2026 Programme Sessions
Registration Open
730am
Summit Commences
815am
Summit Concludes
5pm
Post-Summit Cocktail Function
5-7pm
00
Opening
MC: David Downs, CEO New Zealand Story Group
David Downs brings grit, resilience, and a sharp sense of humour to the stage. A cancer survivor and seasoned businessman, he knows how to hold a room, keep the energy moving, and find the humanity in the hard conversations. He'll make sure the day flows - and that you're laughing as much as you're thinking.
01
Which Future Do We Choose?
Speaker: Frances Valintine, Founder & CEO academyEX
Technology is evolving faster than society and business can respond. AI is presenting new ways of working. But the people at the frontier are outpacing the slow adopters at a factor of ten - and New Zealand is falling behind.
Frances Valintine sets the stakes: What future are we engineering - and is it the same one we're imagining? Because the future isn't something that happens to us. It's something we choose to build.
You'll explore: The acceleration curve. The societal consequences. New Zealand's unique advantages - and what happens if we don't act.
02
Built Different
Speakers:
Maya Pan, Co-Founder Growth NZ, Ex Meta, Grammarly & eBay
Alliv Samson, Co-Founder & Director Kami
Stephen Dewar, GM/VP of Engineering, Xero Co-Founder, Ahiko
Julia Pahina, Co-Founder, Fibre Fale, Co-Founder, WOLFE
New Zealand is producing world-class companies. The question is whether we're building the kind of change that actually sticks, and who gets to be a part of it.
This panel features three builders, each with a very different vantage point on what it means to engineer change in Aotearoa - and what it actually costs.
Alliv Samson bootstrapped edtech platform Kami from Auckland into 70 million users across 180 countries, and is now backing the next generation of Kiwi founders doing the same. Stephen Dewar leads engineering at Xero and is co-founder of an AI native energy platform. And Julia Pahina spent years in strategy roles at HP's global headquarters before returning to NZ to create pathways for Pasifika people into tech through Fibre Fale and is a driving force in AI governance and digital equity conversations globally.
This isn't a panel about what's possible. It's a conversation between people who are already doing it: navigating capital markets that weren't built for them, moving fast in industries resistant to change, and asking whether the version of success New Zealand is chasing is the right one. You'll leave with something sharper than inspiration. A clearer sense of where the real leverage points are - and what it's going to take to build change that lasts.
03
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Speaker: Nicola Taylor - Co-Founder Taxi + Tax Traders
Nicola Taylor argues that the biggest constraint on performance isn’t strategy. It’s the story leaders believe about what is possible.
Every leader has a strategy. Most will underperform. Not because the strategy is wrong, but because of the pervasive stories running underneath it.
Nicola is the co-founder of two globally award-winning fintech companies, Tax Traders and Taxi that have succeeded by rejecting the usual stories.
In this session, Nicola makes a provocative case: the narratives we tell ourselves - as individuals, as organisations, as a country - shape what we believe is possible. Right now, New Zealand is telling itself a limiting story: we're too far away, too slow, too small to compete.
What if the story we've been telling ourselves is the thing holding us back?
You'll explore: How self-limiting beliefs shape who you are and how you lead. Why it's not your strategy that determines your outcomes, but the stories you believe, and how to rewrite the narrative - for yourself, your team, and New Zealand.
04
Leading At Scale
Speakers:
Jason Paris, CEO One New Zealand
Nikhil Ravishankar, CEO Air New Zealand
Naomi Ballantyne, Founder, Partners Life Chairperson of the Board, Tower NZ
What does engineering change look like when you're responsible for thousands of jobs and the infrastructure an entire country depends on?
Jason Paris and Nikhil Ravishankar are navigating the same tensions every leader in this room faces - speed vs. stability, technology vs. humanity, global competition vs. local values. The difference? They're doing it at scale and the whole country is watching.
Joining them is Naomi Ballantyne - founder, builder, and one of New Zealand's most significant business leaders of the last four decades. She's challenged the norms of large, conservative industries, built businesses that went the distance, and never once compromised on the values that got her there.
This isn't a structured panel. It's three leaders talking honestly about the realities of modern leadership - the decisions that keep them up at night, the pressures they're navigating, and their vision for their businesses, their industries, and New Zealand.
