Challenge conventional thinking and explore new paths to growth at our ICON Conference series, Uncharted.
As client expectations shift, pressure builds and AI reshapes the way firms operate, BD, marketing and communications professionals are being asked to think differently about how they create value, deepen relationships, and support growth.
This year’s program will bring the profession together for practical discussions about what’s changing, what matters most, and how firms can adapt. Expect real-world case studies, fresh ideas, and strategies you can apply immediately within your firm and teams.
ICON Uncharted Conference. Eight cities. Endless momentum.
SELECT YOUR CITY TO VIEW FULL DAY
PROGRAM
Melbourne
Brisbane
Sydney
Melbourne — Full Program
Incremental thinking won't cut it anymore. This keynote brings a disruptor's lens to the professional services landscape, exploring how client expectations, economic pressures and technology have fundamentally shifted the growth playbook. Discover why the next opportunity won't be found in familiar places.
This session explores how to operate effectively within a matrix environment, including using data to manage competing priorities, and understanding the commercial drivers shaping firm decisions and senior leader expectations. The discussion will also examine how BDMC professionals can improve focus, prioritise more effectively, and reduce low-value activity.
Brisbane — Full Program
Incremental thinking won't cut it anymore. This keynote brings a disruptor's lens to the professional services landscape, exploring how client expectations, economic pressures and technology have fundamentally shifted the growth playbook. Discover why the next opportunity won't be found in familiar places.
This session explores how to operate effectively within a matrix environment, including using data to manage competing priorities, and understanding the commercial drivers shaping firm decisions and senior leader expectations. The discussion will also examine how BDMC professionals can improve focus, prioritise more effectively, and reduce low-value activity.
Sydney — Full Program
Incremental thinking won't cut it anymore. This keynote brings a disruptor's lens to the professional services landscape, exploring how client expectations, economic pressures and technology have fundamentally shifted the growth playbook. Discover why the next opportunity won't be found in familiar places.
This session explores how to operate effectively within a matrix environment, including using data to manage competing priorities, and understanding the commercial drivers shaping firm decisions and senior leader expectations. The discussion will also examine how BDMC professionals can improve focus, prioritise more effectively, and reduce low-value activity.
Lunch
Opening Remarks
Keynote: Uncharted Growth, Next Horizon Thinking
In markets with low organic growth, incremental thinking is no longer enough. Firms need to look beyond familiar channels and identify new horizons, new ways of thinking, and new places to find opportunity.
This session brings a disruptor's perspective to the changing dynamics of professional services, exploring shifts in client expectations, economic pressure, technology, and internal constraints — and why growth now looks different to previous cycles.
Drawing on Ashton Bishop's Next Horizon Thinking, the session challenges traditional approaches to strategy and introduces practical, forward‑looking ways to identify and unlock growth.
Session 1: Client Experience That Drives Growth - From Programme to Revenue Lever
Refresh & Recharge
Session 2: Marketing in an AI Environment
Justin Flitter, founder of AI New Zealand. This session explores how AI is reshaping marketing in professional services and what BDMC teams need to rethink to stay effective.
It examines how AI is changing not just how content is created, but how it is found, interpreted, and used by clients, journalists, and the broader market.
As content becomes easier to produce, the challenge shifts from creating more to creating something worth noticing and easy to find. This has direct implications for visibility, credibility, and selection.
The session reinforces the role of marketing and communications teams in leading this shift, ensuring that content, channels, and positioning actively support BD teams in generating demand and opportunity.
Session 3: Client Panel - The Questions You Can't Ask (But Should)
This session creates space for a more open conversation with senior clients about how decisions are actually made.
Discussion themes include:
• What clients look for when selecting and working with firms
• How decisions are made in practice
• What builds trust — and what erodes it
• How expectations differ across sectors
• Where firms miss the mark when trying to win or grow work
Closing Remarks
Unwind & Connect: Networking Drinks
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Lunch
Opening Remarks
Keynote Address: Uncharted Growth – Next Horizon Thinking
In markets with low organic growth, incremental thinking is no longer enough. Firms need to look beyond familiar channels and identify new horizons, new ways of thinking, and new places to find opportunity.
This session brings a disruptor's perspective to the changing dynamics of professional services, exploring shifts in client expectations, economic pressure, technology, and internal constraints — and why growth now looks different to previous cycles.
