Australia, the US, Singapore and the UAE. He built the early business on SEO alone, growing it through commission-based referral partnerships before ever spending on paid ads. He has since lived in Dubai while the business ran without him, launched an academy brand and hosts his own podcast.

1 session

Annabel Hay

Founder, Clutch Glue

Annabel Hay is the Sydney founder of Clutch Glue, the world's first globally patented liquid fashion tape, which she developed over four years after a wardrobe malfunction at a nightclub. She bootstrapped the business while working full time as a construction manager, including two years based in Hong Kong during COVID. Clutch is now stocked in retailers including Priceline and CVS, and Annabel pitched the business on Shark Tank.

1 session

Ari Galper

Founder and author, Unlock the Sales Game

Ari Galper is the creator of Unlock the Sales Game, a trust-based selling approach he built after two decades ago overhearing a "won" deal fall apart when he accidentally hit mute instead of speaker. Originally from California and living near Bondi for 20 years, he is the author of books including Unlock the Sales Game, Are You Chasing Ghosts, Trust Authority and Trust in a Split Second. He also wrote a book about his son Toby, who has Down syndrome, and credits Toby's transparency as the inspiration for his approach to trust.

2 sessions

Chontel Duncan

Founder, NuForm

Chontel Duncan is the founder of HIIT Station and NuForm, a wellness tech platform, and a mum of five. She spent almost a decade coaching online for free through DMs, live chats and group content before moving that support into a paid digital product. She now runs the app business alongside a gym she has replaced herself in.

1 session

D'Leanne Lewis

Real Estate Agent, Laing+Simmons Double Bay

D'Leanne Lewis is a Sydney eastern suburbs real estate agent with 33 years in the industry, having started at 20 as a legal secretary before being hired (unknowingly) as a driver for a director of sales in Double Bay. Told at 22 she was too young and the wrong fit to sell, she went out on her own with a desk, a phone and no training. She is a single mum of three and bought her first property at 22.

1 session

Dain Walker

Founder and CEO, RIVYL

Dain Walker is the founder and CEO of branding agency RIVYL and one of Australia's best known voices on brand strategy, with around 750,000 followers online and speaking gigs on stages around the world. He says his team has run close to 2,500 strategic brand workshops, working with fashion, beauty and corporate clients, and he has been talking publicly about personal branding since 2018. He is the co-author of a book on building a personal brand in 90 days and did the branding work behind Boa (Born of Ambition).

1 session

Divina Armuela

Founder, MD Media

Divina Armuela is the founder of MD Media, a marketing agency that helps founders turn content and personal brand into business growth. She started out as an influencer during the lip sync era of social media before shifting her audience and positioning towards founders. She now works mostly with service-based businesses, including brokerage and accounting firms, plus some ecommerce and product brands.

1 session

Don Robertson

Founder, STAX

Don founded activewear brand STAX in Perth, screen printing hoodies and selling leggings out of the back of his car and at markets before launching online as staxliving.com in 2015. He had earlier worked at Foot Locker and interned at Nike. His partner Matilda, who came from a recruitment background, joined the business and built its Instagram presence and community, and together they now run a group of around 70 to 80 people.

1 session

Dr Lillian Nejad

Clinical Psychologist and Business Owner, Contain Your Brain

Dr Lillian Nejad is a clinical psychologist with more than 25 years of practice, specialising in helping people manage their thoughts. She has developed Contain Your Brain, a free, private app that schedules worry time and walks users through strategies for solvable, unsolvable and solved worries. She also publishes mindfulness of thoughts recordings on Insight Timer and Spotify.

2 sessions

Dylan Mullan

Founder, Happy Skin Co

Dylan Mullan started Happy Skin Co, an at-home IPL laser hair removal brand, at 24 after dropping out of uni and working in corporate. The bootstrapped business did $1 million in its first three months, over $10 million in year one and $25 million across its first two years. He now hosts the Life, Money and Love podcast and mentors around 100 ecommerce businesses.

2 sessions

Frank Greeff

Co-founder and former CEO, Realbase (Realhub)

Frank Greeff built Realbase with his brother and co-founder Jacques over 13 years, growing it from a signboard installation business into a real estate marketing platform with 400 people, then exiting for $180 million. He is now building Kinzo, an AI app that pulls conversations, calendars and contacts into one place and prioritises messages against your goals. He started building a personal brand only two years ago, having had no Instagram account before that.

