The public cloud market leader has lost another of its local boss to a partner firm while a former New South Wales transport secretary has jumped back to the private sector after a decade of public service.
AWS managing director Australia & New Zealand Adam Beavis left public cloud giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) this week to take up the managing director role at Australian company Stax, an AWS cloud management platform for medium and enterprise businesses.
It is another Amazon poach for the Australian cloud consultancy Versent, which was spun out Stax as a standalone firm after its success as a product division. Last year Stax added former AWS of channel Davinia Simon, while parent company Versent is led by Paul Migliorini, who was AWS local boss until 2020 when Mr Beavis took over.
Mr Beavis replaces Stax co-founder Thor Essman, who will become executive chair. Prior to spending eigh years with AWS, Mr Beavis was at Red Hat, Thomas Dureyea Consulting, CommVault, and VMware.
Former top NSW bureaucrat Tim Reardon is returning to the private sector after a decade in state government. He will join PwC as the firm’s “national transport and precincts leader” this month.
Mr Reardon was the state’s top bureaucrat as secretary of the New South Wales Department of Premier and Cabinet under former Premier Gladys Berejiklian for four years. He resigned in the middle of last year. He was also the Transport for NSW secretary for four years.
Acting Education Minister Stuart Robert has appointed CSIRO chief operating officer Judi Zielke to act as chief executive of the Australian Research Council (ARC). In the meantime, CSIRO chief finance officer Tom Munyard will act as the science agency’s chief operating officer. This comes after the departure of Professor Sue Thomas last December shortly after a letter of new government “expectations” was sent to the ARC.
Coming from a public sector background, some members of the scientific community has expressed concern over Ms Ziele’s appointment given her lack of academic experience and the challenges facing the ARC. Applications for the permanent position are expected to be open from February 4 to 27.
Kate Healy, having left the role of head of security at Google Cloud AuNZ at the start of January, has landed in a newly formed security consultancy role for National Australia Bank. She was also previously principal cybersecurity strategist at Telstra and now has nearly 22 years of cybersecurity experience.
The state government of Victoria has appointed Moana Weir as local jobs commissioner following her five-and-a-half-year stint as chair of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. She is an experienced lawyer who has previously held senior positions at SEEK, REA Group, and Bupa.
Joanne Farrell has been appointed the new chair of Safe Work Australia. Ms Farrell brings almost 40 years of experience in the mining sector to the agency tasked with developing workplace health and safety policy.
The ATO has promoted Fiona Knight to litigation and legal services commissioner and Alexander Affleck to deputy chief tax counsel. Meanwhile, DFAT has promoted Timothy Huggins to assistant secretary.
ANZ Bank has promoted Tim Hogarth from chief architect to the financial institution’s first chief technology officer (CTO). Mr Hogarth will be responsible for ensuring ANZ’s technology projects align continue to serve their business interests and will continue overseeing ANZ’s technology architecture. He brings with him over 17 years of experience working in the banking sector
The CTO will report to ANZ group executive technology Gerard Florian, who said “I’m really pleased to have Tim in this new role, which we created to reflect the importance of technology leadership within my team and across ANZ more broadly.”
Great Southern Bank’s new chief information officer is Tom Richardson, bringing with him 30 years of IT experience in the financial sector. He will be leaving his role as chief technology officer at super fund Colonial First State.
Outgoing Afterpay chief financial officer Luke Bortoli has been appointed as a non-executive director of Sydney-based payday lender Beforepay. Mr Bortoli’s term at Afterpay will end before the start of financial year 2022.
Daniel Evans was made Rio Tinto’s chief information officer last December after having acted in the role for eight months. Mr Evans was previously chief information security officer for the mining giant.
Greg Martin has been appointed chair of hydrogen infrastructure firm Global Energy Ventures. Mr Martin is also the current deputy chair of Western Australia’s state-owned energy company Western Power
Cloud-based accounting software firm Xero has appointed Brian McAndrews to its Board of Directors. He was previously chief executive of streaming music provider Pandora Media and Microsoft acquired digital marketing services firm aQuantive.
