Drew joined the Sydney Swans as Chief Operating Officer in January 2020. Prior to joining the Swans Drew led Apple's Enterprise business across Australia & New Zealand, a role that encompassed people leadership, business development and government affairs over a nine year period. Drew's career to date has spanned the Government, Non-Profit and Corporate Sectors.
Darren Little is the General Manager of Lending at Viridian Financial Group Ltd. He has over 35 years in financial services and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Smartmove is one of Australia's largest independent mortgage broking groups and is now part of the Viridian Group one of Australia's largest diversified financial services businesses. Smartmove won the Major Independent Brokerage of the year at the 2025 Australian Brokerage Awards.
Darren has been at Smartmove for over 12 years and prior to this, Darren was at the St George Banking Group for 26 years with a wide range of experience in distribution, operations and credit. The roles included Head of Mortgage Broker Services for the St George Banking Group and Head of 3rd Party & Specialist Distribution for BankSA.
In his role as General Manager – Lending, Darren is responsible for the overall running of the lending team within the wider Viridian Group as well as our International Operations the Philippines & Nepal.
Adam Franklin is an AI and marketing coach, keynote speaker and bestselling author.
As CEO of Bluewire Media, Adam trains advisors, brokers, accountants and agents to grow and streamline their business with AI and digital channels using the Replicate Yourself System.
His blog was named Australia's #1 business blog and his podcast was named #9 on Entrepreneur magazine's top marketing podcasts.
Adam's work has featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Courier Mail and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Adam is a regular judge of the Australian Broking Awards, REB, Better Business Summit Awards, Australian Accounting Awards and Women in Real Estate Awards.
He has delivered keynotes and workshops to thousands of advisors, brokers, accountants and agents at conferences for The Adviser, AREC, FBAA, PLAN Australia, Vero, Aussie, CoreLogic, Kelly+Partners, Suncorp, Better Business Summit, Ray White, Belle Property and Remax.
He's coached 100s of private clients and taught 1000s of students via his online courses and coaching programs. His weekly 'Bluewire News' email goes out to a global audience of over 33,000 business owners.
Maxine Horne started her own business in 1993, with an idea (that went against the trend) and just under $5,000. In 1995, the brand of Fone Zone was created with the first store opening in Pacific Fair shopping centre on the Gold Coast. Maxine grew the business to more than 160 Fone Zone stores and led the group to secure Telstra's only Master Licence, moving on to own and operate 115 plus Telstra-branded stores for more than a decade. During this time, Maxine led the company through the numerous challenges that came with scaling a small business from a single outlet, to a major corporate, and then in 2005, a publicly-listed company – Vita Group (ASX: VTG) – all whilst operating in a fast-growing category and delivering prolific growth.
Under Maxine's 26-year stewardship, Vita has made the most of opportunities and changing markets. With that in mind, Vita created and launched several new businesses over the years, including Vita Enterprise Solutions and Sprout Accessories in the Information and Communications Technology field, SQDAthletica – a menswear brand, and Artisan Aesthetic Clinics – a skin-health and wellness business with clinics across Australia.
In 2021, Vita's accessory brand Sprout and the 115 Telstra stores it owned and operated were sold to Telstra. Simultaneously, SQDAthletica and Vita Enterprise Solutions were sold separately thus leaving Vita Group with Artisan Aesthetic Clinics which was sold to Sonic Healthcare in June 2022. Following the sale of Vita, Maxine stepped down from her role as Vita's Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Vita Group to focus on other business opportunities.
Maxine is in the rare position of being one of very few female founders that has taken a start-up business – requiring flexibility, tenacity and entrepreneurialism, to a publicly listed company – requiring structure, discipline, compliance, risk mitigation and governance. This combination ensures that Maxine has a unique and comprehensive skillset that covers comprehensive strategic thinking, establishing, operating and growing a business along with what is required to lead a successful corporate organisation. She understands that the attributes of a small business and a 'founder mentality' can, if executed well, deliver significant value to large scale businesses and corporations.
She has extensive experience and hence transferrable skills from dealing with landlords (large & small), suppliers, partnerships, both sides of M&A and the investor community as a whole. She has great commercial skills, knows how to drive a large, dispersed network, the disciplines required and is very people centric. She is focused on delivering outcomes in everything that she does.
Maxine was named QBR Business Woman of the Year for Retail in 2006. In 2014, she received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award for the industry category, Northern region and was inducted into the Businesswoman's Hall of Fame. In 2016, she released her biography, 'Think Smart, Run Hard' which talks about the lessons she learnt in starting and running her business (all profits went to ACT for Kids) and in 2019 she was honoured to receive The Courier-Mail Award for Business Person of the Year.
Maxine now focuses her time and involvement in companies where she has taken an equity stake, on other private investments, advisory boards, keynote presentations and her latest foray as a Shark, on Shark Tank Australia.
When presenting, Maxine likes to focus on the following subjects. She is, however, open to suggestions as it is important to her that her presentations are relevant to the audience and the overall message being delivered.
Russell Easther is a digital marketing trainer, consultant, and business owner with over 20 years' experience helping businesses generate consistent, high-quality leads through search. He is the Founder of Lead Partners Direct and a long-standing corporate trainer at digitalbrief, where he delivers practical, no-nonsense workshops to marketers and business leaders across Australia and APAC.
Russ specialises in search visibility at the point of intent, where commercial decisions are made. His work spans traditional SEO, Google Ads, and the rapidly emerging discipline of AIO (AI Optimisation), helping businesses adapt as search engines shift towards AI-driven results, summaries, and recommendations.
In recent years, Russell's teams have delivered tens of thousands of qualified leads for professional services businesses, translating into millions of dollars in attributable revenue. He also sits on the RMIT University industry advisory panel, helping shape future-ready digital marketing education.
Russell brings a grounded, commercial lens to AIO and SEO, cutting through hype to focus on what actually influences visibility, trust, and enquiry generation in a world where Google's AI Overviews increasingly shape borrower decisions before a click ever happens.