2 sessions

Fred Schebesta

Founder, Finder

Fred Schebesta founded Finder in 2006, starting with a single site called Credit Card Finder while earning about $1,500 a month and living off a credit card. He grew it into a comparison business now described as a $600 million tech company, expanding from credit cards into home loans, insurance, crypto and investing. Earlier in his career he ran a digital marketing agency and won Young Direct Marketer of the Year at 27.

1 session

Gael Donnay

Founder and CEO, Step Insight

Gael Donnay is the founder and CEO of Step Insight, the development company that built the Boa platform and the backend technology behind KUBZ. He acts as the technology partner for a range of companies, helping them become more efficient and scalable, and has been part of the CUB community for years.

1 session

Grace Garrick

Founder, Movement Agency

Grace Garrick is the founder of PR agency Movement Agency, No Boundaries and beauty brand Disco Stick. She works with brands on press office placement, launch campaigns and guerrilla activations, and is known for bold campaigns and headline-grabbing launches. She deliberately keeps her own face off Movement Agency's social channels so her team can be seen as spokespeople too.

1 session

Jack Henderson

Founder and CEO, Henderson Group (Henderson Advocacy)

Jack Henderson is the founder and CEO of Henderson Advocacy, now part of the Henderson Group, a 360 wealth creation business covering buyer's advocacy, finance, advisory, building and asset management. He grew up in Western Sydney, left school at 15 and built a $35 million property portfolio by 27. The group has about 120 staff, will do just over $25 million in revenue this year and has purchased just under $1 billion of property for clients.

1 session

Jaryd Terkelsen

Co-founder, Before You Speak Coffee

Jaryd Terkelsen grew up on Magnetic Island off Townsville, trained as a carpenter and spent six years building homes and mining camps before moving into sports nutrition retail and personal training. He founded Before You Speak Coffee in 2017 with a business partner, starting with a single performance coffee product. The brand is now in more than 1,500 retailers nationally, has just gone national across Woolworths, and has signed partnerships with Formula 1 driver Jack Doohan and the Alpine F1 team.

1 session

Jeremy Cabral

Co-founder, Finder

Jeremy is a co-founder of Finder, the Australian financial comparison site used by over 35 million people across Australia, the US, UK and Canada. He was Chief Operating Officer, running product, design, tech, growth and international expansion into more than 20 countries, and helped bootstrap the business past $100 million in revenue before it raised $30 million at the end of December 2021. He has since stepped out of his operational role, remaining a special advisor to the board, and now advises businesses on AI growth strategy and operations.

3 sessions

Jess Whatman

Founder, Agencync

Jess Whatman spent 20 years in corporate real estate, moving from reception to property management and sales before managing a large agency on Sydney's Upper North Shore. About 10 years ago her employer sent her to the Philippines to learn outsourcing, where she hired and managed six virtual assistants. She now runs Agencync, a VA agency that has scaled to multi-million dollar revenue in three years and services over 400 founders across Australia.

1 session

Jessy Marshall

Founder, Hive HQ

Jessy Marshall is the founder of PR agency Hive HQ, which she started six years ago after training as a beauty therapist and then working in PR (she never finished the degree). Hive works largely with beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands, and Jessy has been involved in building awareness for names including Bangn Body, Naked Sundays, Showpo and TBH Skincare.

3 sessions

Jo Robinson

Chief Marketing Officer, The Iconic

Jo is the CMO at The Iconic, where her remit covers marketing, customer service, partnerships revenue (retail media and ad sales) and creative and e-production. She started her career at Procter and Gamble in Perth as a territory rep covering 100 pharmacies, later moved to Sydney on the Coles account, worked at Colgate-Palmolive, then spent six years in Dubai with Unilever. She describes herself as a traditional FMCG marketer and brand builder rather than an e-commerce marketer.

1 session

Josh Sparks

Brand advisor and consultant

Josh Sparks is a brand strategist who runs multi-day brand workshops with founders and operating businesses, and has been part of company exits at 5 to 7 times EBITDA as well as one at 10 times revenue. He has worked with brands including MJ Bale in its early handmade shirt days and advises clients on brand pyramids, archetypes and positioning. He started using Apple products in the 1980s and cites Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces as his go-to text.

