Kathleen Webber is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and run several businesses, which is probably why she is mildly obsessed with giving leaders better data before they make the big calls.

Her latest is LiveRem, a live pay intelligence platform used by more than 240 organisations across Australia and New Zealand. The premise is simple: what if leaders could see what the market actually pays right now, instead of squinting at a salary survey from eighteen months ago?

At Startup People Summit she will get back to basics on the question most pay strategies forget: is this actually helping you recruit or retain someone? Expect a tour through the latest data, whether AI is redrawing the line on pay, and what "good" looks like at each stage of growth through a pay benchmarking lens.

Startup compensation has never felt more complex. AI is changing roles, candidate expectations are all over the place, salary surveys are out of date before they're published, and every pay decision feels high stakes.

In this practical session, Kathleen Webber, CEO and Co-founder of LiveRem, shares what she's learned from analysing live pay and turnover data across Australia and New Zealand. Through real startup stories and surprising market insights, she'll challenge some of the biggest myths in compensation and provide a simple framework for making better pay decisions. You'll leave with practical tools to recruit, retain and build trust, without overcomplicating your remuneration strategy.

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What you'll leave with:

1. Cut through the noise. Understand what's really happening in the ANZ pay market, including the impact of AI, candidate expectations and emerging compensation trends.
2. Make better pay decisions. Learn a practical framework for deciding when and how to adjust pay, and avoid common mistakes that lead to inconsistent or reactive decisions.
3. Build trust through pay. Discover why communication, transparency and evidence matter just as much as the salary itself, and how to have better pay conversations with managers and employees.