Tuesday – 24 February 9:00 – 10:30 am
Connection over Code: Renée Walker on Trust, Connection, and Emotional Intelligence for Tomorrow’s Leaders
As AI and digital capability accelerate, the human side of work matters more than ever. In this engaging keynote, Renée Walker explores how communication, connection and self-awareness shape leadership, teamwork and trust in a digital-first world.
Through real stories, relatable examples, and simple frameworks (including insights from the Extended DISC behavioural model), Renée helps you to reconnect with the skills that technology can’t replace: self-awareness, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and genuine human connection.
Practical takeaways:
- Language you can immediately use in leadership, team, and client conversations
- Confidence to lead and communicate in a way that feels human, not performative
- A clearer understanding of impact on others
- Insight into how different people communicate and respond, especially in change
- Simple tools to improve connection within teams and with clients
- A reframed view of personal brand in a digital world
Renée Walker is a keynote speaker, leadership coach, and culture specialist known for her warm, honest, people-first approach.
With more than 20 years in senior leadership across corporate, government, rural, and not-for-profit sectors, Renée works with organisations across New Zealand and Australia to help people show up with confidence, clarity, and genuine impact.
Renée speaks on leadership, personal brand, communication, team dynamics, and the human side of change. She is an Extended DISC® Practitioner, an NLP Master Practitioner, and Facilitator of the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme.
Known for her ability to read a room and say what others tiptoe around, Renée’s sessions are practical, relatable, and deeply human. She believes that in a world of accelerating technology, connection remains our greatest advantage.
Closing the Digital Skills Gap with Human Connection: Brett Gilbertson
As AI becomes embedded into our conversations, a new myth is emerging: that AI will replace the need for training, schooling, and even thinking.
However, educational research shows AI highlights existing knowledge rather than uncovering unknowns; human expertise, teaching, and collaboration remain essential for innovation and leadership. A cybersecurity example will illustrate how AI can assist—but not lead—the discovery of unexplored needs.
This session presents:
- A critical look at how AI is reshaping education—and where it falls short.
- A call to prioritize digital skills training focused on human relationships and future needs.
Make no mistake, AI will change education and training. But it cannot replace it.
Brett Gilberston
Digital Skills Coach – ASI Solutions
Brett is dedicated to closing the digital skills gap by finding innovative ways to help people adopt new ways of working with technology. He is passionate about teaching teams to solve problems, be more creative and communicate more effectively with each other.
Conference Opening and Welcome: Debbie Ireland
In this provocative opening, Debbie reveals how AI is quietly reshaping our behaviour, our workplaces, and even our children. From rising dependency to hidden cognitive shifts, this talk challenges audiences to rethink what it means to stay human in an AI‑saturated world.
Debbie Ireland is the founder DWR (Digital Workplace Results) and the Conference organiser of the annual Digital Workplace Conferences in New Zealand and Australia.
Debbie Ireland