CIGo Asia/Pacific—Q2 2009

According to the Gartner 2009 Executive Program’s Survey of Asian CIOs, it appears that CIOs in the region are in a stronger position to help organizations meet challenges in the current downturn. This is due to a number of factors including the smaller size of companies in the region, thus allowing CIOs and CEOs to work more closely together.The survey revealed that 54% of technology heads report directly to the CEO, compared to 38% worldwide. Additionally, 75% of Asian CIOs have responsibilities outside of traditional IT.

This closer relationship perhaps augers well for the APAC CIO as companies seek to do more with less—shorten project stage duration, reduce IT budgets, increase outsourcing, monitor suppliers more closely—and perhaps this provides the opportunity for the technologist CIO to be more involved in the business.

CIGo (highlights April – June 2009)

Australian Customs and Border Protection Service

• Joe Attanasio, ANZ Bank’s Head of Technology, Risk joins the Australian Customs as CIO.

Foster’s

• Andrew Leyden has been appointed Chief Information Officer of Foster’s. Mr Leyden joined Foster’s in 2002 as a Finance Director for the Beringer Blass Asia Pacific business and was a General Manager Asia and Global Finance Director for Foster’s Wine Estates.

Future Fund Management Agency

• Joe Demian has been appointed Head of Information Technology of the Agency which manages the Australian Government’s A$80bn Future Fund. Mr Demian was previously with Goldman Sachs JBWere, where he held a number of senior IT management roles.

HotelTravel.com

• Olivier Dombey has been appointed Chief Information Officer of HotelTravel.com. Mr Dombey was formerly Board Advisor for Shanghai-based DerbySoft. Prior to this, Mr Dombey was Regional Vice President Asia Pacific of Pegasus Solutions.

National Australia Bank

There have been major changes at the NAB this quarter with Chief Information Officer Michelle Tredenick leaving the bank in July.

• Christine Bartlett joined the bank as Executive Program Director of its next-generation core banking overhaul. Ms Bartlett was previously Chief Executive of Jones Lang LaSalle, and prior to that spent over 20 years with IBM in various roles including Chief Operating Officer of IBM Business Consulting Services.
• Adam Bennett replaced Ms Tredenick as Chief Information Officer. He moves into the role from Bank New Zealand, an NAB subsidiary.
• Craig Bright resigned from his position as General Manager Enterprise Services Technology.
• David Gall was appointed to lead core banking business integration and transformation. Mr Gall was previously Executive General Manager, Corporate Banking and Specialised Businesses.
• David Killen, Head of Technology Operations was appointed to oversee technology program direction and management.
• Gavin Slater has been appointed Head of Group Business Services, a new unit consolidated from the bank’s technology, operations and support functions. Mr Slater was previously with the NAB UK.

TransGrid

• Henry Tan has been appointed CIO of the Australian electricity utility TransGrid. He was most recently General Manager of IT Delivery at RailCorp.

So, what kind of CIO are you? Click here for an article from www.cioinsight.com by our CIO practice leader, Eric Sigurdson which we hope you will find informative.