Chad OBrien

We took a moment last week to say cheers to our new office!🥂🎉 The night before our company offsite, we invited our 'significant others' to join us for an intimate celebration of new Sydney home at Level 2, 62 Pitt Street in the CBD. The move marks another significant milestone for CTO Labs. 🎉 It comes as we expand our Technology & AI Advisory practice supporting investors and leadership teams throughout the investment lifecycle. 🎉 It also follows a record year for CTO Labs in the volume of transactions supported. CTO Labs Director and Founder Joshua Hinton said “There’s a lot of noise about AI and technology in the market, and no agreed playbook for leading through it, particularly as hold periods extend and with technology central to the next phase of value creation.” "We’re helping clients gain more clarity around that, whether that’s entering a new investment, optimising activities within a Private Equity backed enterprise, or preparing for the next ownership chapter. Our new Sydney base makes it much easier to do that,” Joshua Hinton said. CTO Labs’ new Pitt Street office is much more conveniently located in the commercial heart of the city. And we love having visitors, just quietly ;) #mergersandacquisitions #technology #ai #newoffice Photography: David Li

Great to get along to the Annual President's Long Lunch at Kirra Beach House last Friday, hosted by the Southern Gold Coast Chamber. The perfect way to spend a Friday afternoon. Beautiful venue, good food, and even better company. Lovely to catch up with some familiar faces and meet some new ones too. Thanks to the Southern Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce for putting on such a fantastic event and Amy Jordee for the photos! Looking forward to the next one. Aj Williams Christine Buxton

Reflections on Redundancy... My role was made redundant just over one year ago on 20 May 2025. I had hoped to have put up one of those "I got a new job" posts by now. But no…   At first I thought it would be convenient if I didn't get a job for three months, because we had sold our house in Tauranga, bought a rural property up in the wops in the Coromandel Peninsula, and settlement was due to occur 6 weeks after my job wound up. Not that that stopped me from applying. In fact, I'd immediately applied for 5 and got 2 screening calls and 1 interview. So, it seemed reasonable that I wouldn't be waiting too long for something to come through. An added complication was that we weren't actually moving away from Tauranga until early 2026 due to my husband's job.   So for eight months, we moved into a furnished apartment in Tauranga, but the bulk of our possessions were in our new home. During that period we travelled up to our new property every other weekend - initially to unpack our stuff (that took 2 months) and mow lawns, then later to move the 10 calves we'd purchased (our lawn 'moowers') into a new paddock. I continued applying for jobs - some months 2, some months 5. In September I scored an interview with TCDC, then a second, then a third interview! I thought I surely had this one in the bag? But not to be.   I then got accepted as an AI trainer with an outfit called 'Open AI'. Completely flexible hours and completely work-from-home, it was a pretty good setup. There were a bunch of tasks available each day, and you'd just work your way through them, as few or many as you wanted. That gig lasted 4 months and I finished up doing that in Feb 2026. I kept applying for other jobs the whole time though. By the end of 2025 I was up to 23 applications and 22 rejections.   Our permanent relocation to our rural block up in the Coromandel at the end of Feb 2026 coincided with our young adult son, who'd been living with us for the past 4 years, being accepted into a course and therefore going flatting in Tauranga. We love our son to bits, but it was very nice to be just the two of us again after 27 years of parenting!   I continued to apply for jobs and landed another interview in March, but it took until April to be advised that I was unsuccessful.   If you thought being made redundant knocks your confidence, try being rejected every other week for a year! Nonetheless, the job hunting continues. There are certainly not as many opportunities around as in a city, but I'm hopeful that something will come up with a need for an engineer with project management experience, who loves admin, data and implementing process improvements. I'm open to travel and long commutes don't faze me (we lived in Bangkok for 9 years). I'm also open to part time or temporary work. I've recently picked up a bit of consultancy work to assess the alignment of a small company's Quality Management System to ISO 9001 & support the implementation of some improvements - Fun!

Excited to share I'm stepping into the new role of General Manager, Australia at GLiNTECH - a Valiantys company. Looking forward to this next phase!

Just wrapped up AI Engineer Melbourne. My first time speaking at a major international AI conference, presenting to thousands of engineers and AI practitioners both in person and online. Despite years of presenting and plenty of Toastmasters practice, I was surprisingly nervous waiting backstage. Sweaty palms, shaky hands, the whole package. The funny part? Afterwards, people told me: “You looked calm.” “You sounded confident.” A good reminder that courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s showing up despite it. Grateful for the event John Allsopp organised to share, learn, and connect with so many talented people in the AI community.

I was genuinely energised today by the opportunity to give a guest lecture to postgraduate students at the University of Sydney Business School. We explored consulting through multiple lenses — structures, resourcing models, career paths and commercial management — with a consistent question running through each: is this still relevant, what is changing, and how is AI reshaping it? Consulting is evolving rapidly, and in my opinion makes this a particularly exciting moment for the profession — (for those willing to keep learning, challenge what they know, and embrace the opportunities that come with disruption). We also discussed the skills that will matter most in the future workforce e.g. analytical thinking, resilience, flexibility and social influence. As AI accelerates and reshapes how work is done, these human capabilities become all the more valuable. Thank you to the students for the thoughtful engagement and discussion, and to Donna Denyer Christopher Wright for the collaboration.

April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month - A time that holds deep personal meaning for me. Watching my dad navigate Parkinson’s gave me a firsthand look at the immense challenges patients and their families face every single day. That lived experience is exactly why I am so incredibly proud to work at Roche. Knowing that our team is actively dedicated to advancing research and developing innovative diagnostics and treatments for Parkinson's patients gives my daily work a profound sense of purpose. To honor my dad, and to support every family currently walking this path, I am grateful to be part of a company fighting for a better future. 💜🌷 #ParkinsonsAwarenessMonth #Roche #LifeAtRoche #PatientPurpose #ParkinsonsDisease Roche https://lnkd.in/gCFg9kad

What a day! Honored to have joined such a powerhouse panel at the She Codes Australia and City of Sydney workshop 🎤 It was an absolute blast diving into the future of careers in tech with Kitty Chan and Elisa C.. A huge thank you to Kate Kirwin for being such an incredible moderator and asking the questions that really matter as we navigate this new era. Seeing so many bright, engaged faces in the room reminds me why I love this community. The talent and drive in the Women in Tech space is truly the most inspiring part. We got this 🚀. #WomenInTech #AILeadership #DesignStrategy #CareerGrowth #FutureOfWork