2 sessions

Joshua Sparks

CEO, Together Studio

Joshua Sparks is CEO of Together Studio, a boutique branding agency, and has previously been CEO of Sass and Bide and Thom Browne. He has advised leadership teams at MJ Bale, Just Group and Expedia, and works with founders on brand promise, archetypes and three year business strategy. He describes himself as someone who prefers to stand behind his clients rather than build a personal profile.

1 session

Kelly Slessor

Founder and CEO, Ecommerce Tribe

Kelly Slessor has worked in e-commerce for over 20 years and has been using AI in retail for around eight years. Originally from the UK, she started at British Telecom on the Sainsbury's store of the future project, later ran one of Australia's first mobile agencies working with Coca-Cola and David Jones, and consulted to Westfield retailers on their digital channels. She is founder and CEO of the Ecommerce Tribe and is writing a book.

1 session

Kirstin-Lee Keysers

Founder, Kivari

Kirstin-Lee (known as Kiki) is the founder of Kivari, an Australian fashion label she started with $200 worth of leather wallets made in Bali and sold at monthly markets. She has since taken the brand from coastal boho into Australian contemporary design, using European linens and broderies, and owns 100% of the company with no outside investment. She now runs a profitable business while taking extended time off, including a month travelling Tasmania with her family.

1 session

Kristy Valentine

Founder, Dr. Dough

Kristy Valentine founded doughnut gifting business Dr. Dough, built it through COVID to delivering 50,000 doughnuts a week, and sold it after eight years of ownership while staying involved in the business. She also works across a coworking business, Work Inc., and fashion tech brand High End, having spent eight years alongside the Work Inc. founder. She describes herself as someone who thrives on running several very different businesses at once.

1 session

Kyle Traynor

Founder, Startup Diaries

Kyle Traynor started the Pivotal Conversations podcast after exiting a consulting business, giving himself 12 months with a studio and a full-time producer to learn podcasting properly. The show grew to 100K on TikTok and later became Startup Diaries, which is now an agency producing podcasts and managing social accounts for entrepreneurs and founders.

1 session

Laura Higgins

Founder and Business Coach, My Business Playbook

Laura Higgins is an Australian scale coach and advisor who works largely with creative entrepreneurs, helping them build businesses to six and seven figures. She started a social media agency at 23 in 2017 and later moved into coaching, tripling her own revenue from $40K-$50K a month to $100K-$120K a month in about three months during 2023. She is also a speaker and hosts the podcast My Business Playbook.

1 session

Leah Simmons

Leah Simmons was a DJ and record label owner in London for 15 years before entering fitness at 30 and founding Kaya, a studio and online platform for women over 40.

1 session

Lewis Huckstep

Purpose and Identity Coach, Author, The Inspired Life Method

Lewis Huckstep is a purpose and identity coach and author of The Inspired Life Method. He started out working unpaid at a gym for two and a half years, built a network marketing business through it, then owned three gyms by age 22 before giving one away, selling another and hiring himself out of the third. He has trained through certifications with Dr John Demartini and studied the work of Tony Robbins, Joe Dispenza, Peter Crone and Wayne Dyer, and now runs coaching and live events with his wife.

1 session

Lexie Murray

Founder, Be Seen Socials

Lexie Murray is the founder of Be Seen Socials, a creative organic social media agency based in Alexandria, Sydney, which she started at 21 and has now run for five years. She began posting for brands as an influencer around 2015 and 2016 while still in year 12, then moved into agency work after spotting a gap between strong content creation and the brands themselves. Her team runs roughly nine content shoots a week, on location and in their natural light studio.

3 sessions

Lia Georgantis

Founder, Girls with Gems

Leah is the founder of Girls with Gems, a Double Bay fashion boutique and online store, and of Sneaky Link. She left law after six years of study to take over her mum's Double Bay clothing business rather than let it close, and has since built the brand on daily, unpolished social content shot mostly in store. She runs the business with her husband and business partner John, and films size-comparison content with Renee.

