Digital Excellence & Experience Insights

This panel discussion brings together two experienced executives, Tom Gao, Chief Tech & Digital Services Officer at City of Sydney and Christina Igasto, Chief Digital Officer at ServiceNSW. They share distinct but complementary perspectives on digital transformation. Tom outlines a comprehensive digital, technology, and customer experience strategy within a complex local government setting. The City of Sydney, though spanning just 26.15km², includes 33 suburbs, over 210,000 residents, and welcomes around a million daily visitors. It contributes 22% of NSW’s GDP and 7% of Australia’s GDP, and operates with 2,600 staff delivering over 200 diverse services. Tom challenges the assumption that public sector transformation is simple, describing local government as more complex than his previous global private sector roles and reinforcing the need for deep organisational understanding, not just technical skill.

Christina focuses on the practical deployment of AI, particularly generative AI and bots, alongside the cultural and workforce changes required…