 Speaker Biographies
The Hon Victor Dominello, Minister for Customer Service, NSW Government
Born and raised in the Ryde area, Victor went to secondary school at Marist Brothers, Eastwood before studying law at university. He trained as a lawyer and was admitted to practice in both the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia in 1991.
He worked as a lawyer for 14 years, including eight years as a partner in a commercial law firm, where he represented clients in a number of landmark cases. In 1995, at the age of 28, Victor was elected as a Councillor of Ryde City Council. He was re-elected in 1999 and remained on Council until 2004. Victor was pre-selected by the Liberal Party in September 2008 as its candidate for the State by-election in the seat of Ryde. Victor was elected to the NSW Parliament at the Ryde By-Election held on 18 October 2008 with a swing of 23.1 per cent, one of the largest in the State’s history. At the 2011 election, Victor was re-elected as Member for Ryde with an extra 12.6 per cent of the vote. This completed a 35.7 per cent swing from the 2007 election.
Victor was sworn in as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Minister for Citizenship and Communities. His responsibilities included veterans’ affairs, volunteering, youth and multicultural affairs. Following Mike Baird appointment as NSW Premier in April 2014, Victor became Assistant Minister for Education and while retaining his previous portfolio responsibilities, Veterans’ Affairs was added to his official title. As Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Victor successfully implemented landmark reforms to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, established the state’s first Aboriginal Language and Culture Nests and the position of Aboriginal Deputy Ombudsman. As Minister for Citizenship and Communities Victor reformed the role of the state’s multicultural peak body, Multicultural NSW, enshrining into law its duty to protect social cohesion by promoting the beliefs and values which unite us all as Australians. As Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Victor announced the NSW Government’s plans to invest $38 million to redevelop the ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park and establish an Education Centre (which is due to open in 2018). Following the Baird Government’s re-election in March 2015, Victor was sworn in as the state’s first Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation.
In January 2017 Victor was appointed Minister for Finance, Services and Property. Prior to his parliamentary career, Victor cherished the opportunity to travel to many places around the world and looks back fondly on his experiences in India, Central and South America, Europe, the US and Asia. He is also a passionate supporter of West Tigers rugby league team.
Duncan Hewett, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific and Japan, VMware
Duncan Hewett is the senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s business in Asia Pacific & Japan. In this role, Hewett is responsible for VMware’s sales, business strategy and services across the region. He is adept in executing go-to-market strategy across a multi-product and multi-cloud platform supporting digital transformation of enterprises and believes that a customer centric behavior is critical for an organization’s growth.
Prior to this, Hewett was leading IBM’s Software business for Asia Pacific region. In his 29 year long career, he has held several senior leadership roles across IBM’s business units, including Enterprise Sales, Acquisition Integration, Subscription & Support and Sales Operations. Duncan joined IBM’s software business through the acquisition of Lotus where he was the general manager responsible for all sales, marketing and services in Australia/New Zealand.
Hewett graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor’s degree in engineering.
Morgan McKenney, Chief Operating Officer, Global Consumer Banking, Citi
Morgan is the Chief Operating Officer for Global Consumer Banking, based in New York. In this role, she is collaborating with Citi’s regional consumer businesses to accelerate delivery of strategic objectives, including partnering with Citi’s Institutional business and clients, accelerating global digital strategy, sharing best practices globally, delivering best in class analytics and identifying strategic payments opportunities.
Previously Morgan was based in Hong Kong for four years as the head of Core Cash Management for Asia within Citi's Institutional business. In this role, she was responsible for Payments and Receivables and Commercial Cards across the region. She also managed the Citi Innovation Lab in Singapore for Treasury and Trade Solutions and her role included delivering innovation in payments across Asia, technology investment prioritization, digitizing capabilities, enabling the business to more routinely and successfully innovate, and growing with ecommerce and digital clients.
For almost four years prior to this role Morgan was the global business head for cross-currency payments at Citi based in London helping corporate, financial institutions and public sector clients make payments globally to empower their business. Prior to this role she was the Chief Operating Officer of Global Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) at Citi. Previously she served as the COO for Transaction Services in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and prior to that served as the Chief Financial Officer of Citi Transaction Services globally.
Before this role, she was the Chief of Staff for Robert Druskin, Chief Operating Officer of Citigroup. She began her career at Citigroup in the Strategy group of the Corporate and Investment Banking division in New York. Before joining Citigroup, Morgan worked in the New York office of London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE) in a strategic relationship management role.
Prior to LIFFE, she traded equities and derivatives for Martin “Buzzy” Schwartz, an independent trader based in Boca Raton, Florida. She began her career as a Management Associate at Capital One Financial in Richmond, Virginia.
Morgan received a BA in Computer Science from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has been a William Pitt member of Chatham House and is a member of Council on Foreign Relations, a US-based non- partisan organization focused on US policy issues.
Do DeBats, Director, Jeff Bleich Centre and Head of American Studies, Flinders University
Don DeBats is Professor and Head of American Studies and Director of the Jeff Bleich Center for the US Alliance in Digital Technology, Security, and Governance. His research interests cover contemporary and past US politics; he is a frequent commentator on current US politics and has written extensively on US political history. For the Jeff Bleich Centre he has written on cultural lag associated with the societal impact of rapid technological change.
His research appointments include the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the National Humanities Center of the United States, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at the University of Virginia. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary in the United States.
His degrees are from Michigan State University (Mathematics) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (MA, History) and PhD (major field: American History; minor field: Political Science).
His current research, supported by the Collaborative Research Division of the US National Endowment for the Humanities, combines the contemporary interest in "the social logic of politics" with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) methodologies to the study of past political engagement and networks, using unique individual level political records from 19th century America.
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