Navigating Financial Pressures: Funding Innovation While Driving Cost Savings

In the current economic climate, many of us are facing significant pressure to reduce costs. Yet, the need to innovate and develop new solutions remains paramount to stay competitive. This session will explore the tension between "keeping the lights on" and investing in the future.

In this session Andrew McPherson (ex-CIO, SkyCity Entertainment Group) will facilitate a panel discussion with three tech and product leaders on:

• Strategies for balancing operational budgets with innovation initiatives.
• Tactical approaches (e.g., low-code, AI, offshoring) and, crucially, the skills needed to discuss these and the value of innovation with finance/CFOs.
• Addressing organisational friction, such as navigating risk and compliance bottlenecks that can stifle innovation.
• Responding to business drivers like competitive threats and the C-suite mandate to "do more with less."

On the panel we'll have:

Andrew McPherson: ex-CIO, SkyCity Entertainment Group
Andrew is a seasoned technology executive adept at driving innovation in the face of significant financial pressures. As a former CIO and CTO for major organisations like SkyCity Entertainment Group and Stuff, he has direct experience balancing large-scale operational budgets with strategic investments in technology. Andrew's work includes successfully implementing AI-driven automation to deliver major cost savings, giving him a practical perspective on how to innovate while satisfying the C-suite mandate to "do more with less."

Audrey Cheng: Fractional CPO and Product & Technology Leadership Coach
Audrey is an executive technology leader and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience leading dynamic product, design, engineering and technical teams—from the startup phase, to scaling globally. She has been an executive product and technology leader at Imagr, SnapComms (acquired in 2020) and VP of Product at Pushpay, NZ payments unicorn, where she led their product strategy during hypergrowth. She is currently a fractional CPO and Product and Technology leadership coach. Audrey has been a keynote speaker and moderator at global conferences such as Mind the Product, Leading the Product and UXDX and has featured on a number of international product and UX podcasts.

Alicia Liebenberg: Director of Engineering at Auror
Alicia is an engineering leader with 20 years of experience aligning technical strategy to business goals. As Director of Engineering at Auror, she leads teams across platform & infrastructure, core product engineering, and technical customer enablement. With prior leadership roles at Vista Entertainment and Pushpay, she brings experience managing budgets, driving cost optimisation, and maintaining delivery momentum without compromising team health. Alicia also leads strategic engineering partnerships and makes pragmatic build-versus-buy decisions, all while fostering high-performing, resilient teams.

Food & Drinks
As usual - we'll provide the pizza and drinks :)

Venue:
We'll be hosting this at the Microsoft offices: Microsoft House, Level 5/22 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland CBD, Auckland 1010.

The Microsoft building now has access gates installed on the group floor. To get through, you will need a QR code or someone will need to scan you in.

We'll update the event with details on how to get a QR code closer to the event time.

We'll also have someone scanning people in from 5pm until about 5:45pm.