2026 Agenda

Whether you’re securing a high-stakes deal, advocating for a promotion, or navigating the complexities of cross-functional collaboration, negotiation is a fundamental business skill that can shape your career trajectory. Through practical strategies, real-world scenarios, and expert facilitation, this highly interactive session will equip you with the tools to advocate for yourself and your ideas, unlock new opportunities, and drive better outcomes for your organisation and career.

Learning Outcomes:

• Learn the core principles of effective negotiation and how to apply them in both formal and informal settings

• Explore proven techniques for managing nerves, overcoming imposter syndrome, and approaching negotiations with calm self-assurance

• Develop strategies to handle pushback, conflict, and high-pressure discussions with professionalism and poise

• Learn how to assess what you bring to the table, identify leverage points, and position your value to others persuasively

• Discover how to achieve your goals while maintaining respect, trust, and collaboration with peers and stakeholders

• Identify your personal negotiation style, adapt it to different scenarios, and build a flexible toolkit that works across contexts 

By the end of this Masterclass, you’ll walk away with a renewed sense of confidence, a clear set of actionable strategies, and a framework for approaching every negotiation, big or small, with purpose and skill.

Don’t just be part of the conversation – learn how to shape it.

Understanding how Australia’s energy system is being reshaped by economic forces is essential for anyone working across the energy transition. From electricity pricing and market signals to investment flows and policy settings, economic thinking underpins how projects are financed, delivered, and scaled across the sector.

In this masterclass, you will build confidence in interpreting energy market behaviour, understand how economic conditions influence investment decisions, and develop practical skills to translate market signals into better strategic and operational decisions in energy and renewables roles.

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand how core economic principles such as supply and demand shape Australia’s energy system and influence pricing, investment, and project development decisions across the National Electricity Market

• Explore how electricity markets operate and how pricing, competition, and regulatory frameworks translate into real-world signals that affect energy project viability and business strategy

• Develop a clearer understanding of how macroeconomic factors such as inflation, interest rates, and economic growth influence energy demand, infrastructure investment, and cost of capital in the energy transition

• Demystify how energy markets connect to capital markets, including how energy assets are valued, financed, and assessed through a lens of risk, return, and market expectations

• Learn how emissions reduction policies and market-based mechanisms shape investment decisions, create competitive advantage, and influence long-term energy system transformation

• Apply economic and market insights to interpret forecasts, assess risk, and identify opportunities that support more informed decision-making across energy and renewables roles

By the end of this Masterclass, you will have a stronger understanding of how economic and market forces interact within Australia’s energy system, and a practical framework for translating those insights into better decisions, clearer strategy, and more confident participation in the energy transition.

• Sharing lessons from a trailblazing journey in the energy sector and advice for career growth and leadership
• Highlighting dramatic shifts and progress within the industry
• Identifying ongoing challenges and opportunities, especially for women

• Improving on-site conditions and field accessibility to increase women’s participation
• Enabling career progression from field roles into senior management positions
• Strengthening practical, technical, and applied skills to enhance candidacy beyond “character building”

• Rethinking leadership strengths and challenging traditional norms and biases to recognise the diverse capabilities needed to lead the energy transition
• Embedding inclusion and equity as foundations for a fair, sustainable and community-centred energy system
• Addressing structural barriers and focusing on system-wide reforms and programs to build stronger career opportunities for women across the energy sector
• Leveraging the energy transition as a catalyst for systemic change, transforming workplace cultures and accelerating women’s representation in leadership
• Featuring insights from the Victorian Government’s Sparking Change – Women in Energy Strategy and its vision for advancing gender equity across the industry

• Investigating the legal and financial requirements to enable successful project approval and initiation
• Asking why some projects are approved to understand key approval drivers
• Examining factors that influence project attractiveness to improve perceived viability

• Developing workforce capability by embedding continuous learning and technical upskilling across all career stages  
• Examining how cross-functional experience and project mobility can accelerate leadership readiness and organisational resilience  
• Balancing immediate operational demands with long-term investment in people to address emerging workforce capability gaps  
• Creating environments where diverse talent can build expertise, contribute to innovation, and thrive throughout periods of industry transformation 

• What technical and practical skills are most critical for women working in project development, management, and delivery?
• How can professionals build a broader mix of applied, leadership, and commercial capabilities to stand out and progress?
• How can skill development be better aligned with real project outcomes across planning, execution, and delivery?

