Join us for the pinnacle advisory event of the year: the Advisory Board Centre Megatrends Summit 2026! Hosted this year in the sporting hub of Melbourne, Australia, the Summit is your opportunity to engage with some of the best advisors in the field and work on your advisory craft.
With the rise of AI, increasing geopolitical instability, and rapidly shifting global markets, trusted advice has never been more crucial. The aim for the Summit 2026 is to meet the moment and re-set and refresh the advisory community in line with the current landscape.
Now is the time for advisory boards across the sector to come into their own, supporting organisational reset across strategy, collaboration, market approach, and business models.
The 2026 Melbourne Summit will strike a balance between formal keynote sessions and informal table-based networking, setting an environment to encourage the creation of deep network connections and new opportunities for collaboration.
With a focus on showcasing the growing value of best practice advisory structures across the business landscape, this event is not to be missed. Register now and join us at the Summit 2026! Current Advisory Board Centre Members receive special pricing, use abcdocklands26 as the coupon code.
MEGATRENDS SUMMIT 2026
Melbourne, October 9
8:30am -5:30pm, with networking until 7:30pm
Marriott Docklands
We look forward to opening up active conversations and deep consideration of key themes, with perspectives and insights shared by leading experts to spark your own commentary.
Each panel session deliberately includes important time for peer group discussion and sharing across the room.
This is not your usual conference or summit. It is not a day of keynote presentations from the stage to a silent audience.
Rather, this is a unique opportunity to learn and discuss in peer groups, to hear from industry leaders as they set the scene for deeper conversations and then to share your own perspectives on key themes impacting the market.
It is an exclusive opportunity to network and make deep connections with like-minded professionals with experienced across the broadest range of professional endeavours
More to come
Building and growing collaborative business communities is Louise’s passion. She has specialised in the professional services and advisory sectors for 20+ years, as an entrepreneur, researcher, and business advisor.
She has taken a licensed model internationally to 8 countries and has extensive experience in Chairing commercial advisory boards for high-growth businesses. These experiences continue to provide her with a research base and a unique insight into business owners’ challenges when they want to grow, go global and create succession. It has enabled Louise to remain current in the market and to drive the advisory sector forward.
Jeremy Dicker is Managing Editor at Intrigue Media, a media startup founded by ex-diplomats providing 160,000+ subscribers around the world with a free daily geopolitics briefing.
Jeremy started his career with the United Nations in Fiji before serving 14 years in the Australian foreign service, with tours to Mexico, Peru, and the United States. He has degrees in law, the arts, and film; was awarded Peru’s presidential order of merit for distinguished service; and speaks fluent Spanish.
Catherine Sayer is the CEO of Family Business Association, a membership based organisation representing family businesses which account for 70% of all businesses in Australia. With more than 1.4 million family businesses of all sizes – small, medium and large she has a focus on raising the profile of the sector. She leads a team across Australia and New Zealand delivering unique programs focussed on helping family businesses thrive. She is the previous Chief Executive Officer of Food South Australia Inc. with offices in Adelaide, Japan and China, developing and delivering programs across areas of market development, capacity and capability building and advocacy for the food and beverage industry. Catherine has a focus on building a reputation as the voice of industry to government and has strong stakeholder engagement skills.
Catherine graduated with a degree in Business Management, majoring in Marketing . Since that time she has worked with organisations across a number of sectors, both private and public, and ran a marketing consultancy prior to joining Food South Australia.
Catherine is Chair of Seafood Industry Australia. Previously she has held Chair, Deputy Chair and member roles of a number of agribusiness, seafood, charity and sporting boards and committees. Catherine is a member and graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Renée Lahti is a strategic thinker and change catalyst with 25+ years of business transformation expertise, specialising in data, technology, and AI ethics at the C-Suite level.
Whether working with established organisations, family enterprises, or founders navigating growth, Renée helps leaders harness AI as a tool for human amplification, not human replacement. She brings a distinctive lens to advisory governance: sorting through complexity to see around the corner, and identifying the sustainable, ethical changes organisations need to navigate an AI-enabled world.
