Meet our speakers

Explore the speakers bringing practical insights, customer stories, and technical expertise to Xcelerate Sydney.

Chief Scientist and Vice President of Product and Growth, Freelancer | Talk: A platform for the always-on economy: Freelancer on Fastly

Adam Byrans

Adam Byrnes is the Chief Scientist at Freelancer.com, where he leads a team of engineers and data scientists helping build the world's largest online marketplace of services. He previously led Product Management and Growth for the business, including scaling products to ARRs in the millions and expanding the business internationally to over 40 regions and countries across Asia, Europe and Latin America. He brings a strong technical background to his leadership role, holding 1st class honours degrees in Advanced Physics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Sydney.

PRINCIPLE ARCHITECT, AMAZEE.IO | How amazee.io uses AI to fight AI on Fastly

Sean Hamlin

Sean, our Principal Architect, began his career as a Customer Service Representative at Inland Revenue while studying Engineering at Massey University. This role led to a second position in Wellington, where he ultimately joined the web team. After working with Catalyst IT on Drupal projects, he joined the company and spent the next 4 years expanding his knowledge of Drupal and creating many successful projects. Next, Sean joined the team at Acquia as a Technical Account Manager. Fast forward 5 years, he was one of Acquia’s Principal Technical Account Managers, looking after the largest customers in Asia Pacific.

Sales Director, Data & AI Services, SoftwareOne | Panel: How AI is driving the next era of digital business

Lyndon Higgins

[Bio to come]

CTO, STAN | From streaming to platform security, Stan’s journey with Fastly

John Hogan

[Bio coming soon]

Global Head of Infrastructure & Security, Intrepid Travel | Panel: How AI is driving the next era of digital business

Samantha Kelly

Samantha Kelly is currently Global Head of Infrastructure & Security at Intrepid Travel, a role she's held since November 2024. Based out of Melbourne, Australia, she leads the company's IT infrastructure and security function globally — her remit covers protecting Intrepid's technology systems while overseeing the infrastructure that supports the business's global operations. Before Intrepid Travel, Samantha held several cybersecurity and public-sector leadership roles, including Director at the Digital Transformation Agency and Senior Manager at CyberCX. Earlier in her career, she spent close to a decade at the Department of Defence, where she began as a software developer and progressed into senior management and leadership roles.

LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER, NEW RELIC | Building resilience at the edge: New Relic's journey with Fastly Compute

Caige Nichols

I’m Caige Nichols, a software engineer living in Tempe, AZ. I’ve always been interested in computers and bending them to my will. Visiting my grandparents would always entail hours of me tinkering with Personal Deskmate on their Tandy computer. These days I’m mostly using Linux along with a myriad of languages and tools to get the job done. I’m quite interested in Docker, Go and a healthy amount of JS to build web apps. In the past I’ve used NodeJS, Python, Ruby, and just about everything mainstream, and some things that were not. I’ve spent a great deal of time working at or with organizations that work with startups for the same reasons I love programming, you get to stand on the shoulders of giants and work on the next evolutionary cycle of a thought or idea so that hopefully, at some point, you’ll be the shoulders people stand on.

CTO, KOGAN.COM | How AI is driving the next era of digital business

Goran Stefvolski

Goran Stefkovski is a leading technologist and business leader, serving as the Chief Technology Officer of the Kogan.com USA - Shop Online & Save , one of Australia’s largest online retailers and five time winner of the ORIA’s customer’s choice award. Goran looks after the technology, data, security and AI as well as product strategy and execution of the Kogan.com USA - Shop Online & Save group - ensuring Kogan.com USA - Shop Online & Save customers are experiencing the best digital shopping experience available. Under his guidance, Kogan.com USA - Shop Online & Save has made strides in innovation and customer experience. He engineered the online store, co-invented patented technologies, refined agile delivery processes and has driven adoption of personalisation, AI and learning throughout the business. With a background in Law and in Engineering, Goran has been a speaker and panellist at many events on topics ranging from technology, drones and self driving cars through to business process and engineering best practices. In the past, he has also received the CIO of the Year award for Retail.

STAFF ENTERPRISE SECURITY ARCHITECT, FASTLY | How amazee.io uses AI to fight AI on Fastly

Guy Brown

Guy Brown is a seasoned security professional with over 20 years of experience in the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region. As a trusted advisor and thought leader, he engages with senior management and technical teams across diverse industries to develop and implement strategies for protecting digital assets. Guy's expertise spans Application Security, Network Security, Automated Threats, and the DDoS landscape. He has a proven track record of successfully mitigating complex security challenges and fortifying organisations against evolving cyber threats.

