2025 Sponsorship Opportunities Now Available

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Are you seeking ideas and inspiration to elevate your business?

Business Day Out is a half day program featuring a variety of keynote speakers and the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals from across regional Victoria throughout the afternoon. Have a day out, and return to your business feeling refreshed, inspired and connected. The 2025 edition of the event will feature a focus on innovation, inspiration, marketing, and more.

Don’t miss out on this dynamic, rare opportunity for both personal and business growth! Earlybird tickets are on sale now, and they will disappear quickly!

Shaun Briggs has been the Director of Marketing Planning for Specsavers ANZ for 5 years, and in that time, he has created multiple hit campaigns – if your prescription is up to date, you will have seen many of them decorating Southern Cross Station and on Channel 9 in conjunction with Married at First Night.

To head this division with such an iconic brand, one must exhibit visionary qualities, and Shaun fits these parameters perfectly. He took an already famous brand to new heights.

In an age of specialisation, Shaun believes the ability to think broadly and longer-term is more important than ever before.

Throughout his career he’s been able to combine big picture thinking with the attention to detail demanded of execution. This skill has developed his ability to remove the most obstructive barriers and identify the right opportunities. This is what excites him most professionally as it solves client problems as much as it helps the people he works with to reach their full potential. What’s equally important for Shaun is that for any client project or campaign to be fully realised, it must be genuinely balanced between what’s right and what’s fair. As a result, his approach creates a win for everyone, and avoids decisions being made for wrong and often short-term reasons.

We are thrilled to host a dynamic individual such as Dinesh Palipana OAM as a speaker for our 2025 Business Day Out and believe his perspective on life and business are unparalleled in their singularity.

Dinesh is an incredible asset to the Australian professional landscape. Not only is he a doctor conducting seminal research on spinal cord injuries, but he is also a qualified lawyer and undertakes outstanding advocacy for disability.

In Australia, he was the first person with both a spinal cord injury and quadriplegia to graduate as a doctor. He took on a clerkship with Harvard Medical School, and in 2017 was named Intern of the Year following his tenure in the second busiest emergency department of the year in Australia, the Gold Coast University Hospital. He still works there today. He is an ambassador to the Human Rights Commission’s Includability program and is a recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia, and he was the Third Australian to be awarded a Henry Viscardi Achievement Award. His autobiography, Stronger, was published by Pan Macmillan in 2022.

This is a mere snippet of the vast life decorated in accolades and achievement Dinesh has led, and we cannot wait for his in valuable insight at the 2025 Business Day Out

Following on from the success of Jason Clarke’s visit to our Biznet in August he is returning to dig deeper and inspire even greater innovative thinking.

Since achieving the lowest Year 12 score in the history of his school in 1977, Jason Clarke has been an exhibition designer, a script writer, commercial event and film producer and for a while, Creative Director of Australia’s largest multi-media production company. He’s staged Shakespeare, grand opera, experimental avant-garde theatre and even designed a dolphin show for a major marine park.

He’s developed and taught courses in Logic, Problem Solving and Innovation for Melbourne Business School, Mt Eliza Business School, the Australian School of Entrepreneurship, and the Stern Business School of New York.

But since 2000 he’s been a freelance thinker-for-hire, offering creative and lateral thinking services for organisations struggling to embrace innovation and change.

His clients include just about every kind of enterprise, from plucky little start-ups to national and global corporations, from communities and not-for-profits to State and Local Governments. Today he’s a regular international speaker and one of the most sought-after creative minds in Australia.

But he’ll tell you he’s just a Plumber of the Mind, the guy you go to when your head gets clogged. In an everchanging world, learning to embrace change is the biggest advantage of all.

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Our popular ThinkTank session is back! After a well-received debut last year, we are bringing back the ThinkTank. Jason Clarke will be facilitating this session, providing attendees with the opportunity to put Jason’s methods into practice, and connect with each other to discuss important issues facing the business community and tap into their newly revealed innovative thinking abilities!

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Danielle Pearce is the CEO &Founder of Australian gumboot brand, Merry People.

10 years ago (aged 29) Dani sought inspiration from her upbringing on a farm in South Gippsland to recreate the humble gumboot - merging the technical elements of the boots she grew up with, combined with a classic everyday staple design.

Dani started Merry People a decade ago, selling at weekend farmers markets - and today has bootstrapped its growth to 25 staff, distribution across Australia, the US & UK and 165 retail partners, including 100 across the US & UK.

Merry People has grown a very loyal community and following in Australia with a growing fan base in the UK& US with over 20,000 5 star reviews.

Dani is passionate about values-led business; Merry People never discount their products and have never been dumped in landfill - they only order what they think they can sell. Merry People have also partnered with causes close to their hearts to selling boots to raise money and awareness for charities.

Dani is married to co-founder of HoMie, Nick Pearce and is also a mum to 3 year old Jack and 13 month old Georgia (and 4 year old Labrador Sadie.)