SSOW ANZ 2026: The Next Frontier for Shared Services
12th – 13th May 2026
| InterContinental Double Bay, Sydney
NextGen Finance Transformation 2026 Day 2: Wednesday, 13 May 2026
9:00 am - 9:10 am
Chair’s Opening Remarks | The Big Picture: What’s Next in Finance Transformation
Melissa Guy -
Finance Strategy & Improvement Lead - Group Finance,
Woolworths Group
9:10 am - 9:50 am
Panel Discussion | The Compliance Trap: How Finance Moves Beyond Risk Management to Growth Enabler
Min Su -
Finance Director and Company Secretary,
Ascom Asia
Shervina Tjawir - Finance Medicine and Health Director, University of Sydney
Maria Ramos - Snr Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementation, GPC Asia Pacific
Asfahan Ahmed - Global Finance Transformation Head & PMO, Novartis
This panel explores how forward-thinking finance leaders are fundamentally rebalancing their functions to maintain robust controls while simultaneously enabling business growth, supporting strategic initiatives, and building stakeholder confidence that finance protects the enterprise without blocking innovation or opportunity.
Key Takeaways:
• The compliance overload problem: why risk-averse finance cultures stifle business agility and damage stakeholder relationships
• Operating model strategies that separate "protect" activities from "enable" activities without compromising control effectiveness
• Building trust and partnership: communication approaches that position controls as business enablers, not bureaucratic obstacles
Maria Ramos
Snr Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementationGPC Asia Pacific
9:50 am - 10:20 am
What LEGO Can Teach About Finance Solution Delivery
Martin Culwick -
Finance Transformation – Solution & Architecture Lead,
Perpetual Limited
10:20 am - 11:00 am
The Tech Panel | From AI Pilots to Production: Embedding Intelligence Across Finance Operations
Yenny Dewi -
Global Decision Support and Analytics Strategy Lead,
Sanofi
Stephannie Jonovska - Head of Commercial Services and Transformation, BlueScope
Teena Sood - Corporate Systems Analyst – Finance, The Lottery Corporation
This panel brings together finance leaders who've moved beyond experimentation to achieve enterprise-wide AI integration—revealing how they overcame organisational resistance, technical fragmentation, and capability gaps to weave advanced analytics and automation into the fabric of everyday finance operations, delivering faster insights and smarter decision-making at scale.
Key Takeaways:
• Why AI remains trapped in isolated pilots: the organisational, technical, and cultural barriers preventing enterprise-wide adoption in finance
• Integration strategies that embed AI across FP&A, close processes, reporting, and business partnering without creating technical chaos
• Change management approaches that drive adoption when finance teams resist new intelligent tools and workflows
11:00 am - 11:30 am
Morning Break
11:30 am - 12:00 pm
PANEL DISCUSSION | Garbage In, Garbage Out: Solving Finance's Persistent Data Integrity Problem
Thomas Lynch -
Financial Controller and Head of Finance Transformation,
Retail Food Group
Maria Ramos - Snr Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementation, GPC Asia Pacific
This session confronts the data quality crisis plaguing finance organisations, exploring root causes of data inconsistency and revealing practical strategies to establish robust data governance, automate validation, create single sources of truth, and build stakeholder confidence in financial
information.
Key Takeaways:
• The hidden cost of poor data quality: quantifying time wasted, decisions delayed, and credibility lost due to data inconsistency
• Data governance frameworks that establish ownership, standards, and accountability across source systems and business units
• Technology solutions for automated validation, exception management, and continuous data quality monitoring in finance processes
Maria Ramos
Snr Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementationGPC Asia Pacific
12:00 pm - 12:30 pm
Doing More With Less (Again): Managing Finance Transformation on Shrinking Budgets
Maria Ramos -
Snr Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementation,
GPC Asia Pacific
This session tackles the investment dilemma head-on, exploring how finance organisations secure funding for critical transformation initiatives, make smart trade-offs between competing priorities, demonstrate ROI that justifies investments, and achieve genuine efficiency that funds future capability building without perpetual budget cuts.
Key Takeaways:
• Building compelling business cases: ROI frameworks and value narratives that secure transformation funding in cost-constrained environments
• Smart prioritisation: deciding which transformation investments deliver maximum impact versus which initiatives to delay or eliminate
• Self-funding strategies: using quick-win automation and efficiency gains to generate savings that finance future capability investments
Maria Ramos
Snr Change Manager -Finance &Supply Chain Transformation -ERP implementationGPC Asia Pacific
