ABOUT ELI BARLOW

An operator first, with a practical approach to AI and change.

Eli Barlow is an experienced operator and change leader who works where strategy meets the practical reality of running a business.

As Chief Operating Officer with Funday Entertainment Group, Eli leads long-term growth, safety, culture and guest experience across a group of WA tourism, hospitality and leisure businesses. Over more than a decade, he has overseen major venue upgrades in regulated environments, strengthened established destinations and helped develop and reposition new experiences and brands.

Earlier in his career, Eli helped establish Zambrero in Western Australia through its first 11 openings. He later owned and operated Mt Lawley cocktail bar Clarences. That experience shapes AI Change Consulting: understand the business properly, identify what is genuinely useful and support the Team through implementation.

2026Business News 40under40 winner
UWABachelor of Commerce
TAE40122Certificate IV in Training and Assessment

Away from work, Eli is married with two young daughters.

SERVICES

Three clear ways to move the business forward.

Start with the question that sounds closest to the problem you are trying to solve. Each engagement is shaped around the business and can include specialist partners where technical depth is required.

Where should AI help?

AI implementation and operations

Review the business, identify and prioritise practical AI opportunities, improve the work around them and build a clear implementation roadmap.

Useful first step: AI & Operations Sprint

How should the Team use it?

AI basics and safe-use training

One-to-one or group training covering useful AI practice, approved tools, sensitive information, privacy, IP, human review and practical safe-use expectations.

Useful first step: tailored training session or workshop

How will the change stick?

Leadership and change support

Facilitation, leadership alignment, culture, expectations and hands-on support to help the Team carry the work that follows a decision.

Useful first step: leadership session or change engagement

Additional capability when it matters.

Brand, voice and positioning can be included when the way the business presents itself is out of step with the customer experience or operational reality.

Brand, voice and positioningAlign the external promise with the experience the business can consistently deliver.

ENTERPRISE EXAMPLE

Serious AI adoption needs more than access to a tool.

Samsung Electronics is deploying ChatGPT Enterprise and Codex across its Korean workforce and its global Device eXperience division. The rollout includes enterprise data protection, user and access management, and security controls.

Source: Samsung Electronics enterprise deployment, June 2026

The practical lesson

Suitable tools, clear information-sharing rules, leadership expectations and Team training need to move together.

REPRESENTATIVE WORK IN PROGRESS

Turning a complex onboarding process into a guided decision workflow.

PLATFORMS USED IN THIS WORKFLOW

The situation

The organisation’s onboarding process required managers and payroll to work across employee information, multiple job roles, Employment Hero setup requirements and workplace award conditions. Information could be duplicated, inconsistently captured or left for HR/payroll to interpret manually.

The work

The process was rebuilt directly within WordPress as a guided onboarding workflow, using a Codex development agent to support implementation.

Approved workplace award rules were translated into structured workflow logic covering classifications, penalties, allowances and multi-role employment. Managers provide the facts they know, while the workflow uses reviewed role mappings and award logic to prepare the appropriate pathway and flag exceptions for HR/payroll review.

Team Member information is held with controlled access during the onboarding process and deleted once it is no longer required.

The result

The workflow produces a structured onboarding record formatted around the information required for Employment Hero, rather than leaving payroll to reconstruct the setup from emails and forms.

Instead of repeatedly reading award documents to interpret each appointment, much of that knowledge is now embedded in the workflow itself, while human review remains in place for genuine exceptions.

Bring the business problem, not a polished brief.

A short conversation can establish whether the right first step is the readiness check, a focused Sprint, training, facilitation or a different kind of support.