Category: Big Gig

  • Scott Morison has promoted three public servants with defence backgrounds to lead key agencies for the next five years, including Kathryn Campbell, the former major-general in the Australian Army Reserve who oversaw the beginning of the robodebt scheme.

    Ms Campbell has been appointed the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, replacing retiring public sector veteran Frances Adamson, whose departure sparked a long expected reshuffle at the top of the Australian Public Service. Ms Adamson has been appointed by Premier Steven Marshall as the next Governor of South Australia.

    Ms Campbell will commence her new role on July 22, joining from the social services department, which she has led since 2017. She is a major-general in the Australian Army Reserve and was also head of the Department of Human Services from 2011 to 2017, where she presided over the beginning of the unlawful $1.8 billion robodebt scheme.

    Ms Campbell’s promotion to the one of the most prestigious roles as head of DFAT triggered questions from Labor and the Greens.

    “It has never been satisfactorily explained to me what Kathryn Campbell did or didn’t know about the four-year rollout and implementation of the unlawful Robodebt scheme,” Opposition government services spokesman Bill Shorten said.

    Greens Whip and Senator for Western Australia Rachel Siewert said she was disappointed in Ms Campbell’s move before the robodebt scandal had been fully resolved.

    “Everyone involved in this illegal scheme should be held to account,” she said.

    Robodebt has been linked to the suicides of people which received debt notices and was found to be unlawful by a Federal Court judge last month who labelled it a “a “shameful chapter” in Australia’s social security history.

    Ms Campbell has previously apologised for the “hurt and harm” caused by the scheme but has said the department does “not accept” that it had led to deaths.

    New DFAT secretary Kathryn Campbell and services minister Linda Reynolds in 2019. Twitter.

    Her promotion opened the door for Ray Griggs at the Department of Social Services. Mr Griggs, a former Navy chief and vice chief of the Defence Force, will takeover as Secretary next week. He joins from the National Indigenous Australians Agency, which he led since its establishment in 2019.

    A month later Katherine Jones will take the role of Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department, filling the role which has been vacant since January when Chris Moraitis left to lead the investigation onto alleged war crimes by Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan.

    Ms Jones joins from Department of Defence, where she is currently associate secretary, and has previously held deputy secretary roles at the Department of Finance and the Attorney-General’s Department.

    Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the appointments last week.

    “I congratulate Ms Campbell, Mr Griggs and Ms Jones on their appointments. I have every confidence that they will lead by example and ensure the Australian Public Service continues to play an integral role in our nation’s COVID-19 recovery and provide high-quality services to all Australians,” he said.

    A new leader of the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) is yet to be announced, following the departure of Randall Brugeaud last month, who left the technology agency to lead a trade taskforce for Minister Dan Tehan.

    DTA chief operating officer Peter Alexander is currently serving as the acting chief executive as the agency searches for its fourth chief in six years and faces staffing and budget cuts.

    Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor has snnounced the appointment a former gas and oil executive-cum-investment banker to the board of Australia’s clean energy regulator.

    Ms Katherine Vidgen, the former boss of Western Australia oil and gas producer Quadrant Energy, to the board of the Clean Energy Regulator for a period of three years.

    Environmental groups chided the decision to appoint her.

    “Appointing a gas boss like Katherine Vidgen to the Clean Energy Regulator is like putting a fox in charge of the chickens,” said Greenpeace Australia Pacific spokesperson Fiona Ivits.

    “Gas is a fossil fuel that’s driving dangerous climate change, and has no place in Australia’s clean energy transition.”

    Mr Taylor this week also announced the appointment of soil expert Professor Alexander McBratney to the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, which advises government on how to spend its Emissions Reduction Fund.

    The fund is a descendant of Tony Abbott’s ‘Direct Action’ policy and pays organisations to sequester or avoid carbon emissions, through the issuance and purchase of Australian Carbon Credit Units. Companies can also purchase credits to offset their emissions.

    The energy minister reportedly wants to expand the fund to include carbon capture storage, a controversial emissions reduction technique where carbon dioxide emissions are captured and stored underground. Prof McBratney is a University of Sydney soil expert currently working on its monitoring, assessment and restoration system.

    In New South Wales, Jim Betts, who is currently Secretary of the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, has been appointed to the role of Secretary of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet. He will start in October. He will replace Tim Reardon who is stepping down from the role in October, when he plans to return to the private sector.

    The New South Wales government said a new secretary of the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment will be announced in “due course”.

    The Low Institute has a new research director after the think tank’s Hervé Lemahieu was promoted to lead the power and diplomacy program.

