Ansible Automates Sydney Livestream 2026

Mark Carter is an international keynote speaker, trainer and coach. He has over 25 years of experience as a global learning and development professional, with his first role being developing leaders for Contiki Holidays.

His TEDx talk was the movie trailer for his second book, ‘Add Value’, published globally by WILEY.

Mark is the creator of a learning management system for SME’s and a media contributor. He regularly consults businesses around critical business pillars, including: culture, leadership, value, adaptability and sales.

Mark's keynotes and rich academy of training programs all have a common thread specialisation in people and behaviour. Born in England, raised in Scotland, nurtured by Europe and with several round world trips he’s called Australia home since 2002. Mangoes, after all, don’t grow in Edinburgh.

Richard Henshall serves as the Director of Field Product Management for Red Hat's Ansible business unit, where he directs the strategy and roadmap for the Ansible Automation Platform.

Before joining Red Hat in 2017, Richard amassed 16 years of experience in Financial Services IT, holding various operational, design, and architecture roles. His experience as an Ansible customer at HSBC, where he was Chief Architect for Cloud and a Distinguished Engineer, was key; he introduced Ansible as part of the organization's Cloud and DevOps transformation initiatives.

Linus Lai is a chief analyst based in ANZ, leading all of IDC's Global Services Research covering a wide array of topics from Agentic AI integration and the future of services as products. Linus is based in Sydney, Australia, and is a founding member of IDC's Emerging Technology Advisory Council.

Charles McClelland is a Technology Leader & Open Source Advocate with over two decades of experience in the US technology sector. He is a strong advocate for automation as a key enabler of today’s emerging technologies such as cloud and AI as it frees IT spending and labor to focus on higher-value work.

Prior to Red Hat, he held key positions at IBM, focusing on systems and cloud sales for government, defense, and large private sector clients. His diverse background includes military service, academia, and consumer packaged goods brand management, offering a comprehensive understanding of both business and technology.

Charles recently moved to Singapore where he enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking and mountain biking. He is also active in the open-source community particularly for outdoor Internet of Things (IoT) applications and 3D printing.

Tertius Bouwer is an Automation Specialist for Red Hat, with expertise in automation leveraging Ansible technology, supporting the automation journeys of organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Tertius has a keen focus on driving organisational growth and efficiency through automation. He harnesses the power of Ansible to streamline processes and optimise workflows for clients across diverse industries in Australia. Having honed his skills over the past 20 years, Tertius possesses a deep understanding of how automation can revolutionise business operations, enabling companies to achieve their objectives with greater speed and precision. Tertius combined technical acumen with a customer-centric approach; he excels in crafting tailored solutions that meet the unique needs of each client.

Phil is a seasoned DevOps, Cloud, and Automation Engineer with extensive experience designing and delivering scalable, reliable, and secure automation solutions. He has a deep passion for Infrastructure as Code, cloud-native architectures, and building robust CI/CD and configuration management workflows. With a wealth of knowledge across the automation landscape, Phil focuses on enabling teams to work smarter through consistent, repeatable, and efficient engineering practices. He is particularly enthusiastic about leveraging Ansible and other IaC frameworks to streamline operations, reduce complexity, and accelerate delivery

Kenny Cheng is a Senior Chapter Lead at Telstra and an Autonomous Networks Lead in the Mobile Core. With deep expertise in automation and API service exposure, he focuses on improving network reliability and customer experience. He led the delivery of closed-loop automation that identified configuration misalignments between the Core and Radio Networks, enabling targeted radio changes to optimise mobile network slicing.

Sean Dudding, Service Owner of Patterns Automation at Westpac, is a leader in infrastructure automation transformation. With over 25 years of IT experience, he has dedicated the last 17 years to Westpac, including the past seven years driving this automation effort.