This year’s theme is adopting new technologies. We asked applicants to tell us about their careers, their contributions to their business and community, their leadership, and a time they embraced or developed new technology to make their business more efficient. The quality of the applications was impressive, and the independent judges had a difficult task choosing just two finalists amongst a strong pool. 

2026 WINNER - Jesse Smart

Jesse is a Graduate Engineer, working on the packaging line during his Mechatronics Engineering degree at the University of Wollongong. Since graduating, Jesse has become someone the business turns to when it needs to work smarter. He brought a failed reverse osmosis plant back to life with remote monitoring, helped move the packaging line towards paperless, and played a key role in bringing in automatic SSCC pallet labelling, so operators no longer have to climb off forklifts to label every pallet. Jesse also set up a work group across five departments to improve cask line compliance, and trained staff throughout the business on the new systems. Outside work, he’s applying AI to predictive maintenance for agricultural machinery. Jesse is a young engineer who shows how automation can build a stronger, more sustainable wine industry.