1 session

Lisa Jones

Founder and CEO, SheComm

Lisa Jones is the founder and CEO of SheComm, an Australian e-commerce women's business community with around 30 staff and about 20,000 women in its extended community. She has run seven businesses in 14 years, including a $3 million a year solar and energy efficiency trades business with 19 staff, and eco nappy brand Eco Originals, which she exited when her investor bought out the company. She hosts the She Talks E-Commerce podcast and speaks at conferences around Australia.

1 session

Lisa Messenger

Founder and Author, Collective Hub

Lisa Messenger founded The Messenger Group in October 2001 and went on to launch Collective Hub, a print magazine that reached distribution in 37 countries within 18 months and ran for 55 issues before she closed it in April 2018. She has authored 40 books, custom published around 400 titles for others including Lorna Jane and Toby's Estate, and met with Anna Wintour at Condé Nast headquarters in New York. She now lives in Byron Bay, runs retreats teaching founders how to use AI, and is a certified prompt engineer through Vanderbilt University.

1 session

Lisa Teh

Co-founder and serial entrepreneur, Cody Agency

Lisa Teh started her career as a tax lawyer at KPMG before pivoting into marketing at Witchery and launching a digital agency, Cody, around ten years ago. She is a five-time founder and has posted on LinkedIn since 2019, building a personal brand that brings in media, speaking and client opportunities. She is the author of Get Real, a book of interviews with 30 female founders.

1 session

Lloyd James Ross

Founder and Author, Become Time Rich

Lloyd James Ross is an Australian marketing strategist and author who has helped founders and experts build funnels and marketing systems that drive revenue. He left a corporate role with the world's largest developer in Abu Dhabi after the GFC forced a company-wide retrenchment, and now co-owns five businesses across education, accounting and advisory, and a laundromat, all built on partnerships. He has written four books, including Become Time Rich (published with Wiley) and the self-published House Poor.

1 session

Luke Heka

Founder, SellerAI

Luke Heka is the founder of SellerAI, an AI agency in Australia running hands-on AI workshops in Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane. He came to AI through a love of systems, after running a construction business and trialling a string of other ventures. He says he has been inside 5,000 plus businesses and has spent the past five years building automations and AI systems, before pivoting the agency towards teaching business owners to build their own.

1 session

Mark Bouris

Founder and Chairman, Yellow Brick Road

Mark Bouris founded Wizard Home Loans, taking on the major banks with a "no judgments, just home loans" proposition before selling the business after doing a deal with Kerry Packer. He grew up in Punchbowl to migrant parents, started out as a lawyer in his twenties and built his network by becoming the firm's recognised expert on one narrow area of law. He is one of Australia's most vocal champions of small business.

3 sessions

Milly Bannister

Founder, Allkind

Milly Bannister is the founder of Allkind, a social enterprise and charity redefining how young people experience and talk about mental health. She studied journalism in Brisbane, moved into media and comms, spent an exchange year in California and built a personal brand during the early travel-blogger era of Instagram, before starting Allkind around COVID and running it for almost five years. Allkind's free peer-to-peer Mental Health First Aid training, Good Mate, was developed with educational psychologists who sit on its board and is backed by a university.

1 session

Morgan Nelson

Founder and Host, Dream Out Loud

Morgan Nelson runs transformational education programs for entrepreneurs, including the three-day Dream Out Loud Method built on his five laws of creating a dream life (vision, environment, timing, vehicle and self). He hosts the Dream Out Loud podcast, describes himself as a self-made multi-seven-figure business owner, and runs four companies from a studio on the Gold Coast. He skydives as a hobby and uses it to teach people how to stay present under fear.

1 session

Panel Event

Marketing and brand leader, Ecommerce fashion business (previously Procter and Gamble, Unilever)

1 session

Paul Waddy

Paul Waddy is an e-commerce advisor, chair of the National Online Retail Association and Australia Post's Customer Advisory Group, co-founder of ecomNation and author of Selling Online for Dummies and Shopify for Dummies.

1 session

Priscilla Hajiantoni

Priscilla Hajiantoni started Bangn Body on her mum's living room floor after 15 years of hormonal acne and eczema, sold out three months of Mecca stock in eight hours and now runs a team of 20 with Sephora ranging.

