Walker Wayland Australasia 2025 Conference

March 17, 2025

A High-Energy Event of Collaboration and Innovation

Five of our team members – Tom Brandt, Dustin Fromm, Troy Green, Governor Muriya, and Larn Mulligan – attended the WWA 2025 Annual Conference in Perth held at the end of February. With this year’s theme of Energy, WWA set out to inspire, collaborate, and ignite new ideas.

Bringing the Energy from Start to Finish

Jason Croston, Managing Director of SRJ Walker Wayland and Chairperson of WWA, opened the conference and encouraged attendees to bring their best selves. Over the three days, they engaged in dynamic discussions, insightful presentations, and valuable networking opportunities, all while exploring innovative ideas within our industry.

A Look Back at WWA 2025

Regional Conference (19–20 February)

Hosted by Lincolns, this segment laid the foundation for meaningful collaboration, bringing together industry professionals from across the network.

Day One (21 February) – Igniting Innovation

The conference officially kicked off with an engaging keynote from Tom Boyd (Everperform), whose session, “Igniting People & Performance – Unlocking Your People’s Potential,” explored strategies for fostering high performance within teams.

Other highlights included:

Aron Robertson (Strategic Group) delivering crucial insights on cybersecurity, complete with live worked examples.
Mark Hooper and Prad Bhagavathula (Xero) challenging attendees to reshape our profession through small but impactful changes.
A mindfulness and team-building session led by Andy Balzat (Banana Life) and Paul Pitsaras (The Open Mind Institute), ensuring that energy remained high and focus was sharpened.

Day Two (22 February) – Growth and Giving Back

Day two continued the momentum with engaging discussions, industry insights, and a special charity focus:

Jessica Richmond and Lindsay Ellis (Sumday) shared their journey from CPA to start-up success, offering golden nuggets of advice on business growth and innovation.
Rebecca Maddern (Royal Flying Doctor Service WA) led an emotional and inspiring session on the invaluable work of the RFDS.
Dan Beck (Kloud Connect) and Krish Sritharan (Solutions Centric) tackled the power of technology-driven efficiency.
Aron Robertson returned to introduce WWA’s exciting new Communications Platform, set to launch soon.
Gillian Lynn (Accountancy Insurance) provided a Power Update on industry protection.
Brendan Taylor and Robert Prior (Lincolns) delivered valuable insights on the strength of collaboration within firms.
The conference concluded with an Internal Spark Session, ensuring that the momentum built over the two days carries forward into the year ahead, and beyond.

Reflections from Our Team

Tom Brandt, Senior Accountant from our Brendale office, shared his experience:

“The conference provided a number of great opportunities for professional development and also for meeting people from all around the Walker Wayland network. There were several fantastic presentations across the two days. For me, the most interesting presentations were provided by premiership Western Bulldog Tom Boyd (Everperform), who provided great insight on his own story, the employer-employee relationship and how to get the most out of a team; Jess Richmond and Lindsay Ellis from Sumday, who spoke about the very interesting start-up story for their business; and Rebecca Maddern from Royal Flying Doctor Service WA, who spoke about the origins of the RFDS and the absolutely amazing work done by the RFDS across WA and the country.

The conference also provided a number of really enjoyable social opportunities, from drinks and dinner to organised team-building activities. Some of the activities forced us to look a little silly, however these worked as great icebreakers and sparked much of the conversation. I very much enjoyed being able to meet people at various stages of their careers from across the country and gained lots of knowledge and perspective from these conversations. The conference was a very enjoyable experience, and Perth was a lovely place to spend a few days as well.”

Dustin Fromm, Manager from our Sunshine Coast office, reflected on the impact of the event:

“The conference involved a number of keynote speakers from software and IT businesses that are utilised by many firms across the Walker Wayland Australasia network. They all presented a number of topics from the history of how the business was formed to how their software can be used within our business to improve efficiencies and productivity.

Over the course of the 2-3 days, it was a great opportunity to collaborate with other members from various firms across the Walker Wayland Australasia network in Australia and New Zealand to build relationships. Team building activities helped us get out of our comfort zones and work together as a team whilst having a great time doing it.”