    Former Westpac Bank chief executive Brian Hartzer is returning to the financial sector as the new chairman of salary-based buy now, pay later start-up Beforepay. Mr Hartzer resigned from the Big Four bank in the aftermath of its money laundering scandal where it failed to report uspicious payments related to child exploitation in south-east Asia.

    He will now be chairman of Beforepay, a well backed fintech which lets users to get an avance on up to 25 per cent of their salaries before their employer pays them for a five per cent fee. The company is led by chief executive Jamie Twiss, who was an executive at Westpac under Mr Hartzer.

    Fellow big bank NAB has lost its head of cloud platform. Andrew Freeman left the bank this week after almost three years for the chief technology officer role at Microsoft specialist Azenix.

    Wiise, a Microsoft-based ERP and accounting platform created by KPMG, has announced the appointments of Charlie Wood as chief executive and Lex Feltham as head of sales and channel. Sydney-based Mr Wood previously headed up Dropbox ANZ while Mr Feltham has worked for Adobe, SAP and Salesforce.

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  • There are changes at the top of Australia’s universities, with vice-chancellors on the move at UTS, UNSW, USYD and RMIT, while Barnaby Joyce’s return to deputy leadership brings a Nationals Cabinet reshuffle.

    RMIT this week bid farewell to vice-chancellor and president, Professor Martin Bean, who left the technology school after six years but will return in a part time role later next year. Prof Bean will be replaced by RMIT chief operating officer Ms Dionne Higgins, who will act in an interim role as the search for Prof Bean’s successor continues.

    Mr Bean is currently leading the federal government’s University-Industry Collaboration in Teaching and Learning Review, announced by Education Minister Alan Tudge last month and expected to provide a report by the end of August.

    The Melbourne technology university also named Professor Brian Falzon as head of its new space hub. Prof Falzon is considered a global leader in aerospace technologies and will oversee the new hub, which was established with funding from the state government and support from industry partners SmartSat CRC, Amazon Web Service.

    Former ABC managing director Mark Scott begins at the University of Sydney this month, where he will reportedly be paid $1 million a year for five years as the Sandstone’s 27th vice-chancellor, a $500,000 discount on one of his predecessors, Michael Spence.

    The University of Sydney also announced one of its leading industrial relations researcher Professor Rae Cooper has been named as president-elect of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association, during the 54-year-old association’s World Congress, held in Sweden last month.

    Perhaps the biggest higher education news is the announcement that Professor Attila Brungs will leave his job as president and Vice-Chancellor of the UTS to take the same role at his alma mater, UNSW.

    “UNSW is one of the best-placed universities to partner with government and industry to drive the research commercialisation and translation agenda to help forge a bright future as we navigate the post-pandemic world, as well as meeting the skilling revolution Australian society needs,” Professor Brungs said.

    He will take up the role in January next year, after more than a decade at UTS.

    Outgoing RMIT vice-chancellor Martin Bean

    In the public service, Joseph Buffone has been appointed first assistant secretary at the Department of Home Affairs. Mr Buffone had been director general of Emergency Management Australia since October last year.

    Defence Housing Australia selected Katische Vinning as its new chief information officer.

    Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) CEO Professor Andrew Campbell has had his term extended until 2023.

    On Friday, Senator Bridget McKenzie was sworn into resurrected Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce’s new ministry.

    Ms McKenzie returns to a “regionalisation” portfolio after being forced to from stand down from cabinet over the 2019 sports rorts. She was rewarded for backing Mr Joyce in a leadership spill against then-Nationals leader Michael McCormack.

    Mr McCormack head to the backbench along with Daren Chester, Mark Coulton and Keith Pith, the later with the resources portfolio Mr Joyce has used in his rail against climate action.

    “The dumping from the cabinet of resources highlights the hypocrisy of Barnaby Joyce,” said Opposition leader Anthony Albanese.

    Mr Joyce also rewarded Andrew Gee, who will take the Veterans’ Affairs portfolio – the fifth minister to hold it in eight years – just as a Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide gets underway.

    In the private sector, PwC Australia has promoted its digital and technology operations director Tim Larcos to chief technology officer. Mr Larcos has been with the consulting giant for more than six years, including the last four in charge of its IT operations function and its 230 staff as director of operations.

    Australian financial services technology firm TransAction Solutions announced the appointment of William Lam as its new group innovation director to its senior leadership team. Mr Lamas’ appointment follows the company’s acquisition of Experteq, a cloud, virtualisation, and workforce mobility services provider.

