Peter Williams

One of Australia’s top digital influencers and CEO of Deloitte Digital, Peter Williams is a recognised thought leader and practitioner in innovation with a particular focus on digital strategy and social media. He is also one of the most well known CEOs on Twitter.

A Chartered Accountant by profession, Peter started working with internet technologies in 1993 while in the UK and on his return to Australia in 1996 founded an eBusiness Consulting group within Deloitte Australia. From 2003 to 2008, he was the CEO of the Eclipse Group, a Deloitte subsidiary that became one of Australia’s largest web and mobile development firms. He then founded Deloitte Digital, a business pioneering the delivery of professional services online.

Entertaining and plain speaking, Peter is a sought-after keynote speaker and media commentator both locally and internationally and has presented in many countries including the US, Canada, UK, Dubai, Netherlands, China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia.

Peter has been the Chairman of Deloitte’s Innovation Council since 2004 and been involved in numerous innovation projects over the course of his career. He has worked with boards and senior executives of many companies helping them understand and adapt to the rapidly changing digital environment. His clients have included Carlton Football Club, BHP, Telstra, AFL, NAB, ANZ, Google, Microsoft, Yammer and the Federal and Victorian Governments.

Peter has featured in books such as Empowered by Josh Bernoff and As One by Mehrdad Baghai and James Quigley, while his own articles have featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times (UK), The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and BRW, to name but a few.

As Chief Edge Officer, Peter also leads the Australian chapter of the Centre for the Edge, a Silicon Valley Applied Research Centre chaired by technology luminaries John Hagel III and John Seely Brown. The Centre’s mission is to identify and explore emerging opportunities related to big shifts that aren’t yet on the senior management agenda, but ought to be. While it is focused on long-term trends and opportunities, it is equally focused on implications for near-term action, the day-to-day environment of executives.

Pete is also very active in the community and has assisted in Vic Bushfire relief, QLD floods, Christchurch Earthquake as well as actively undertakes student mentoring. In 2011 he won a Forrester Groundswell Award from Forrester Media (the first of its kind to be awarded outside of the US) for best use of social media for social change in helping the community of Flowerdale recover from the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires in 2009.

Peter Williams is an Adjunct Professor at RMIT and a board member of Circus Oz.

Peter Williams talks about:

• Future technologies
• Digital innovation