Catalyst Sydney 2026 Recap: A Customer-Led Reality Check for MSPs

On 3 June 2026, around a hundred MSP owners and operators gave up a full working day to sit in one room at Sydney Swans HQ with people who do the same work and were willing to talk openly about it.

The fact that they showed up for the very first Catalyst, an event we hosted alongside ISO365, One Little Seed, Xeneth, Evergreen, Dijital Team, and Morphability, is a huge takeaway in itself. Now that the feedback is in, we know what these MSP leaders valued most, and how we can build on it next time.

The keynote that surprised everyone

We opened with John Longmire, a name that carries a lot of weight in the sports industry, especially in Sydney. 14 seasons as Swans senior coach, a premiership, five Grand Finals. He stepped down at the end of 2024 and now runs club performance as Executive Director.

His session was called Cultural Multipliers: A rising tide lifts all boats. It was the moment people named more than any other when we asked for their standout of the day. What landed was Longmire talking plainly about managing people, about how leading younger staff has shifted over 20 years, and about what it takes to hold high performance and a good culture together at the same time.

One attendee called it one of the best talks they’d heard, and loved having a voice from outside IT reflecting their own world back at them. Another said it showed how much sport and business actually have in common.

The honest sessions hit hardest

The M&A session worked the same way from another angle. Natalia Scheidegger from 3rdmill and Mark McLean from Quorum talked about acquisition as more than a clean exit, and they were candid about the parts that never make it into the success stories. One attendee said everyone talks about M&A, but these were the conversations worth having. Another, who had walked away from two mergers himself, said the session finally gave him the words for why.

The cyber claim session was a highlight for a lot of people. Natalie Brown from Medem walked the room through a real breach and what recovery actually involved, with Alex Kerti from Emergence Insurance alongside her. Several attendees said it was the first time cyber insurance had properly made sense to them, and more than one named it as the reason they came. You don’t get a client sitting down to talk openly about a breach they lived through at a product launch.

Daniel Butt’s session on what it means to be an MSP in 2026 came up again and again, always for the same reason. People used the word authentic. He was open about what his own business had been through, and the room saw itself in it.

MSPs in Conversation, live and in person for the first time.

For the first time, we brought MSPs in Conversation into the room. The podcast has always been where MSPs get to talk honestly about the parts of the job that don’t usually get aired, and running it live was something we’d wanted to do for a while.

Across the day our CEO, Ben Town, sat down with a run of people who’ve each done a hard version of the job. Milan Rajkovic on the rise of Managed Intelligence Providers. Mark Whittington on going deep in a single vertical. Anita Sheridan-Roddick on closing the divide between sales and marketing. James Allen on running an MSP out in regional NSW.

Every one of them was happy to share what they’d worked out, mistakes included. Honestly couldn’t have asked for a better bunch to kick this off with.

You can listen to the in-person episodes here: https://mspsinconversation.com/episodes/

What “no vendor pitches” actually meant

We said Catalyst would be different from the usual industry event. No thinly disguised demos, no vendor echo chamber. It’s an easy thing to promise and a harder thing to hold to.

It held. People rated Catalyst above the other industry events they go to because it encourages an environment where real MSP owners talk about real problems, and the relief of finding out other people are stuck on the same things. For one attendee, the moment that stuck was realising other owners were wrestling with the same AI questions they were. Another said the day had them rethinking how they run a business they’ve built over 26 years.

Plate It Forward

We’re already thinking about the next one. There’s a lot in the feedback to build on, and while we’re not ready to name a date, Catalyst will definitely be back.

This event worked because the people in the room made it work. They gave up a day, they were generous with their stories, and they were honest when it counted. We’re really proud of what this community pulled off.