CEO, FASTLY | A platform for the always-on economy: Freelancer on Fastly

Kip Compton

Kip Compton joined Fastly in January 2024 as Chief Product Officer and has served as our Chief Executive Officer since June 2025. Prior to joining Fastly, Mr. Compton served as the Senior Vice President of Strategy & Business Development of the Cisco Networking business from 2020 to August 2023, where he led teams responsible for strategy, portfolio management, investments and acquisitions. Prior to that, he held various roles at Cisco since January 2006. Mr. Compton brings more than 25 years of senior leadership experience driving innovation in cloud, video, Internet of Things (IoT) and networking. He has a long and proven track record of growing teams and businesses, including creating partnerships and investments to drive growth and open new markets. Mr. Compton holds both a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Engineering and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, FASTLY | Evolving our platform for what’s next

Liam Mayron

Liam Mayron is Director for Security Products at Fastly where he focuses on security. He's held a variety of roles at LogRhythm (now Exabeam), Akamai, and Harris Corp. (now L3Harris Technologies). Additionally, he was an Assistant Professor at the Florida Institute of Technology where he created the Master of Science in Information Assurance and Cybersecurity degree program. He has a Ph.D. in computer engineering and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Information Systems Security Management Professional (ISSMP).

CO-FOUNDER & ENGINEERING FELLOW, FASTLY | Building a foundation for the AI era

Tyler McMullen

Tyler McMullen is a Co-founder at Fastly, where he’s responsible for the system architecture and leads the company’s technology vision. As part of the founding team, Tyler built the first versions of Fastly’s Instant Purging system, API, and Real-time Analytics. A self-described technology curmudgeon, he has experience in everything from web design to kernel development, and loathes all of it. Especially distributed systems.

VP, Fleet Operations and Production Engineering

Justin Odom

As Vice President of Fleet Operations and Production Engineering, Justin Odom leads the engineering and operations teams tasked with evolving and scaling Fastly’s global network and infrastructure. He joined Fastly in 2021. Prior to Fastly, Justin held various engineering leadership positions at Tripadvisor, Wayfair, and Cisco Systems, leading large-scale cloud, network, and data center operations. Justin holds a bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

VP GLOBAL SALES ENGINEERING, FASTLY | Panel: How AI is driving the next era of digital business

Maha Pula

I am a global revenue leader focused on Revenue Acceleration with experience in building a customer centric organization focused on acquisition, adoption and customer success. Recently, as the Vice President of Global Pre Sales at Cloudflare, I have led a team of nearly 300+ technical sales professionals who deliver exceptional customer outcomes and drive revenue growth for the company's cloud-based solutions. With over 20 years of experience in the cloud, SaaS, CDN, and cloud security domains, I have a proven track record of scaling and optimizing sales operations, designing customer-centric playbooks, and leveraging data-driven insights to improve pipeline, forecast management and DNR. I am passionate about developing and empowering talent, fostering diversity and inclusion, and advancing the mission of Cloudflare to help build a better Internet. I co-chair the Women in Sales Leadership community, mentor and coach emerging leaders, and actively engage with internal and external stakeholders to support D&I initiatives. I also serve on the board of directors of IGNITE National, a non-profit organization that trains young women to become political leaders, and serve on the board of advisors at portfolio companies for Stage 2 Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in and advises early stage B2B software companies.

SR. ENTERPRISE SERVERLESS ARCHITECT, FASTLY | Building resilience at the edge: New Relic's journey with Fastly Compute

Kay Sawada

Kay joined Fastly in 2023 as a Serverless Architect, supporting customers in the APAC region with their edge serverless projects. His work centers on the engineering challenges of building and deploying serverless applications at the edge. Kay is keen to discuss the practical aspects of edge computing and its applications.

CO-FOUNDER & VP OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES, FASTLY | From streaming to platform security, Stan’s journey with Fastly

Simon Wistow

Simon is a co-founder at Fastly, where he helps lead strategic initiatives. Before helping found Fastly, Simon was a senior search engineer at Yahoo! Europe, LiveJournal, SixApart, Scribd, and then at social help desk company Zendesk. In a past life, he worked on R&D for a leading VFX Company doing films like the Harry Potter series, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Sunshine, and Wallace and Gromit. At one point he worked as a cowboy in Australia. Mostly because it seemed like a good idea at the time.