    British based Global satellite consortium Inmarsat has appointed Frederik Gustavsson as chief strategy officer. While Mr Gustavsson will be based in London, the company said he will be working very closely with the ANZ operations team and Inmarsat’s VP of global government, Todd McDonnell, who’s based in Sydney.

    Mr Gustavsson will contribute to the upcoming launch of Inmarsat’s i6 satellite, with the ground station for the launch set to be based in Australia, and on the company’s major tender with the Australian Defence Force

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  • Several leading public servants have announced moves this month ahead of the new financial year, while Australia’s science agency has a new chief scientist and a 32-year-old regulator has been tasked with cleaning up US Big Tech.

    The Department of Industry’s general manager of emerging technologies Tim Bradley has jumped to the private sector, joining American behemoth Amazon Web Services as a strategic advisor for federal government.

    Mr Bradley spent nearly seven years at the Department of Industry, including three as general manager and a two-year stint in the US.

    The Industry Department is gaining Erin Cockram, who has been appointed as general manager financial management.

    Katie Heathcote is leaving Austrade to join New South Wales Treasury next month, where she will be associate director for technology and assist companies to export globally.

    South Australia has a new chief information and security officer, promoting Office for Cyber Security deputy director Will Luker into the role late last month to replace the state government’s inaugural information chief David Goodman who resigned in January.

    CSIRO has appointed Professor Bronwyn Fox as Chief Scientist, nearly 30 years after she began working for the national science agency as a research assistant.

    Professor Fox joins the agency from Swinburne University of Technology, where she is deputy vice-chancellor for research and enterprise.

    “It is wonderful to return to CSIRO as Chief Scientist after starting as a 22-year-old research assistant, and to be able to champion science research and capability, working with industry and fostering STEM careers,” Professor Fox said.

    She replaces CSIRO’s acting chief scientist Dr Sarah Pearce, who took over from Dr Cathy Foley in January when she was made Australia’s chief scientist.

    CSIRO’s new chief scientist Professor Bronwyn Fox. Image: CSIRO

    CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall said Professor Fox brings deep scientific experience to the leadership role.

    “She has a long history of bringing together researchers from across multiple scientific domains and institutions, leveraging digital science, and helping industry to translate brilliant ideas into real world solutions,” Dr Marhall said.

    US Big Tech collectively shuddered this week when President Joe Biden named Lina Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Ms Khan is an antitrust researcher critical of the immense market power of firms like Facebook, Amazon and Google, and will lead the regulator as it launches several antitrust cases.

    The UK-born Khan is just 32 years old and argues there is a “systemic trend across the US” of consolidating markets and that current laws aren’t well equipped to deal with the large technology companies.

    “These firms essentially provide infrastructure to the digital age,” she told the BBC earlier this year.

    “A small group of private executives are setting the rules of who gets to use the infrastructure and on what terms.”

    US Senator Elizabeth Warren, another critic of US Big Tech, welcomed the appointment.

    “With Chair Khan at the helm, we have a huge opportunity to make big, structural change by reviving antitrust enforcement and fighting monopolies that threaten our economy, our society, and our democracy,”  Senator Warren said.

    Back home and Mark Perry has left Ping Identity after eight years, including five as the APAC technology chief. He joins banking and compliance software Biza.io as chief customer officer, where he will focus on the company’s open banking push.

    One of Australia’s leading open banking players Regional Australia Bank has a new chief executive office, announcing David Heine will lead the company from July.

    Mr Heine has a background in IT, and electronic payments, and joins Regional Australia Bank from Linfox Armaguard.

    Squiz co-founder John-Paul Syriatowicz has been promoted to Chairperson after being managing director of the customer experience software company for more than 22 years.

    Margaret Maile Petty has stepped down as University of Technology Sydney’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship executive director after nearly four years in the role.

    Professor Maile Petty announced the move on LinkedIn, reflecting on highlights like launching the UTS Startups program.

    And finally, executives of the troubled Australian technology company Nuix have stepped down after an investigation by Nine newspapers exposed serious culture and governance issues.

    On Tuesday the company announced chief financial officer Stephen Doyle had been “terminated by mutual agreement” before later revealing chief executive Rod Vawdrey had given notice of his decision to retire.

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  • Former top public servant Jane Halton has scored more advisory work from the government, after concluding her work on the COVID-19 Commission.

    Ms Halton will be paid nearly $100,000 to advise the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet from May to the end of the year on vaccine rollouts in the Indo Pacific region.

    She was one of 10 board members of the COVID-19 Commission Advisory Board disbanded this month by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said the Commission had “answered the call of their country”.