1 session

Raquel Bouris

Founder, Who Is Elijah

Raquel Bouris is the founder of fragrance brand Who Is Elijah, which she started as a side hustle filling perfume bottles in her garage while working full time. Almost seven years on, the brand sells through David Jones and Sephora, is roughly 50% retail, and is planning a European launch next year and a US entry in 2027. Her husband Adam joined the business about four years ago and runs operations.

1 session

Sabri Suby

Founder and CEO, King Kong

Sabri Suby is the founder and CEO of marketing agency King Kong, which he started in 2014 from his bedroom with a $37 Logitech headset and a $25 VoIP account. King Kong operates in over 136 countries and has generated more than $7.8 billion in sales for its clients. He is a Shark on Shark Tank and the author of Sell Like Crazy.

1 session

Sally Obermeder

Co-founder, SWIISH

Sally Obermeder is the co-founder of wellness brand SWIISH, which she started while being treated for stage 3 breast cancer diagnosed the day before she gave birth. SWIISH began as content only (recipes and blogs) and did not launch products until about four years in, with products on sale since 2016. Sally still runs her own Instagram and the SWIISH broadcast channel personally.

2 sessions

Samantha Brett

Samantha Brett built Naked Sundays while working as a Sunrise news reporter, launching an SPF mist anonymously before Mecca asked her to come forward as founder.

1 session

Sarah Davidson

Co-founder, Matcha Maiden

Sarah Davidson is the co-founder of Matcha Maiden, which she started as a side hustle while working as a corporate lawyer, and the host of the podcast Seize the Yay. She built Matcha Maiden into a global product business alongside her husband and business partner, took it into Urban Outfitters in the United States, and went through an accelerator with Chobani before the company was bought by investors. She now runs several businesses and produces The Archive podcast with Rosalia Ruschan and Lana Wilkinson.

1 session

Scott O'Neill

Founder, Rethink Investing (Rethink Group)

Scott O'Neill is the founder of Rethink Investing, a commercial property buying agency, and Rethink Group, which holds eight companies including Rethink Financing, a legal firm, an insurance arm and Rethink Renewables. He started as an engineer at ASX-listed Adelaide Brighton, bought his first property in 2010 for $480,000, and quit corporate life once his portfolio was producing around $120,000 a year in passive income. He now holds a property portfolio valued at over $150 million and pivoted his agency from residential to commercial in 2017.

1 session

Talitha Cummins

Talitha Cummins spent 17 years as a television journalist before studying gemmology in London and founding The Cut Jewellery, selling both lab-grown and natural diamonds.

1 session

Taryn Williams

Founder, #Gifted

Taryn Williams is a serial founder who built Wink Models and The Right Fit, a venture capital backed marketplace, and now runs #Gifted, a bootstrapped platform matching brands with influencers and content creators for gifting collaborations. She has spent around 20 years building operations, teams and a deliberately managed personal brand, including hiring a publicist and mapping personal and company values around 15 years ago.

1 session

Theo Chambers

Founder and CEO, Shore Financial

Theo Chambers founded Shore Financial in 2013 with three staff. The firm now has over 110 people, writes around $200 million per month in home loan applications and has been ranked Australia's number one independent mortgage brokerage every year since 2016. He started in finance at Commonwealth Bank at 19 and has been broking for about 16 years.

1 session

Thu Nguyen

Founder, COO and Board Advisor, Unhinged Business

Thu Nguyen is a COO, board advisor and founder of consultancy Unhinged Business, with around 16 to 17 years across fashion, beauty and FMCG. She started as a buyer at Myer, moved into category management for fashion brands expanding into the US, Asia and China, and worked with retailers including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Walmart and John Lewis. She later shifted into FMCG manufacturing, food and beverage and wellness businesses, serving as CEO of several startups before launching her own consultancy just under two years ago.

1 session

Wendy Elkhoury

Founder, Wedded Wonderland

Wendy Elkhoury is the founder of Wedded Wonderland, a global wedding marketplace connecting couples and wedding suppliers across 54 countries with a digital community of more than 3 million people. She started the business around 2011-2012 while working in a wedding venue, launching first on social media before building listings, events and a concierge service. She has spoken at international conferences since 2016 and has worked with government bodies including Dubai Tourism.

1 session