A member of the Global Best Practice & Ethics Advisory Board at the Advisory Board Centre, Renée contributes to the evolution of advisory standards fit for a rapidly changing landscape. She is also co-author of The AI-Human Edge, exploring ethical leadership and human potential in the age of AI.
A Board Trustee of the Harpswell Foundation in Cambodia, Renée holds a Master of Information Systems from the University of Texas and a BA in Economics from UCLA and is based in Hawaiʻi.
Michael is a sought after global speaker and a Principal at Intrinsika, a global intrinsic & intangible asset advisory, valuation, and corporate finance specialist that helps companies and investors unlock their competitive edge by identifying, valuing, and monetising their intrinsic assets. This has included working with founders like AirTrunk as a startup, which is a multi-billion-dollar company (AirTrunk exited for $24b). He is a multi-year IAM300 & Strategy 300 Global Leader, ranking him as one of the world’s top IP strategists.
Michael is also the founder of several successful start-ups and has been integral to turning around two mid-sized companies in the logistics and FMCG sectors, taking both from significant losses to profit within nine months. He is on several private company Boards and sits on the Board of Cure Brain Cancer, which the AFR named as the most Innovative Charity and the 25th most Innovative Organisation. He is also a co-founder of the Growth Capital Club and Chair of Private Wealth Network’s (PWN) New Zealand Investment Peer Group.
Udo has a unique background and skill set which he applies to differentiate his work in the Advisory Board Sector.
As a professional Certified Chair, he applies lateral thinking and project planning, drawing on his 18 years of entre/intrapreneurship experience, starting, developing and working with professional organisations and customer-centric organisations to achieve successful outcomes and superior performance.
Udo is a member of the Global Faculty for the Advisory Board Centre, and has worked with global organisations in China, UK and Australia, scoping advisory structures with multi-nationals and government departments to reshape the existing advisory board structures using best practice methodologies.
He holds an Executive MBA from Saïd Business School at Oxford University, as well as a Bachelor of Arts from the Queensland University of Technology and a Graduate Certificate of Chinese Law from Hong Kong City and Murdoch Universities.
He is the CEO & Executive Director of the Advisory Board Centre.
Melbourne Marriott Docklands
15 Waterfront Way, Docklands VIC 3008
See the Accommodation section for a discount code.
Early Bird Pricing
Early Bird is open until 4:00pm on 11 September 2025 (AEST).
Standard Pricing
Standard Pricing is open from 4:00pm on 11 September 2026 (AEST) until registrations close at 10:00am on 6 November 2026 (AEST)
Note:
Pricing is shown in AUD. Tickets can be purchased in AED, USD, SAR, AUD, SGD, EUR or GBP.
Looking for accommodation?
Megatrends Summit guests can access 10% off the Best Available Rate via Marriott.
When booking via the Bonvoy App or www.marriott.com, simply go to the Special Rates section, select Promo Code, and enter your one-time event code: S5198.
Please note that this rate is subject to availability and is not guaranteed.
Members of the Advisory Board Centre receive significant discounts on ticket prices. Member Discounts are applied when you add your Member Coupon Code into the Coupon Code box in your Cart, which is the screen after you click on the Enrol button above. The Member Coupon Code for this event is abcdocklands26
The Summit is part of the Megatrends Summit & Programs: Melbourne 2026, a series of events the Advisory Board Centre is running in Melbourne.
Discounts apply for attending multiple events. For more information on available packages, please contact [email protected].
The Certified Chair™ Executive Program is the only executive education globally developed specifically for the advisory sector. During the program, you will build on your current skills and knowledge to deliver new value in your portfolio to support the chairing of advisory boards, executive committees, councils or board level meetings.
Melbourne will host the 2026 Summit to showcase this influential hub and the deep expertise of the advisor community across the region. Its modern city is complex, dynamic and fast moving with rising importance and global significance.