The CIO moves that made headlines in 2019

Dan Beecham
Beecham became Fletcher Building’s second CIO appointment of the year following Daniel Anthony’s resignation due to family matters. Beecham, a former Woolworths CIO and UNSW CDO, returned to the southern hemisphere from UK retailer Morrisons. He joins Fletcher Building as the company seeks to build its IT capability to align its sizeable teams across the manufacture and sale of construction materials.

Mark Sawade
Sawade left the federal Department of Education in January after accepting a promotion to the department’s Schools and Youth cluster. He had been the tech chief at the department since joining from Immigration and Border Protection in May 2017.

Charles McHardie
The Department of Veterans' Affairs appointed Human Services' chief technology officer Charles McHardie to lead its business transformation in July as deputy secretary. He had been acting as CIO for DHS since the beginning of the year, and handed the reins over to Michael McNamara after his appointment in October.

Nish Chandran
MLC Life Insurance appointed Chandran as CIO from First Data, a global payments processing and infrastructure giant where he was A/NZ CIO and vice-president of technology. Chandran oversees MLC’s new tech capabilities being delivered as the insurer separates from NAB - a $500 million exercise.

Tim Catley
Former Home Affairs and Transport for NSW CIO Tim Catley landed at the University of New South Wales as its new CDO, replacing former Woolworths tech chief Dan Beecham. Catley is working to establish UNSW as a digitally competitive global university with innovation digital tools for students, staff and the broader community.

Kim Peterson
Petersen joined investment house Vanguard's Melbourne office as its Asia Pacific chief information officer after a two-year stint as Jetstar’s senior manager of group technology. She leads a 170-strong team at one of the company’s three global IT hubs, supporting APAC operations, with a focus on investing in customer-centric technologies.

Richard Ashby
The eHealth Queensland chief and CIO’s sudden resignation prompted the agency to halt work on a project to replace its almost 30-year-old hospital-based corporate information system for patient tracking. Ashby resigned due to a potential conflict of interest resulting from an undeclared relationship with a staff member working on the Patient Administration System replacement project. He was later cleared by the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission.

Mike Day
Day departed the University of Sydney to take up the CDO position at Swansea University in his native UK. He had been CIO at USyd for three years, during which time the university signed a 67,000-seat agreement to implement Dropbox.

Cathy Ford
The Queensland University of Technology hired Ford as its second ever CIO following the retirement of Judy Stokker. Ford joined from Brisbane’s Metro North Hospital and Health Service, where she’d led IT since late 2017. She took over responsibility for the design and implementation for a number of enterprise-wide initiatives at QUT, including a new cloud strategy.

Mike Wood
Allianz Australia appointed Wood as its CIO to replace outgoing tech chief Thomas Ruedesheim. Wood previously spent three years as CIO of Westpac’s Institutional Banking division, and four years before that as its Retail and Business Banking CIO.

Nils van Boxsel
The Australian Communications and Media Authority named van Boxsel, long-time CIO of the Australian Trade Commission, as its chief information and digital officer. The role covers the execution of a three-year plan to elevate cyber security maturity and undertake a comprehensive infrastructure review and renewal program.

Sarah Polhill
Polhill, the long-time tech chief at the Royal Australian Mint, returned to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as its CIO after a previous stint as its IT operations manager. She replaced Adrian Walkden, who retired after eight years at the ACCC. Key priorities in Polhill’s tenure include the continual improvement of tools needed by a modern regulator and its investigators and analysts.

Garry Dickie
South Australia Police’s director of information systems and technology announced his retirement after almost two decades leading the force’s IT operations. After joining SAPOL in 2000, Dickie oversaw the introduction of a number of modern policing technologies including body worn video cameras, ruggedised tablets and mobile fingerprint scanners in the 6000-strong police force.

Chris Fechner
Fechner decamped from his role as the NSW Department of Planning and Environment’s CIO to become chief digital and product officer at Service NSW. He joined in the wake of a post-election shakeup of the central agency, taking on responsibility for high-profile initiatives like the introduction of a digital driver’s licence.

