Azure Antoinette is a commissioned poet, actress, TED Speaker, GRAMMY™ Considered recording artist, international DEI corporate advisor, self-taught developer and software designer, and the Founder and CEO of SymbAIo Inc.—a venture-backed healthcare AI company developing iMpatient™, a behavioral intelligence platform for chronic illness management. Named the “Maya Angelou of the Millennial Generation” in Forbes’ Most Powerful Women in the World Issue, Azure has spent nearly two decades transforming the intersection of storytelling, advocacy, and innovation into a force for systemic change.

Discovered in 2010 by Oprah Winfrey on the World Stage of the Minerva Conference hosted by former First Lady Maria Shriver, Azure has since shared stages across the globe with personalities including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert and opened for Lady Gaga. Her career as a performance poet and educator began in 2006 in Los Angeles County high schools, evolving into teaching creative writing and narrative essay recitation at prestigious institutions including Archer School for Girls, The Brentwood School, Yale University (in partnership with the Born This Way Foundation), UCLA, UCLA Anderson School of Management, and NYU.

In April 2021, Azure made television history on the critically acclaimed hit series Grey’s Anatomy in its 17th season as Irene Hayes—the first character to portray Multiple Sclerosis on screen while also representing the LGBT+ community. Following this landmark role, Azure and co-star Kevin McKidd received GRAMMY™ consideration for their rendition of Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, reimagined to amplify the fight for racial justice during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

A nearly 20-year survivor of Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis, Azure draws on her lived experience navigating complex chronic conditions to fuel her work as a global patient advocate and healthcare innovator. She has served as a brand ambassador, keynote presenter, and on-air personality for TED, SXSW, Genentech, Biogen, Johnson & Johnson, The North Face, Mumbrella360, Tourism Australia, GLAAD, L’Oreal, Clean & Clear, GAP, and Beats by Dr. Dre. Her commissioned writing portfolio includes work for the Girl Scouts of America, the California Arts Council, and the American Cancer Society.

A leading voice on empathy, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence in innovation, Azure is also an early adopter of AI whose work lives at the intersection of human narrative and the technology designed to serve it. Today, she is channeling two decades of advocacy, storytelling expertise, and personal resilience into building the future of patient-centered care. As a self-taught developer and the creator of iMpatient™—powered by MONK™, a patent-pending pattern recognition engine—she is architecting the behavioral intelligence platform she needed but never had. Through the venture-backed SymbAIo Inc. and her boutique branding agency TELLER Ventures,

Brooke Wright is an AI consultant, educator and speaker, and the founder of Wright Mode and Techella — Australia’s first ever AI festival for women. She helps non-technical professionals move past “I should really figure out AI” and start actually using it: practical, responsible AI in plain English, zero jargon. A non-techie herself, Brooke has spent three years building AI systems for real businesses, delivered more than 90 talks and workshops, and built a community of 75,000+ business owners who follow her work because it doesn’t talk down to them. Her sessions turn “I didn’t know it could do that!” moments into tools people build themselves.

Cherie Clonan is the founder of The Digital Picnic, a digital marketing agency known for its innovative strategy and inclusivity. As an Autistic PDA’er CEO, Cherie proudly embraces her neurodivergence, building a business where neurodivergent talent is celebrated.

Loudly.

Proudly.

A recipient of B&T’s Woman of the Year and Women Breaking Through Glass Ceilings awards, and recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice, Cherie and her team have trained over 25,000 people in digital marketing strategy. Her leadership blends empathy and authenticity, empowering brands to create a lasting impact online.

Cherie’s story is about more than building a multi-million dollar agency—it’s about redefining leadership, especially for women, mothers, and neurodivergent professionals, with a commitment to creating a high-performing, kind workplace.

Elisabeth Bourke (Jackson) has spent years inside the operating machinery of some of the world’s biggest tech companies before making the move from the US to Australia. Once here, she watched founder-led teams working themselves into the ground trying to hold their businesses together with sheer effort, and made it her mission to give them the same infrastructure, and the same relief.

She’s the founder of Capacity Haus, where she brings big brain operating strategies to businesses with one to ten people. Using her four P framework, People, Process, Policy, Platform, she’s built systems for clients like NAF, Evolve United, The Digital Picnic, Dolby, and a plethora of small businesses, so founders can stop being their team’s encyclopedia and start breathing again.

This is her third year speaking at TDP.

Eugene is the educator, brand strategy consultant, and creator for marketing’s era of entropy.

He develops strategies for brands to survive a climate where media is fragmented, attention is fracked, and algorithms have dissolved mass culture into soup.

His work spans boardrooms and lecture theatres – co-founding The New Fundamentals of Brand, a course training marketers how to build brands within fragmented environments, consulting for global brands like Google, Spotify, Red Bull and FEELD, and formerly lecturing at the University of Melbourne’s postgraduate Business School.

He has been included on SXSW’s 33 Visionary Thinkers for 2026, and his thinking has been featured in The Guardian, Financial Times, Vogue Business, Dazed Magazine and Dieline.

Ez started at TDP as an intern 12 months ago. Now, he’s a Content Specialist.

He was a chef before this. A photographer before that, and spent time in the dance studio too. Working across that many industries taught him something marketing courses don’t – a restaurant and a tourism board need completely different content, but the trick is knowing what to borrow between them. A hook that works on a dance floor can sell a bowl of pasta. Most people never think to try it.