    Jane Halton: The former Finance secretary on the future of public sector cloud

    Ms Halton was paid $118,000 for her role on the COVID-19 Commission and received an additional $82,000 for two and a half months of strategic advisory services to PM&C last year.

    Since leaving the Public Service in 2016, Ms Halton has taken director roles at Crown Resorts, ANZ bank and Clayton Utz.

    Christopher Muir, a former Advisor to NSW Minister for Transport Andrew Constance and current boss of an Australian gambling company lobby group, has been announced as a new Commissioner for the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW.

    Mr Muir, who has also worked at AUSTRAC and as a federal government advisor, joins Daniel O’Sullivan as a new commissioner while John Murphy has been reappointed to the IR Commission.

    “Mr Muir brings with him a diversity of experience in various public and private sector roles, including decades specialising in industrial relations and employment law,” said NSW Special Minister of State, Don Harwin.

    Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Frances Adamson will leave the department in June to become South Australia’s 36th governor. Ms Adamson has led DFAT for five years and was thanked for her service by Foreign affairs minister Marise Payne last week.

    “Under her leadership, the department has undertaken the largest consular operation in DFAT’s history in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. During this critical time, Ms Adamson’s support to her staff, including those posted overseas, has enabled them to provide continuing assistance to Australians abroad,” Minister Payne said.

    Paul Creech has been named as general manager, digital programs and engagement, digital health, at the Australian Digital Health Agency. Lisa Rauter has also been announced as chief operating officer, digital health.

    The University of NSW has a new chief information and security officer, ending a near two year search. Derek Winter has joined UNSW, leaving the same role at the University of Sydney.

    Australian agtech The Yield has announced new hires, including Patrick Maguire as chief financial officer. Mr Maguire has held several chief financial officer roles, most recently at Boston based software firm QSR international.

    Mr Maguire is expected to play a key role in the agtech’s US expansion, as it seeks funding for its harvest forecast technology based on IoT sensors and data science. Mr Maguire will report to The Yield founder and managing director Ros Harvey.

    “The Yield is at an exciting stage of growth which will be driven with the completion of a Series A capital raise this year. This will lay the foundation for next year’s planned Series B capital raise to support entry into the US market,” Ms Harvey said.

    The Yield also added Gary Pate and Iain Fong in data roles, and Amanda Bovill in a customer role.

    Economist and government advisor Tim Harcourt has joined the University of Technology Sydney as an industry professor and chief economist with the UTS Institute of Public Policy and Governance.

    Professor Harcourt has been an Adviser to two State Premiers and three Federal Cabinet Ministers, and an Expert Panel Member to the Fair Work Commission on minimum wages and superannuation.

    He will work on international trade, labour markets, climate innovation and the economics of sport at the UTS institute.

    Citrix has announced Martin Creighan as managing director of Australia and New Zealand. Mr Creighan joins the workplace software firm after more than 16 years at telco AT&T.

    Lenovo has appointed new local leaders across several APAC divisions. Prashanth Mani now leads Lenovo’s Mobile Business Group in APAC while Takeshi Okuma has taken the role of chief executive of Fujitsu Client Computing Limited, a joint between Lenovo, Fujitsu Limited, and the Development Bank of Japan.

    Geoffrey Whelan and Miranda Lello have been appointed general manager, electricity markets branch at the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

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  • Matt Gyde, the former CEO of billion-dollar global technology services company NTT Security, has joined the board of 6clicks. San Francisco based Mr Gyde joins the risk and compliance SaaS Provider as a non executive director following a recent investment round of A$5.5M from a consortium of Australian business leaders.

    Elizabeth Kelly, deputy secretary of the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources has resigned, InnovationAus understands.

    Ms Kelly had held the role since 2017, where she was responsible for innovation, digital strategy and industry support programmes.

    She became a national fellow for the Institute of Public Administration Australia in October last year in recognition of her strong public service leadership and avocation for innovation.

    Services Australia’s inaugural chief data officer, Dr Maria Milosavljevic, has been promoted to the agency’s chief information and security officer.

    She announced the news on LinkedIn, saying she was pleased with the establishment and operation of Services Australia’s Data and Analytics Division which the agency leaned on during the bushfires and COVID-19, and was excited for the new role.

    “I will once again combine my passions for security, intelligence, risk and data,” Dr Milosavljevic said.

    Garrett McDonald, the Services Australia general manager, experience and data services, will take the role of chief data officer.

    Former NTT veteran Matt Gyde has joined Melbourne based 6clicks as a non-executive director.

    NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyte got busier than planned last week after former Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull was spectacularly dumped from NSW’s new climate board less than a week after being announced as its Chair.

