Our Summits – Newday

Newday Leadership Summits

At Newday Summits, we love to do things differently. Our Summits are a unique blend of festival, wellbeing retreat, and world-class conference. The theme for our 2024 Summit was one that resonated deeply with the times: Connection.

Every relationship we value was built on connection. In leadership, the ability to connect was an almost magical capability—one that we were thrilled to explore throughout the Summit.

The Summit featured a high-calibre program with brilliant speakers and activators, complemented by sensory delights such as opt-in massages, music and art therapy, physical activities like yoga and kung fu from previous years, our popular pop-up book and gift shop, and, of course, delicious food and drink.

Why are Summits are must attend events:

A genuine embrace of diverse perspectives from many different leaders, including First Nations’ cultural knowledge
An outstanding leadership development opportunity, with follow-up resources sent to every participant
A chance to network with leaders from almost any sector
A memorable way to thank your teams, board members, or clients
A wellbeing day, offering many options for physical activity
A chance to reset and reenergize
A demonstration of how celebrating diversity and inclusion brings leadership perspectives to life
Fun, joyful, and uplifting
An experience that could change your life (we’ve heard this from many people over the years)

Watch our Why Newday video here.

If you or your organisation wishes to partner with us for the Newday Leadership in the future, please contact us for a copy of our partnership prospectus.

Explore our Summits

Connection: Newday Leadership Summit 2024

Our Summit’s high-caliber program of brilliant speakers and activators was augmented with many other sensory delights, including opt-in massages, music and art therapy, physical activities, our popular pop-up book and gift shop, and, of course, delicious food and drink. The theme for this year’s Summit was one for our times: Connection.

Our speakers included:

Yamini Naidu – economist, dancer and business brand storyteller

Dan Aubin – acrobat and communications specialist

Dana Shen – social innovator and meditation teacher

Brett ‘Robbo’ Robinson – elite performance coach

Dr Kim Le – child psychiatrist and stand-up comic

Yvonne Kelly, CEO of Glow Up Careers and Yaser Naseri former refugee, survivor, and advocate

James ‘Pods’ Podsiadly – founder and CEO of our amazing venue, AFL Max

Cherie Clonan – autistic leader and leading social media specialist

Megumi Miki – quietly powerful convenor of ‘Leaders who Listen’

Mickey Kumatpi O’Brien – Kaurna cultural leader and master storyteller.

Download our full program

Wisdom + Wonder Summit 2023

Our Newday Leadership Summit for 2023 was carefully curated to respond to the invitation set by the theme, bringing both wisdom and wonder to the experience of everyone who shared the day.

Whether it was the search for deep understanding and meaning, the beauty of curiosity and awe, the exploration of theoretical and practical knowledge, or the pursuit of universal ‘truth,’ Newday was designed to capture hearts and free minds.

Here’s how Newday ignited wonder and wisdom in your life while inspiring and advancing your leadership potential:

Nourished your wellbeing, expanded your connections, and inspired new ways of looking at the world, enabling you to lead with greater impact.
Advanced your cultural awareness, intelligence, and understanding to new heights.
Increased your knowledge across a diverse range of concepts and challenged preconceived notions, broadening your leadership perspective.

Watch our Wisdom + Wonder video here.

ReNewday Summit 2022

Our sixth Newday Summit was sold out again.

Our wonderful speakers and activators included – Jean Oelwang, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Dr Sukhbir Sandhu, Damon Gameau, Darren Hill, Dr Neralie Cain, Youth Opportunities Young Leaders, Jack Kanya Buckskin, Magda Nenycz-Thiel, Bel Ryan and Tashi Sherpa. And it wouldn’t be a renewing Newday without our massage partner, Aurora Hub Practitioners, our yoga teacher Linda Carofano, our play activators Erin and Graham from Lead with Play and the team from AFLMax.

Thank you to our event partner Beyond Bank, livestream partner SA Power Networks, charity partner Youth Opportunities and our creative partners, Give Media, Rodeo and Catherine Leo Photography. We are also grateful for the support of event technical partners AV Plus.

Newday Leadership eSeries 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic forced so many of us to reconsider what is most important in life. While Newday absolutely love bringing large groups of people together in person, we had to reinvent what Newday meant to us in 2020.

Teaming up with some of the the most in-demand leaders and speakers in Australia and globally, we adapted and curated a compelling and deliberately practical series of supported online leadership sessions to help our Newday Community and their teams lead for the greater good.

Our ‘Reimagining Leadership’ eSeries, started on 1 July and include a 75 minute eSeries each week for 6 weeks. We had 300 people join us virtually, with 10 speakers from across the world. From our survey feedback, we received a 4.4/5 rating. View the program.

We worked with the team at Muso Magic to create this wonderful video – We are all in this together.

6 weeks. Develop new habits. Adapt to uncertainty. Lead for the greater good.

Newday Leadership Summit 2021

Our once again sold out Summit brought 10 incredible speakers and two unique activators who took the audience through a spectrum of emotions. From the heart-wrenching stories of change-maker Peter Baines OAM; the inspiring insights of the purpose-master Zach Mercurio; the courage and wit of body image movement leader Taryn Brumfitt; the staggering journey of Tim Jarvis AM; and so many other stories of purposeful leaders in action, the Newday Summit was packed with goodness.

We also worked with our Sydney-based activator, Danling Xiao to install her extraordinary art installation Wasteland Renewed. 900+ balls made from marine plastics and inspired by a food waste story. Inside hundreds of them are hidden Newday Summit ‘purposeful pledges’ for people and planet.

Newday Leadership Summit 2019

Newday 2019 was once again a sell out. 9 speakers and even a Newday song and choir this year.

The summit raised $2000 for our charity partners Youth Inc. and Jodi Lee Foundation by attendees purchasing the plants and items from the Newday store.

Wellbeing is an important component of Newday. Seated massage was once again provided by Paul and the team at Massage Life, lunch time yoga was provided by Linda Carafano and this year for the first time we had art therapy by Bel Ryan.

Newday also subsidised 50% of the cost for 63 bowel cancer screening kits!

Supporting social enterprise is just one way we help lead for the greater good at Newday. At the 2019 summit we also help launch Youth Inc. LENDyards. This amazing result means the team from Youth Inc. can now work with new clients with their handmade recyclable lanyards, which reduces the ecological footprint of future events and begin to transform this part of the events industry.

Newday Leadership Summit 2017

The landmark leadership event quickly garnered interest from the non-profit, public and corporate sectors alike, thanks to its line up of remarkable speakers, which includes 2005 London bombing survivor, Dr Gill Hicks, social entrepreneurs, Jane Tewson, Roger Antochi, Steph Lorenzo and Mike Worsman; humour advocate, Tim Gard; as well as Katrina Webb.

The event received excellent feedback, with 75% of participants rating it 9 or 10 out of 10, and 99% rating it 7 or higher.

Imagery — Catherine Leo Photography

Newday Leadership Summit 2018

Newday Leadership Summit was once again a great success.

It sold out three weeks before and included an incredible line up of speakers — The Passion Activator Shivani Gupta, Dr Tshering Lama from Nepal and Phill Nosworthy to name a few.

Imagery — Catherine Leo Photography