• Exploring how waste-to-energy and biomethane pathways can unlock new value streams from existing resources
• Developing existing frameworks and approaches to the role of system integration in improving resilience and enabling more efficient energy use
• Examining the commercial drivers and challenges shaping circular energy solutions
• Challenging traditional linear models to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable, closed-loop systems

• Reflecting on the achievements of women whose leadership has helped transform Australia's energy system and accelerate progress toward a more sustainable National Electricity Market
• Examining the leadership qualities needed to drive the next phase of the transition, including strategic thinking, stakeholder engagement, collaboration, and change management
• Identifying opportunities for emerging leaders to influence major energy reforms, infrastructure delivery, and market transformation across the sector

•  Where is the sector still talking more than it is changing?
• What would real accountability on pay, promotion and opportunity look like?
• Which barriers are still protecting the status quo, and who needs to own them?
• What bold moves could shift outcomes faster over the next five years?

• Understanding different AI tools to improve awareness and understanding of their potential applications in the workplace
• Developing AI skills to enhance workplace capability and career advantage
• Examining opportunities for AI integration to support practical, day-to-day use

• What are the practical, next-level opportunities for integrating AI into day-to-day workflows to transform workplaces and expand pathways for women in the energy and renewables sector?
• What are some successful use cases that demonstrate effective AI integration in workplaces and what can we learn from them?
• How might, or how has, the rise of AI impacted the environment, employment rates, and overall energy efficiency?
• What are the traps of widespread use of AI for the energy sector and how can we safeguard against unintended catastrophic consequences? 

There's so much more to the Women in Energy & Renewables Summit than the sessions themselves. Join us for the optional conference dinner and keep the momentum going. It's the perfect setting to continue the conversations sparked on the conference floor, forge genuine connections with peers and colleagues, and grow your professional network — all in a warm, relaxed atmosphere. Over great food and good company, you'll leave with new ideas, new contacts, and new friendships across the industry.

• Leveraging social license’s female-dominated base to strengthen its influence while ensuring that women are not confined to this sectoral area
• Understanding interpersonal and communication skills as foundational management competencies across the sector, and core leadership capabilities
• Expanding social license pathways to grow the field without reinforcing gendered divisions of labour, recognising these skills as transferable to senior roles
• Reframing relational and coordination skills to embed their value across all areas of the sector, not just social license work

• Examining community opposition to scaling projects to understand underlying concerns and drivers
• Leveraging interpersonal and relationship skills to improve project approval outcomes
• Involving communities and stakeholders to enable more inclusive and successful scaling projects

• Focussing on Indigenous participation and engagement to strengthen outcomes in the energy transition and renewables sector
• Examining approaches to involving Indigenous communities and enabling inclusive local development in remote and regional areas
• Highlighting the broader benefits of Indigenous involvement to expand employment pathways

• Examining internalised misogyny and its influence on self-perception, behaviour, and workplace interactions
• Exploring how workplace dynamics, including peer-to-peer behaviours, can unintentionally reinforce harmful patterns and outcomes
• Reflecting on accountability and shared responsibility in shaping healthier, more supportive workplace cultures

• What are some major workplace barriers and common challenges that male leaders may lack awareness on?
• What can male leaders do to meaningfully address workplace misogyny and discrimination?
• How can male leaders challenge gender imbalances and improve female representation in the industry?

• Aggregating systems and reducing grid requirements to save households money
• Shifting focus away from grid networks to support resilience, community-focussed, small-scale energy solutions
• Capitalising on government initiatives to expand opportunities, including Cheaper Home Batteries, PEVs and EVs

• Reviewing regulatory, policy, and market updates to stay informed and keep your finger on the pulse in a rapidly changing sector
• Taking a brief look at gas and its derivatives to understand cross-sector governmental, regulatory and financial perspectives
• Challenging existing frameworks to evaluate their purpose, implementation and effectiveness

• Exploring how professionals build careers across different roles, sectors, and disciplines
• Examining the transferable skills and experiences that enable career mobility and progression
• Investigating barriers that can limit access to diverse career opportunities and advancement
• Challenging traditional career frameworks to identify more inclusive and flexible pathways for success 

• Exploring ways to improve DEI outcomes to drive measurable, positive business impact
• Creating safe workplaces to support interpersonal and career success for women in the industry
• Recognising and addressing structural and cultural barriers to improve decision-making and team culture

• How can you make the most out of a mentorship relationship?
• When and how should you step away from a mentorship that isn’t the right fit?
• What can we learn from successful examples of men mentoring women in the sector?