Trent Innes

About Trent

Trent Innes is Chief Growth Officer at SiteMinder, an ASX 200 listed global hotel technology leader and one of the few Australian technology companies to achieve genuine international scale. He has been recognised by CEO Magazine as both IT and Telecommunications Executive of the Year and Managing Director of the Year — two of the more credible markers of sustained performance in the sector. With more than 20 years of experience across the software industry, his career has included senior leadership roles at Xero, Microsoft, and Infor.

His eight years as Managing Director of Xero Australia and Asia are perhaps the most instructive chapter. During that tenure, Trent helped scale the business to more than one million subscribers — a period of growth that required not just commercial acumen but the ability to build cultures and teams that could operate at pace without losing their way. His philosophy is practical and plainly stated: growth without soul is not growth worth having, and the behaviours you hire for matter more than the skills you list in a job description.

Trent speaks on scaling smart, hiring for attitude — including his well-known coffee cup philosophy — leading through rapid change, and what it means to build a truly customer-obsessed business. He brings the credibility of someone who has done these things at real scale, in real companies, under real pressure. For leadership teams in growth businesses, technology companies, or any organisation navigating the tension between speed and culture, Trent Innes is a speaker who offers something genuinely useful.