Cloud Computing / Interviews

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare vice president ICT, Nicholas Fourie says the past 18 months have been about the business pivoting in response to COVID.

Our focus is on strengthening the organisation’s capabilities around digital acceleration, advanced analytics, data science, and interoperability, says Shayne Tong, chief digital officer, Auckland District Health Board.

healthAlliance, in partnership with the district health boards, has for the past two years been delivering the the Northern Region Information Systems Strategic Plan, one of the largest digital transformations in New Zealand.

Rebecca Thomas heads the PwC Asia Pacific CIO Council, and through this, influences the global PwC IT community

“My approach is to let business users make informed choices and create compelling business cases that are win/wins,” says Contact Energy CIO Iain Gauld.

Based on the successful turnaround of VTNZ’s technology environment and team over the last four years, Sean Davidson has also been involved in formulating a similar plan for the transformation of IT at their parent company Dekra. As a result, he will shortly assume a global role, responsible for all DEKRA regions.

Gallagher Group CIO Neville Richardson says IS provides a model of culture change for the rest of the organisation. “We demonstrate the need to go all in with agile.”

Rebecca Chenery has been leading a cultural and digital transformation of Watercare for nearly three years now.
“Through this digital transformation, the most significant change achieved has been the cultural shift towards agile, collaborative, cross-functional team working across all areas of the business – not just projects delivering digital solutions,” she says.

Piers Shore increased the focus on digital delivery within his leadership team following a review of IT-related activity across business units. The aim is to identify duplicate or inefficient spend that would be more efficient if centralised to IT. This has provided a centralised development capability for digital initiatives across Fonterra.

Nathan Scott says Valocity Global has demonstrated strategic leadership in solving a critical need for innovation in markets restricted by legacy technology and manual processes. In doing so, it has brought choice and transformational change to the property valuation industry for the first time in several territories.

“It is important to be prepared to positively and continually disrupt ourselves,” says Mark Leadbetter, IT director at House of Travel (HOT).

ANZ is always looking for opportunities to improve and personalise customer experience by providing a more natural and simple interaction, says Craig Bunyan, general manager technology at ANZ New Zealand.

“The most important lesson I have learnt so far is to be open-minded in my perspective as a leader,” says Christine Yip, business improvement manager at LSG Sky Chefs NZ.

“We are embarking on a new era of technological advancement in the game, how we look after the health and wellbeing of our players right through to how we choose to watch and participate,” says Angela Nash, chief technology officer at NZ Rugby.

The large ICT-focused MBIE business groups – Immigration New Zealand, Market Services, Corporate and Enterprise - have successfully planned and undertaken a considerable pipeline of ICT projects in the past year, says Ralph Chivers, MBIE CIO. “Our role has been to enable and support them in those activities.”

“Our organisation is very flat and while we have roles and titles we are the same team, and there are no egos! Communication and collaboration is vital to perform well together," says Igor Matich, founder and managing director, Dynamo6.

Atta Elayyan, CEO and co-founder of LWA Solutions, says since founding the company seven years ago, he has “pivoted” the business at least five times. But for Elayyan, this is the way to go with the breakneck pace of technology.

The Parliamentary Service (the Service) provides a wide range of shared services to Members of Parliament, parliamentary and member support staff, the Office of the Clerk and a number of other parliamentary agencies. There has been much effort over the years reviewing our core services, and trying to standardise them, says its CIO Michael Middlemiss.

“Law is traditionally a conservative business that is slow to change,” says Craig Columbus, CIO at Russell McVeagh. But over the past 20 months, he says, the relatively traditional law firm has transformed its physical and technical environment, without interrupting its ability to provide excellent service to clients. “A transformation of this scale cannot be accomplished without a great deal of communication, collaboration and determination.”

“A key part of the role is ensuring we understand global technology trends and what and how we could apply them in the context of Chorus,” says Ewen Powell, chief technology officer of Chorus NZ.