Kate Andrews

Last year, the Tech Council of Australia partnered with Project F to launch an ambitious and much needed approach to equity in talent management for Tech. The question on how to level the playing field and ensure that our talent practices are based on merit instead of bias is very much alive and more critical than ever as technology’s impact on society keeps on growing. How to access a larger talent pool? How to ensure that our products are inclusive? How do we create equal opportunities for the jobs that will matter tomorrow? Come and join me for this exciting conversation with the fabulous Emma Jones 🍉 , founder and CEO of Project F , and Adair Robins diversity in Tech Lead at the Tech Council of Australia .

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When growth outpaces governance, cracks always appear. A leading Australian manufacturer was scaling rapidly, with dozens of projects across product development, IT, and continuous improvement. They needed an enterprise PMO to align delivery with strategy. But there was no consistent governance. Each team delivered differently, reporting was inconsistent, and scope and budget creep went unchecked. Project maturity was low, duplication was high, and leaders lacked oversight. How do you build a scalable PMO framework—fast—without slowing growth? Within 8 weeks, AMO delivered a complete Enterprise PMO Delivery Framework: ✅ End-to-end governance parameters defined ✅ HR, Finance & Resourcing procedures integrated ✅ Tools, templates, and reporting structures delivered ✅ Budget vs actual reporting introduced to surface savings ✅ Maturity uplifted to Level 2 (repeatable processes) The result? A resilient, enterprise-wide PMO model that improved efficiency, provided clarity, and gave leaders full oversight of every project. 👉 Learn more about how AMO builds capability that lasts: https://lnkd.in/gaEuGE_F #AMO #CIABplus #ExecutionGap #Governance #ClientImpact #StrategyToDelivery

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To all Atlassians let go earlier this week, I’m here for you - for a chat, portfolio review, interview practice, whatever you need. I know there are many support offers - extended here and organised internally. This is the very essence of the Atlassian spirit that was never lost. We are a team that push through and show up for each other in need, because we understand that great things are achieved together. So this one goes to the tech industry (especially in Australia) - an ex-Atlassian on board is so much more than experience and talent, it is a team accelerator - drive, collaboration and inspiration. Do yourself a favour and snatch them while you can!

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Payment UX is terribly broken in Australia. What really stood out to me in these first week in Aussie land was, beyond koalas being picky eaters (just like my kids) and kangaroos walking with their tail (not like my kids), is how card payment are handled. Everywhere you go, there’s a clear surcharge posted at the counter. ➡️Pay with a card = extra fee. (1.3% to 2.01%) Like this, the interchange fee isn’t a “hidden service fee,” anymore. It’s an explicit expense on every purchase. This is especially striking in a country with one of the most developed digital payments ecosystems in the world. To be fair, the rules allow merchants to surcharge card payments, but only up to what it actually costs them to process that payment type. Businesses must justify the surcharge based on their cost of acceptance, and regulators prohibit “excessive” rates above those costs. Still, from a consumer perspective it feels like: - Price uncertainty at checkout - A penalty for conveniency - Little UX guidance on why the cost exists Listen Australians, If you want people to shift behavior, incentivizing a choice (like a cash discount) historically works much better than penalizing the status quo. But why is ask these happening now in Australia? Australia is actively debating it at a regulatory level: ✔️ Regulators currently ban surcharges that are above the merchant’s actual card-acceptance cost. ✔️ The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released a consultation paper in 2025 reviewing merchant card payment costs and surcharging, noting the system could be simplified and made fairer. ✔️ The federal government has signalled it’s prepared to ban debit card surcharges entirely from January 2026, subject to RBA review. ✔️ There’s broader debate about potentially banning surcharges on both debit and credit card payments, which some RBA proposals suggest could save consumers hundreds of millions annually and reduce complexity. ✔️ That said, many small business groups are pushing back, warning that absorbing card fees could simply shift to business bankruptcy, or increasing costs into higher menu prices. So the payment conversation is very hot right now. In the meantime, Card costs are still passed downstream at checkout and absorbed by the consumer. Why this matters for onchain banking? From an Argentine and payments-centric view, it feels like a classic case of policy lagging user experience: + Consumers want transparent pricing upfront. Price tag = Price to pay. + Merchants feel squeezed by interchange and scheme fees with limited transparency. The conversations I’m having with a lot of smart Aussies, consumers and merchants alike, that are questioning whether penalizing card usage actually achieves anything useful anymore.

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For a long time, over 10% of our engineering time was quietly disappearing. 🤯 Not into features. Not into improvements. Into manually managing webhook and Zapier connections for partners who wanted to connect their enquiry forms to Found. It worked. But it didn't scale. And every hour spent on it was an hour not spent building something better. So with Found 2.0, we fixed it. Partners can now build and embed their own fully customisable enquiry forms - choosing their questions, setting their options, adding confirmation messages or redirects, and previewing changes as they go. From form creation, to website submission in less than 5 minutes! No more waiting on us. The best bit? Seeing it live in the wild with Ashberry Healthcare Limited. Plus a bonus shoutout to Care Launch - a specialist call handling, marketing and website service for care providers - who are already customising and embedding forms directly into their sites and connecting enquiries straight into Found.

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'We don't need to report until FY28 so let's talk next year.' That's a phrase I hear weekly from Australian companies that are subject to #ASRS mandatory climate reporting. I totally get it, I would say the same thing. The problem is, the reports need to be audited and you won’t get emissions reporting right the first time. That’s why I always recommend starting early. I’ve seen companies surprised by their numbers in year one every single time. The first run always uncovers gaps, mistakes, or emissions sources no-one expected. For a recent customer, waste was measured perfectly but made up <1% of emissions. Over 70% came from purchased goods and services where data was weak. Focusing on the right data matters. Chasing the wrong numbers costs time and money, and can delay your audit readiness. Listen to the advice from sustainability expert, Rachael Brock, in this video → Start measuring at least one year before your first public disclosure → Use that time to find gaps and build better processes → Prioritise data quality for your biggest emission sources ASRS compliance is coming fast. Early action means fewer headaches, more savings, and a real chance to drive impact.

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The seventh episode of Notion in Practice just dropped, I’m so proud Tim and Jerwin are giving a voice and platform to builders who are quietly building amazing things and sharing knowledge that matters. This episode feels like a birthday present to me, but if you’re a founder, VC, or anyone writing reports, there’s some really solid wisdom here.

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I’ve had a few coffee catchups lately with tech leaders who are stuck. Not because they don’t want to modernise, but because no one’s quite sure what their legacy systems are really doing. These aren’t minor systems. They’re core, built on for years, often without the documentation or people who originally wrote them. This is where generative AI has started to make a real difference. We’ve been using tools that can quickly surface the unknowns, decode what’s in there, and map a path forward, even when there’s no internal SME left. That kind of explainability is a game-changer for modernisation decisions. We’re seeing this across industries, but it’s showing up most sharply in financial services, where the risks are higher, the systems are older and the investment in AI is accelerating. If you’re wrestling with these decisions right now, there’s a link in my profile to book a chat about how generative AI can help. And if you're curious about what’s actually working in financial services and what might work next in your world: here’s a good read:    https://lnkd.in/gDEDsk7B DiUS Frank Losinno Marc Phoa Adam Crough Georgia Grammaticopoulos Kirsty Miller Santiago C.

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