Stuart Girvan
Girvan was appointed as CIO to the federal Department of Education and Training following the departure of Mark Sawade earlier in the year. Girvan joined the department after spending eight years with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, most recently as acting program manager in the technology capability.

Radi Kovacevic
A major reshuffle at the Department of Home Affairs resulted in Kovacevic’s appointment as CIO after the creation of a dedicated technology and major capability group. Following the restructure, Kovacevic supervises branches that existed under the former ICT division,intelligence, identity and biometric systems, visa, citizenship and digital systems, and traveller, cargo and trade systems. He was previously the agency’s major capability division first assistant secretary and spent a year-and-a-half with the Digital Transformation Agency after serving as CIO to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Hamish Cameron
Cameron became South Australia Police’s first new CIO in 20 years after the retirement of former chief Garry Dickie. He was previously the inaugural CIO at the SA Department for Child Protection, and a six-year stint as CIO at SeaLink Travel Link. Cameron also spent two years working on mission-critical defence systems during his time at Raytheon.

Trevor Woods
Monash University’s CIO announced his departure after four years at the institution to take up the tech chief role at the University of Sydney. Woods oversaw significant organisational development at Monash in the fields of cyber security and systems modernisation. He replaces outgoing CIO Mike Day, who returned to the UK.

Daniel Anthony
Anthony joined trans-Tasman construction firm Fletcher Building from Google following the retirement of incumbent CIO John Bell. Anthony joined as the company began to pivot towards technology-enabled customer service capabilities. He previously directed Google’s gTech Flights division in Boston and was a product engineering lead with Accenture in Austin.

Paul Cazaz
Cazaz left the Department of Defence chief information officer group (CIOG) after two-and-a-half years in the role. A recruit from NAB, Cazaz looked after the full portfolio of IT projects run out of the CIOG. His departure from the group was the second in four months.

Damian Green
Green was poached from his role as CIO and executive director of digital transformation at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service to become CIO at Queensland Health. The new role also meant Green become the head of eHealth Queensland following the sudden resignation of its former chief, Richard Ashby, earlier in the year.

Chris Walsh
Walsh announced his departure from engineering contractor John Holland after 14 years in various technology roles at the company. The outgoing CIO said it was “time to take a break from work to spend time with friends and family while pondering what to do next”. During Walsh’s tenure the company undertook a major migration of workloads to AWS cloud.

Aaron Liu
NSW Department of Justice’s long-time CIO, Liu, was seconded to the state’s Department of Customer Service’s newly created chief information officer, enterprise resource planning (ERP) role. Liu’s focus in the new role is to drive whole-of-sector ERP and employee experience reform. During his time at Justice, Liu had overseen one of the state government’s largest ERP reforms in recent years.

Tim Hume
Hume was made permanent CIO at Macquarie University after holding the position in an interim capacity since June. The former NSW Family and Community Services CIO left the department in 2017 after closing a $54 million deal with SAP to migrate the agency to a cloud-based ERP. Hume’s focus at Macquarie will be to guide the upgrade of the university’s technology platform and digital experiences for staff and students.

David Schneider
Schneider departed the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet after seven years as CIO. He took up the new role of IT director at the Crown Solicitors Officers, a 400-strong agency providing legal services to the state government and its agencies.

Teresa Finlayson
Finlayson was made permanent CIO at Monash University after filling in for Trevor Woods when he decamped to the University of Sydney. Finlayson has been with the university since joining the CIO portfolio as a change manager in 2009. Since becoming deputy CIO in 2015, she has contributed to the development and optimisation of Monash’s IT systems and strategies, most recently involving the creation of a dedicated chief information security officer position.

Roger Wahl
Wahl was appointed to replace Chris Walsh as CIO at John Holland, joining from hist Dubai posting as CIO to construction firm ASGC. Wahl now oversees John Holland's IT operations across Australia and the Asia Pacific region with a focus on enhancing the customer experience and delivering new digital initiatives including automation.

Simon Smith
Smith joined industry super fund Rest as its new general manager of technology at a time when the company is attempting to build out a new cloud capability on Amazon Web Services. The former Vocus and Arq Group (then Melbourne IT) CTO now leads Rest’s investment in technology and data to increase the flexibility and speed of its services through automation.