2026 Programme Sessions
Registration Open
730am
Summit Commences
815am
Summit Concludes
5pm
Post-Summit Cocktail Function
5-7pm
00
Opening
Speakers: MC David Downs, CEO Education New Zealand
Rochelle Moffitt, Co-Founder Revved, Founder Decibel
Rochelle and David open the day together, setting the intention and energising the room for the day ahead.
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.
Rochelle has built her career or connection and putting the right people in the right rooms together. This is the dance floor.
01
Which future do we choose?
Speaker: Frances Valintine, Founder & Chair 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.
Built different
02
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
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
Leading through uncertainty
Speaker: Alia Bojilova, Former NZSAS, Elite Performance Psychologist, Operating Partner, Movac
In 2013, while leading her team on the ground in Syria, Dr Alia Bojilova was taken hostage by armed rebels. She negotiated her own release and earned a United Nations Commendation for her leadership. What the experience confirmed was that the training worked.
At Revved 2026, Alia brings that story to the stage, and what it proved about human capacity when it counts.
Psychologist. Author. Operating Partner at Movac. The person who selected and developed New Zealand's most elite soldiers, and now builds high-performance cultures inside the country's most promising tech companies. Her life's work is built on a single belief: we are capable of far more than we realise, and she's spent her career proving it.
Her session lands on two ideas every leader in the room can use:
There is always time to pause. Nothing is ever fixed or finite, and the moment you stop to decide is the moment you take back control.
Curiosity opens doors that pressure closes. It defined the recruits who made it through selection, and it works the same way in a boardroom as it does in a crisis.
We are all more capable of rising to uncertainty than we think. Alia has the evidence.
Morning tea - 10:30 - 11:00am
Fireside Chat led by David Downs
Speakers: Dr Alexandra Andhov, Professor and Chair of Law and Technology & Director ALTeR, Nyssa Waters, Founder Possibl AI
The true cost of AI
04
AI is the biggest topic on everyone's lips right now, and the pressure is real. Adopt faster, speed up, lift productivity, keep pace.
But there is a real cost to AI. Some of it is monetary, and set to climb as the big players stop subsidising the tech. Some of it is less visible: your IP, your data, your people, and the fallout when prices suddenly move on tools your business has come to depend on.
At Revved 2026, we're putting a builder and an accountability scholar on the same stage. Nyssa Waters, CEO and co-founder of Possibl AI, is building at the frontier from right here in Auckland. Dr Alexandra Andhov researches AI accountability at the University of Auckland.
Together they'll work through the real trade-offs: speed versus caution, opportunity versus exposure, the human cost alongside the monetary one, and where New Zealand as a whole should be playing.
You'll leave knowing what AI genuinely costs, where the risks sit in your own business, and what to do about both.
Speakers:
Jason Paris, CEO One New Zealand
Nikhil Ravishankar, CEO Air New Zealand
Naomi Ballantyne, Founder, Partners Life Chairperson of the Board, Tower NZ
Moderator - Ziena Jalil, Deputy Chief Executive – Strategy and Executive Operations Hato Hone St John
Leading at scale
04
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.
The stories we tell ourselves
05
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.
Lunch 1:00 - 1:50pm
The Changemakers
06
Speakers:
Sir Ian Taylor, Founder & Chairman Animation Research Ltd and Panel
The Hon. Tim Groser, Groser & Associates. Former NZ Ambassador to the US; Former Minister of Trade, Minister Climate Change.
Claire Stewart, CEO Bio Forestry Innovation Centre
Dr Will Barker, CEO and Co-Founder Mint Innovations
Saba Samiei, Founder and CEO of MACSO Technologies
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.
Engineering Future You
07
Speaker: Steve Hill Director Inner Oasis
It is through imagination that we begin to shape and manifest our future. When we know where we are going, we can clearly see what to take with us and what to leave behind. In this session, we journey to meet the best version of our future self – a guiding beacon that helps us unlock creativity, align our decisions, and signal practical next steps.
Afternoon Tea 3:35 - 3:50pm
Moderator: Anna Mowbray, Founder ZEIL, Co-founder ZURU, Co-founder Revved
Speakers: Mike Casey, founder Rewiring Aotearoa,
Renata Blair, Chief Executive Officer of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua
So, what are we waiting for?
08
Three leaders. Three different arenas. One shared drive: a better future for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mike Casey took an idea for a self-sufficient, electrified New Zealand and turned it into policy change within two years. Renata Blair is leading for the generations ahead, backing Māori youth into technology and growing an economy that serves the community it stands on. Anna Mowbray is proving world-class AI can be engineered from Auckland, backed by a team built with the same precision as the product.
This is the story of how they did it, what the hard work looked like, and what they're building next.
Then we turn the question to the room. You've spent the day with proof that change is possible and the people who've done it. Personal, professional, purposeful: where does your focus go now? This is where the day becomes your decision.
What does New Zealand look like if we just get on with it?
Cocktail Function - Networking Drinks 5:00 - 7:00pm
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.