Drawing on Ashton Bishop's Next Horizon Thinking, the session challenges traditional approaches to strategy and introduces practical, forward‑looking ways to identify and unlock growth.
Session 1: Client Experience That Drives Growth — From Programme to Revenue Lever
Refresh & Recharge
Session 2: Marketing in an AI Environment
This session explores how AI is reshaping marketing in professional services and what BDMC teams need to rethink to stay effective.
It examines how AI is changing not just how content is created, but how it is found, interpreted, and used by clients, journalists, and the broader market.
As content becomes easier to produce, the challenge shifts from creating more to creating something worth noticing and easy to find. This has direct implications for visibility, credibility, and selection.
The session reinforces the role of marketing and communications teams in leading this shift, ensuring that content, channels, and positioning actively support BD teams in generating demand and opportunity.
Session 3: Client Panel — The Questions You Can't Ask (But Should)
This session creates space for a more open conversation with senior clients about how decisions are actually made.
Discussion themes include:
• What clients look for when selecting and working with firms
• How decisions are made in practice
• What builds trust — and what erodes it
• How expectations differ across sectors
• Where firms miss the mark when trying to win or grow work
Closing Remarks
Closing the Books. Opening the Bar
Networking Drinks & Canapés.
Registration
Opening Remarks
Ashton Bishop – Keynote: Be the Strategist in the Room, Not a Cog in the Wheel
The work is flowing: record IPOs, private equity exits, and a wave of regulatory change. The work is there to be won, though a full pipeline doesn't convert itself. Everyone is busy, but being busy is not the same as being strategic. What sets the best apart is knowing which pursuits are worth backing, and reading what each pitch, pursuit, and client actually needs.
This keynote, presented by Ashton Bishop, a strategist and award-winning speaker, gives you three things you can use right away:
• What it actually means to be strategic, not just busy producing pitches, campaigns, and collateral.
• A practical tool, the Strategic Radar, for reading the context of any pitch, pursuit, or client, so you back the right opportunities and make every bid count.
• How to make your thinking show up where it counts, on the firm's bottom line and in your own career. AI has started taking over the execution: the research, the first drafts, and the content. Knowing whether the AI is right is becoming the most valuable, and most career-proof, skill you have.
From global brands to innovative startups, Ashton has empowered audiences across industries to sharpen their thinking and make more strategic decisions.
AI Workshop: Rethinking Motivation, Productivity and Career Agency in the Age of AI
As AI makes baseline output instantaneous, the rules of value creation are shifting fast. When "good enough" becomes effortless, how do individuals and teams differentiate their value-add?
Drawing on insights from Professor Matthias Fahn and his work with the HKU Centre for AI, Management and Organization (CAMO) and the Deloitte–HKU Lab for Organizational Transformation, this session explores how AI is reshaping human behaviour, organisational design, and the future of "good jobs" in professional services.
During this interactive session, we will discuss what the next decade of work will look like. You'll learn how to:
• Reclaim agency in an environment where AI can do the first 80% of the work
• Identify where your expertise still creates disproportionate value
• Redesign your own incentives, habits and career strategy for an AI first economy
• Position yourself not as a producer of output, but as a verifier, curator, and strategic amplifier
Refresh & Recharge: Tea Break
Panel: What Clients Think (But Don't Always Say)
This session offers a unique opportunity for an open dialogue with clients, shedding light on the true drivers behind their decision-making processes. We will explore what clients value most when navigating uncertainty and how their expectations are evolving, particularly concerning emerging technologies. The panel will also candidly examine areas where professional services firms might fall short in winning or growing work, providing invaluable, practical takeaways on how to refine your approach to client growth and engagement.
Panel: Coordinator to Director: How Careers Actually Progress
What does it take to move from BD Coordinator to Director in a professional services firm? It is rarely a straight line, and the unwritten rules of promotion can feel like a mystery. The people who advance are rarely the ones who simply do the most. They are the ones whose thinking gets noticed. This panel brings together experienced BD and marketing leaders and a specialist recruiter who sees how these moves play out across the market. They will engage in a candid conversation about how successful careers are forged: the habits that get you noticed, the pivotal moments that truly matter, and the hard-earned lessons they've learned. No corporate script, just what works and what doesn't. You'll leave with practical takeaways on building visibility and earning your next step.