You'll hear: What it actually takes to lead transformation at scale, how AI is reshaping their organisations right now and what that means for the thousands of people within them, where they've had to hold the line - on values, on people, and on the kind of leaders they want to be.
05
The SAS Blueprint:
Leading Through Uncertainty
Speaker: Alia Bojilova, Former NZSAS, Elite Performance Psychologist, Operating Partner, Movac
What if the biggest barrier to your performance isn't your strategy, your team, or the market?
What if it's white noise?
At Revved 2026, Dr. Alia Bojilova is bringing the science of human capacity to the stage, and it will change how you lead.
Former Lead Psychologist for the New Zealand Special Forces. PhD researcher. Published author. The person who selected and developed the nation's most elite soldiers, an now an advisor to global agencies, tech leaders and elite athletes.
She knows better than anyone what ordinary humans are truly capable of when the conditions are right.
Her work is built on a single, proven truth: we are capable of far more than we realise. But we waste it, staying in threat mode, letting rumination and self-limiting beliefs deplete the very capacity we already have.
You'll explore: What we are actually wired for? Where we are playing? And how we win?
No fluff. Just the tools to think better, do better, and lead better.
06
The Changemakers
Speakers: Sir Ian Taylor, Founder & Chairman Animation Research Ltd and Panel
These are the businesses that aren't waiting for permission, government direction, or certainty. They're engineering change right now - building for a better future while solving real problems.
This session showcases New Zealand companies building world-class businesses with community, sustainability, education, and social good at their core. They prove you can be profitable and purposeful. That you can scale globally and stay grounded locally. New Zealand's size, values, and resourcefulness are competitive advantages, not limitations. This is the proof.
Mike Casey opens with a progress update on his commitments from Revved 2025: his zero-emissions electric orchard, the profitability gains from sustainability, and the proof that what gets committed to at Revved gets done.
07
So, What Now?
Moderator: Mike Casey, founder Rewiring Aotearoa
Speakers: Anna Mowbray, Founder ZEIL, Co-founder ZURU, Co-founder Revved
Renata Blair, Chief Executive Officer of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua. & more
There has never been more opportunity for New Zealand. Our moment is now. But without unified action, our people, environment and economy will suffer. This is a robust, unscripted discussion about collective responsibility. Not party politics. Not theory. The decisions that will determine whether New Zealand becomes more prosperous and united - or poorer and more divided.
Business is the connecting force. It sits at the intersection of our economy, our communities, our environment, and our values. In a country as small and interconnected as ours, it has the unique power to unify and drive change at speed. But these conversations can no longer be had in silos. True change requires all of us, working together, with a shared sense of responsibility for what we're building.
The room has spent the day diagnosing the forces reshaping our world, learning the tools to lead through uncertainty, and seeing proof that change is possible. Now we face the hardest question: What decisions can we not afford to avoid - and who leads when the system moves too slowly?
Sir Ian Taylor closes with a call to arms: what happens next, who's responsible, and why this room has the capability and the obligation to engineer a better future.
In partnership with organisations backing New Zealand’s future
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Ticket Inclusions
✓ Entry to Revved 2026 Summit
✓ Barista coffee on arrival, refreshments, lunch and snacks through the summit
✓ Post-summit cocktail function
✓ 12 months Revved Assembly membership
(All pricing shown in NZD ex GST)
Getting To Revved 2026
Location, access and proximity
Venue
August 6, 2026
Viaduct Events Centre
171 Halsey Street, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010, New Zealand
Located in Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, the Viaduct Events Centre sits at the centre of the waterfront precinct, with public transport connections, secure parking facilities, and premium accommodation all within immediate walking distance.
Public Transport
8–10 minute walk from Britomart Transport Centre (rail and bus).
10 minute walk from the Downtown Ferry Terminal.
Airport Access
Approximately 25–35 minutes by car from Auckland Airport (traffic dependent).
Parking
Paid public parking is available within short walking distance, including Downtown Car Park and Viaduct Car Park. Availability and rates are managed by the respective operators.
Ride Share & Taxis
Direct drop-off and pick-up is available at the venue entrance on Halsey Street.