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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The 4 steps to Grant Success
Adrian Spencer has had a diversified career across geoscience, taxation, finance and nutraceuticals, including securing over $1 Billion for innovation companies, from grants and incentives. After a decade working at Rio Tinto and then Ernst&Young, in 2006, Adrian and his wife Heather, cofounded GrantGuru. A one-stop-shop technology company to aggregate all funding and incentive programs available to business and not-for-profits.
During that time, Adrian has written over 1,000 grant applications and also been a grants assessor. Their passion is creating a level playing field, in order to unlock funding so that it can go to where it is needed most. As a result, Adrian has run training programs all over Australia. In 2018 Adrian was the recipient of the national iAwards, Award of Merit for innovation, for their pioneering work with the Greater City of Bendigo. And in 2023, received the national HACCI Award for Innovation.
Panellist
Philip is an experienced entrepreneur and operations professional with 19 years of experience within the energy sector. Adept at driving business development, and exceeding business targets for a diverse range of governmental, not for profit and for profit organizations.
Adaptive strategic thinker specialising in the creation of entrepreneurial solutions to meet specific market requirements. Demonstrated track record of growing start-ups into successful & profitable organisations.
Panellist
Dave is the Head of Thomas Elder Sustainable Agriculture, where he leads innovation activities across major themes such as Agtech, Carbon Farming, Research and Extension. An active contributor to initiatives and organisations that deliver value to Australian farmers and regional communities, Dave is passionate about the role innovation plays in ensuring sustainable farm production and agribusiness in Australia.
As a recognised industry leader, Dave’s previous roles have included CEO of Grain Growers Ltd, senior management positions in the National Farmers’ Federation and the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture. With a background in farm management, Dave has also served on a wide range of senior industry and government advisory committees.
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.