Closing Remarks
Unwind & Connect: Networking Reception
Lunch & Registration
Opening Remarks
Keynote Address: Uncharted Growth — Next Horizon Thinking
In markets with low organic growth, incremental thinking is no longer enough. Firms need to look beyond familiar channels and start identifying new horizons with new ways of thinking and new places to find opportunity.
This session brings a disruptor's perspective to the changing dynamics of professional services, exploring what has shifted across client expectations, economic pressure, technology and internal constraints, and why growth now looks different to previous cycles.
Drawing on Ashton Bishop's Next Horizon Thinking, the session challenges traditional approaches to strategy and introduces more practical, forward-looking ways to identify and unlock growth. It will open up new ways of thinking about where opportunity sits and how firms can act on it.
Session 1: Client Experience That Drives Growth — From Programme to Revenue Lever
Refresh & Recharge
Session 2: Marketing in an AI Environment
This session explores how AI is reshaping marketing in professional services, and what BDMC teams need to rethink to stay effective.
It looks at how AI is changing not just how content is created, but how it is found, interpreted and used by clients, journalists and the broader market.
As content becomes easier to produce, the challenge shifts from creating more to creating something worth noticing and easy to find. This has direct implications for how firms are seen externally, including whether they are visible, credible and selected by clients, journalists and the market more broadly.
It also reinforces the role of marketing and communications teams in leading this shift, ensuring that content, channels and positioning support BD teams in generating demand and opportunity.
Session 3: Managing the Matrix — Priorities, Influence and Working Across Multiple Stakeholders
BDMC professionals often work across multiple senior leaders, practice areas and priorities at the same time, balancing competing demands with limited time and resources.
This session explores how to operate effectively within a matrix environment, including using data to manage competing priorities and understanding the commercial drivers shaping firm decisions and senior leader expectations. The discussion will also examine how BDMC professionals can improve focus, prioritise more effectively and reduce low-value activity.
Closing Remarks
Networking Drinks
Lunch
Opening Remarks
Keynote Address: Uncharted Growth – Next Horizon Thinking
In markets with low organic growth, incremental thinking is no longer enough. Firms need to look beyond familiar channels and identify new horizons, new ways of thinking, and new places to find opportunity.
This session brings a disruptor's perspective to the changing dynamics of professional services, exploring shifts in client expectations, economic pressure, technology, and internal constraints — and why growth now looks different to previous cycles.
Drawing on Ashton Bishop's Next Horizon Thinking, the session challenges traditional approaches to strategy and introduces practical, forward‑looking ways to identify and unlock growth.
Session 1: Client Experience That Drives Growth — From Programme to Revenue Lever
Refresh & Recharge
Session 2: Marketing in an AI Environment
This session explores how AI is reshaping marketing in professional services and what BDMC teams need to rethink to stay effective.
It examines how AI is changing not just how content is created, but how it is found, interpreted, and used by clients, journalists, and the broader market.
As content becomes easier to produce, the challenge shifts from creating more to creating something worth noticing and easy to find. This has direct implications for visibility, credibility, and selection.
The session reinforces the role of marketing and communications teams in leading this shift, ensuring that content, channels, and positioning actively support BD teams in generating demand and opportunity.
Session 3: Client Panel — The Questions You Can't Ask (But Should)
This session creates space for a more open conversation with senior clients about how decisions are actually made.
Discussion themes include:
• What clients look for when selecting and working with firms
• How decisions are made in practice
• What builds trust — and what erodes it
• How expectations differ across sectors
• Where firms miss the mark when trying to win or grow work
Closing Remarks
Closing the Books. Opening the Bar
Networking Drinks & Canapés. Sponsored by RSM Australia.
Keynote Speaker
Uncharted Growth. Next Horizon Thinking
A business owner and serial entrepreneur, Ashton embraces the challenging, even the controversial ones, to get results. Training alongside various mentors and experts in Erhard Seminars Training (EST), Reference Point Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, and Gottman Psychology, Ashton has dedicated hundreds of hours of research into Neuro‑Linguistic Programming, Mindfulness, Leadership and Applied Psychology.
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