CIO

Movers and shakers: Lois van Waardenberg is new Plunket CIO

Plus: New appointments at NZTech, St John, Institute of Directors and Information Leadership

Lois van Waardenberg
Lois van Waardenberg
Lois van Waardenberg moves to Plunket as its first chief information officer, reporting to CEO Jenny Prince.

Before this, she was head of business information and technology services at Z. She has been CEO of Transformation Analytics, and held a range of executive, business, ICT and consulting roles - including HP, RHE, Suncorp Group, Optimation, Solnet, Micromuse and the UK Post Office.

Martin Catterall has left his CIO role at St John, while James Allison is now a senior ICT executive at the charity. Before this, Allison was with Spark New Zealand where his previous roles included GM operational performance and GM shared technology operations.

Martin Catterall spoke on the evolving CIO agenda at the 2014 CIO100 event.
Martin Catterall spoke on the evolving CIO agenda at the 2014 CIO100 event.

New appointments strengthen board diversity at NZTech

NZTech has a new board, including senior government sector members following its 6th annual general meeting.

New NZTech board members include: Chris Bishop, Manager ICT Policy and Programmes, MBIE; Diane Knowles, NZ Country Manager for Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services; Paul Deavoll, Head of South Island, Spark NZ; and Sarah Perry, CEO, SnapComms.

Bennett Medary, Simpl Group director and NZTech chair announces the new board members.
Bennett Medary, Simpl Group director and NZTech chair announces the new board members.

The new board members join those who were re-elected for a successive term; and those who will continue for another year. They are: Rob Lee, Managing Director, IBM New Zealand; Mark Nichols, General Manager, Trimble Navigation; Bennett Medary, Director of Simpl Group; Rob Old, General Manager, Provoke Solutions; Bob Pinchin, CEO, Swaytech; Jonathan Miller, National Network Manager ICT, Callaghan Innovation; and Frances Valintine, Chair of the Mindlab by Unitec.

Departing board members this year are: Keith Watson, Managing Director, Hewlett-Packard New Zealand; Tom Duffy, Chief Operating Officer, Fuji Xerox; Steve Newman, CEO, EROAD; and John Ferguson, Customer Manager, NZTE. This year’s Board Chair will be appointed at the first meeting of the new Board later this month.

“I am excited to be working with such a strong and dynamic Board,” says NZTech CEO Graeme Muller. “The Board selection process focused on ensuring we attracted the right level of diversity to enable us to achieve our purpose of being the voice of the technology sector while delivering on our key strategies.

“With new Board members from Christchurch, Auckland and Wellington, across key government, corporate and New Zealand export business organisations we have increased our ability to truly represent the sector.”

The growing recognition of the importance of technology for New Zealand’s economic success is coming about as all sectors and occupations become more digitalised.

Graeme Muller, NZTech

He says NZTech has been growing rapidly, he says, with members ranging from start-ups and locally focused IT firms to fast-growth tech exporters, hi-tech manufacturers, telco’s, major corporations and education providers.

“The growing recognition of the importance of technology for New Zealand’s economic success is coming about as all sectors and occupations become more digitalised,” says Muller.

Simon Arcus is the new chief executive at The Institute of Directors in New Zealand (IoD).

Arcus, who has been the acting chief executive since November, established IoD’s thought leadership hub the Governance Leadership Centre. He has also provided an extensive range of boardroom training and governance advisory services for the IoD to the corporate, Maori and not-for-profit sectors.

In 2012, Arcus authored the second edition of the IoD’s foundation guide to governance, The Four Pillars of Governance Best Practice. Arcus is a solicitor with an LLB/BA from the University of Otago and Postgraduate Diploma in Business from Massey University. He is a chartered company secretary and Senior Associate ANZIIF as well as a board member of the Wellington Cancer Society.

Simon Arcus
Simon Arcus

New Zealand needs directors who are serious about their professionalism and committed to continuous learning.

Simon Arcus, IoD

“New Zealand needs directors who are serious about their professionalism and committed to continuous learning,” says Arcus. “Last year was an exciting year with the introduction of the Chartered Membership pathway, a strong move to raise the professionalism of directors and demonstrate to the market what sets IoD members apart.”

Making an internal appointment, and good succession planning is a hallmark of good governance, says IoD president Michael Stiassny.

Related: A top tip for CIOs presenting to the Board

Steve Dunn joins Information Leadership in the newly created role of business development director. He was formally country manager of LexisNexis New Zealand, where he led its transition from print to online services for legal and regulatory information. More recently he was part of a global project at KPMG to implement SharePoint as a platform for each of its 150 country websites.

Steve Dunn
Steve Dunn

Ian Clarke is stepping down as CEO of Fronde. He joined Fronde 16 years ago and during his time with Fronde he has also held the roles of Chief Financial Officer, General Manager Operations and General Manager, Wellington.

Chairman of Fronde Jon Mayson says since taking on the role of CEO in 2008 Clarke has driven significant growth and expansion of the business including into the Australian market.

“Under Clarke’s leadership, Fronde quickly become the market leader in cloud integration, taking enterprise and government to the cloud. He also cemented Fronde’s position through key partnerships with Google, Salesforce, NetSuite, AWS and Citrix,” says Mayson.

Clarke will step down later this year once the board has completed a search and appointment of a replacement chief executive, with a suitable transition period.

“After 16 years with Fronde and seven years as CEO I feel the time is right for me to seek new challenges and for Fronde to enter the next phase with fresh leadership,” he states. “I am proud of what the Fronde team has achieved and look forward to following its continued success,” says Clarke.

Clarke will remain a shareholder in Fronde.

Ian Clarke at a CIO Leaders' Luncheon
Ian Clarke at a CIO Leaders' Luncheon

Ray Noonan, Cogent CEO, announces the formation of a new Skype for Business practice.

“The Skype for Business practice will help Cogent meet the growing demand for Skype for Business solutions while also complimenting Cogent’s existing capability and expertise with the Alcatel-Lucent, Mitel and Cisco Platforms”, says Noonan.

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“I’m also thrilled that we have been able to attract some of the best Skype for Business solution architects in the market to form the core of this practice. Collectively they have deployed more than 50,000 seats of Lync in the last 12 months so add deep enterprise credibility to the team at Cogent”.

“The Skype for Business practice compliments Cogent’s recent partnership with Nectar Corporation that provides us with the ability to manage network performance in real time across the key Unified Communications vendor platforms of Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya and Mitel,” says Noonan.

Cisco's Internet of Everything Innovation Centre in Australia

Cisco has opened a new Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation Centre (CIIC) at Curtin University in Perth.

The centre’s foundation partners, Curtin University and Woodside, will launch their initial IoE research projects, with a focus on resources and mining, astronomy and big data.

Irving Tan, senior vice president of Cisco Asia Pacific & Japan, said, globally, providing the catalyst for investment to open the Centre in Western Australia.

The Cisco IoE Innovation Centre, Australia, will include a hub in Sydney that is opening later this year, and is one of eight globally including in Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Songdo, Berlin, Barcelona, Tokyo and London.

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