Good story, real value. That’s the bar for everything he makes.

He’ll usually take the creative further than the brief asked for. Then test it, because a good idea you can’t prove is just a good feeling.

Izza is a Digital Coordinator at The Digital Picnic, specializing in managing Meta ad platforms and producing high-performing ad creatives, while collaborating with the social media team from time to time to keep brand tone consistent across all platforms and find more efficient ways to work.

She began her career as an intern, developing a strong foundation in content creation, video editing, and copywriting, a hands-on background that continues to inform her approach to digital advertising today. It’s given her a sharp eye for what actually drives performance, and she knows how to turn strong creative into real revenue, not just clicks. Beyond her role, she thrives on teamwork and is always willing to pitch in wherever support is needed, staying curious and open to every opportunity to learn and grow.

Jony is a content creator and storyteller with a community of over *3 million(this numbercould be different when we attend next year)people across socials. What began in 2021 as away to process grief. Sharing her shotgun wedding, planned in a month as her mother’s finalwish before passing from cancer, it became the foundation of a career built on honest,human storytelling. In 2026, she went fully independent, after previously leading creativeand growth strategy for brands at an organic social marketing agency.

“if content stopped paying me tomorrow, i’d probably still create. storytelling isn’t the job – it’s just baked into everything I do.”

Jony treats content creation as an ongoing experiment, not a formula. Every post is ahypothesis: starts with an unsolved a theory about what will connect, she tests it, and thenreads the data honestly – including when it says she’s wrong. The theory always comes backto the same question: did we evoke emotion? She believes the only difference between agood story and a bad one as whether it makes someone feel something. That read onemotion has sharpened over six years of countless experiments. That’s the whole job, really.Everything else is just execution.

Katie is a Senior Website Lead at The Digital Picnic, bringing more than 14 years of experience across branding, UX and website strategy. She specialises in creating strategically structured websites that don’t just look good, but work hard behind the scenes—aligning user experience, accessibility, SEO/AEO, conversion and business goals from the outset.

Having previously run her own design studio, Katie understands both the creative and commercial sides of digital. At The Digital Picnic, she guides clients through complex website projects by asking thoughtful questions, mapping clear user journeys and translating complex business goals into practical, actionable strategies.

She particularly loves untangling cluttered site structures, removing friction and identifying the gaps that stop a website from doing its job. Her approach blends data, research and intuition to create websites that feel considered, easy to use and built for measurable, long-term growth.

Lucy Allen is an Award-Winning Mindset & Leadership Speaker who is passionate about empowering people to be the Beyonce of their own life by living and leading like they mean it.

Her energetic coaching style, blended with over a decade of PR, Marketing and Communications experience, has captured the hearts and minds of her extensive client base from start ups through to globally recognised brands including Red Bull, Levi Strauss and Swisse.

Lucy has managed big teams, big personalities and big workloads, and has an innate understanding of how to motivate people both in and out of the workplace to drive maximum fulfillment and outcomes.

She strives to make quality coaching and training more individualised and memorable to achieve this and to date, has served 5000 people across 10 countries.

Mel is the Account Director leading our Paid Ads team, driving strategy across Meta, Google Ads, LinkedIn, Pinterest and TikTok. Her experience spans performance media, organic social and hands on account management, giving her a genuinely connected view of how paid, owned and creative channels work together to drive real commercial growth and efficiency of ad spend.

Mel brings a structured, clarity first approach to leadership, shaped by Lean Leadership principles, and a deep commitment to building teams that do their best work through honest communication and clear ownership. She’s especially passionate about upskilling others, facilitating The Digital Picnic’s in person Paid Ads workshops and sharing her media buying expertise with businesses building their own in-house capabilities.

Nadine is the Senior Social Media Specialist at The Digital Picnic, a digital marketing agency known for its innovative strategies and kind-genius approach. Promoted to senior within just eight months, she’s built her career on drive, curiosity, and a genuine love for this industry.

While studying marketing, Nadine quickly realised that hands-on experience far outweighed textbook learning. She built her own business creating content for events and brands, which laid the groundwork for her work today. At TDP, she helps lead some of the agency’s largest accounts, overseeing influencer partnerships, social strategy, and content creation for brands that value real connection. She is particularly fascinated by the power that organic social media has to shape a brand’s reputation and future.

Nikita is a Social Media Specialist at The Digital Picnic, where she supports brands through strategic content, thoughtful storytelling, and influencer-led campaigns. With nearly three years’ experience in the industry, Nikita has worked across social media and content roles for much-loved Australian brands before transitioning over to the agency landscape.

Sunny Pawar is a Paid Media Specialist at The Digital Picnic, bringing over six years of experience across performance marketing and digital advertising. He works across Google Ads and Meta, developing and optimising paid media strategies that help brands turn advertising investment into meaningful business growth.

At TDP, Sunny manages a diverse portfolio of clients across a range of industries, with a strong focus on campaign strategy, performance analysis, conversion tracking and ongoing optimisation. He particularly enjoys digging into performance data, identifying opportunities for growth and turning complex campaign insights into clear, practical recommendations for clients.

Alongside hands-on campaign management, Sunny is passionate about sharing his knowledge, supporting teammates and helping others build confidence in paid media.