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Agtech Supplier Professional Development Day Speakers

Keynote speaker

St John Craner is the founder of Agrarian, who specialises exclusively in training and teaching New Zealand, Australian and North American rural businesses who want to perform at a higher sales performance level. St John is well-known round the traps and over the years has been worked with John Deere, Bayer, DeLaval, Elders, Nutrien, Case IH, TruTest, DLF Seeds, Karcher, Heiniger, CRV Ambreed and AON Agri to name but a few.

St John has a career that comes from both sides of the fence as a former Marketing Manager for Westpac and Contact Energy. He’s also worked agency-side for global ad agencies McCann Erickson, Young & Rubicam and Lowe Howard Spink in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. In the last decade his focus has been more in sales - specifically sales psychology - helping rural companies bridge the gap between brand, sales and marketing. St John has worked with AgriTech companies Swarm Farm, Optiweigh, Sean Systems, Farmbot, Bitwise Agronomy and Herd-i.

St John is an avid blogger, author, podcaster and writes for NZ Marketing, Idealog, Dairy Exporter, Farmers Weekly, Stuff and interest.co.nz. He is also a regular Chair and speaker on the NZ and Australian Ag conference circuit.

Connect with St John

Dinner Keynote speaker

Carmen Quade runs AgriFocused, a business offering offers face to face and online courses in the areas of farm business management to farming families around Australia.

Carmen has worked as a University lecturer in Accounting and Agribusiness and enjoys working with people to improve their business skills. She holds a Bachelor of Business (Agricultural Commerce), a Master of Professional Accounting and a Cert IV in Training Small Groups.

Together with her husband, she is a partner in a cropping farm at Tallimba, in the Northern Riverina, managing the business side of the farming enterprise. Carmen has a background in various agricultural industry roles and local government. Following a decade of
almost continuous lactation and gestation she founded her agribusiness training company AgriFocused in 2019.

Connect with Carmen

Facilitator

Jillian Kilby is an Australian Sir John Monash Scholar holding a degree in Civil Engineering (Sydney University), and an MBA and Public Policy Masters (Stanford University). She is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia and Graduate of the ACID.

Jillian has experience in engineering, project management, consulting, facilitation, and economic development in Australia and the USA. She holds a number of roles, including Chair of the Australian Public Policy Institute, Member of the USYD Faculty of Engineering Industry Advisory Board, Managing Director of The Stable Group and Founder of The Exchange. Jillian was the 2018 NSW/ACT Rural Woman of The Year and is an advocate for people in the regions.

Connect with Jillian

Online Marketing and Branding

Tenai is a multi award-winning Meta Ads Specialist with over a decade of marketing experience, holding a Bachelor of Business majoring in Marketing with a minor in Psychology.

Tenai specialises in helping rural businesses thrive by adapting big business marketing strategies to suit smaller and agricultural centric budgets. With global experience running multi-million-dollar campaigns, Tenai focuses on making data-driven strategies accessible and impactful for local businesses. She is known for simplifying complex marketing concepts into practical, actionable steps.

Connect with Tenai

Streamlining Agtech adoption for farmers

Clare’s formative years drafting sheep, mustering cattle and harvesting through the night, set the course of her career. Completing her Ag studies at Marcus Oldham College, Clare has worked across 3 states in a range of fields including broadacre and mixed livestock farming, farm policy, business advisory, and agribusiness banking.

Clare has worked with hundreds of farmers, taking time to understand their operations, guide problem solving and deliver results for both the business and the people within the business.
In her current role as Agtech Specialist for the Farms of the Future Program, Clare brings her high energy and solution focused expertise to promote the benefits of Agtech adoption through Agtech training, extension, collaboration and demonstration.

Connect with Clare

Using customer data to develop & market products

Georgi Redfern, Founder and Director of Bentley & George Communications, possesses more than 20 years’ experience in marketing, communications and stakeholder engagement. Her career has encompassed diverse industries - from agriculture and government to events, customer-centric organisations, and rural and research development corporations.

Passionate about driving meaningful engagement with rural and regional audiences, Georgi champions the value of leveraging data-driven insights and understanding your customers to build strong, long-lasting relationships and to deliver marketing and communications initiatives that make a measurable impact.

Connect with Georgi

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (NSW DPIRD) is proud to announce the Farms of the Future program will be the major event partner of the 2025 Digital Agrifood Summit, hosted by Charles Sturt University (CSU) and AgriPark.

The Digital Agrifood Summit is a two day event held at Charles Sturt University in the vibrant regional location of Wagga Wagga, NSW.

A considered program featuring international and Australian experts is complemented by a hands-on look at the emerging technology set to revolutionise our farming practices in the future.

The theme of the 2025 Digital Agrifood Summit is Securing Australia’s AgriFood Future.