    Prof. Durrant-Whyte, originally named as deputy Chair, will now lead the Board until a replacement can be found for Mr Turnbull. The former PM said he was ousted from the role because of a “ferocious campaign” by News Corp against his appointment.

    “Its goal was to bully the state government into not appointing me chair of this net zero board,” Mr Turnbull said.

    The state coalition government’s federal counterpart will expect no such backlash from the Murdochracy after filling its climate advisory board with former gas and finance executives.

    On Friday, Mr Grant King, a former Business Council of Australia president and energy executive, was appointed as Chair of the Australian Government’s Climate Change Authority by Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor.

    The authority was established by the Rudd government in 2012 to provide independent, expert advice on climate change policy but has been wound back and largely ignored by subsequent coalition governments.

    Mr King led gas giant Origin Energy for 16 years and has been heavily involved in the government’s ‘gas led’ COVID-19 recovery and energy technology roadmap. He has criticised renewable energy in the past.

    Mr King said he looked forward to helping develop “practical responses” to the climate crisis.

    “Mr King brings 40 years’ experience in energy, finance, infrastructure and sustainability,” said Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor.

    News of the former Origin boss’s appointment was quickly criticised by environmental groups and former members of the Climate Change Authority, who said the decision was “disappointing but not surprising”.

    Mr Taylor appointed two others to the Authority, Ms Susie Smith and Mr John McGee.

    Ms Smith, a former Santos executive, is the current chief executive of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, an organisation representing fossil fuel and agricultural businesses. Mr McGee is an investment banker and cycling companion of former PM Tony Abbott.

    Mr Taylor gave a cursory thanks to outgoing members, including Chair Dr Wendy Craik who led the Authority since 2015 and has held several high ranking public sector environment roles.

    Sydney startup incubator Fishburners has revamped its board as it approaches its 10 year anniversary.

    Clive Mayhew, tech investor and entrepreneur, will chair the Fishburners Board, alongside Jacqui Feeney, media executive, who will join as a director.

    Domain Administration Limited or auDA, an organisation set up to develop and administer the rules for the .au domain code, has appointed five members to its new Licence Review Panel, who will have the final say on disputes.

    Phillip Davies (Chair), Bernadette Day, Angela Flannery, Melissa Marcus, Andrew Sykes make up the panel, which is the final point of escalation for complaints under the new .au licencing rules which come into effect on April 12.

    NAB’s executive for enterprise technology Steve Day quietly left the bank in March to take up a role at Databricks, a cloud based data analytics company that has raised US$1 billion for its “data lakehouse” service.

    Mr Day played a key role in the business bank’s ongoing public cloud-first, multi-cloud strategy.

    A former chief executive officer of Virgin Australia Airlines has been announced as the new Secretary of Transport for NSW.

    Rob Sharp will replace Rodd Staples who was terminated last year after an apparent falling out with the Transport Minister Andrew Constance.

    Mr Constance said he did not find it “particularly acceptable” that the then secretary refused the Minister’s direction to clear millions of trees along every highway in NSW last year to create a “clearance zone” in the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires.

    Mr Staples received a severance of more than $830,000 and Mr Constance has refused to say the decision not to action the tree clearing directive was a direct factor in his termination.

    Incoming Secretary Rob Sharp was chief executive officer (group executive) of Virgin Australia between 2017 and 2019. Mr Sharp continued working in the aviation industry and last year was involved in a private equity investment group that tried to take over the fledgeling airline.

    Most recently he has been a committee member for the audit risk and compliance board for Newcastle Airport.

    “Mr Sharp is the perfect person to lead the agency in a new direction with his experience in performing successful business turnarounds and transformational change. He comes with a unique blend of specialist industry experience across transport, professional services and technology sectors,” Mr Constance said in a statement.

    “Mr Sharp’s impressive skillset is underpinned by strategic thinking, digital innovation, logistics excellence and delivering large scale, complex projects.”

    Dr Michele Bruniges has been reappointed as Secretary of the Department of Education, Skills and Employment for a period of two years.

    Dr Bruniges has held the position since 2016 and requested a further two years to see through the implementation of the New Employment Services Model – the government’s new job seeker service set to be rolled out from mid-2022.

    “I congratulate Dr Bruniges and look forward to continuing to work with her,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

    Nina Cullen has been appointed chief executive of the Victorian branch of the Institute of Public Administration Australia. She replaces David Ali who is off to lead Motor Neurone Disease Australia.

    Ms Cullen joins from the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning where she was executive director, strategy and performance. She also spent time assisting with the state health department’s COIVD-19 response.

     

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