Australia’s 15 most influential people in ICT

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Australia’s 15 most influential people in ICT
30 August 2012
Brad Howarth

Australia’s information and communications technology (ICT) has an image problem.

While it’s hard to deny the increasing role that ICT plays in underpinning Australian industry, those responsible for its development and delivery are rarely heard from.

While names like Rinehart, Forest and Palmer dominate headlines in the mining sector, and business leaders and politicians are prominent in economic debates, it can be hard to identify those who speak for the sector that is fundamentally transforming Australian business and society as we move into a digital age. And this is despite ICT being the centrepiece of one of the largest infrastructure projects being undertaken anywhere in the world – the $36 billion National Broadband Network.

They are out there however, and their voices are growing louder.

What follows is SmartCompany’s list of the people we believe are people of influence within the IT industry. Some you may never have heard of, but as IT’s prominence in our lives increases, it is likely that you’ll start to.

1. Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
He may be best known as the man who elicited $36 billion from Kevin Rudd for the National Broadband Network, but listen to Senator Conroy and you’ll hear an underlying message that the internet is transforming Australia – and that we’d all better wake up to the possibilities and challenges.

Conroy’s program goes beyond just building the network – he has also secured millions in funding for various skills development programs to help everyone from local councils to the elderly to get on board with the digital revolution. Although he has been at the centre of a sustained attack from the Federal Opposition, his efforts have nonetheless been recognised globally, with the international think tank The Intelligent Community Forum naming him Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year for 2012, following luminaries such as the founders of Wikia, Angela Beesley and Jimmy Wales.

Senator Conroy has not been afraid of a good fight either, taking on contentious issues such as internet censorship and media reform.

2. Michael Harte, group executive, enterprise services and chief information officer, Commonwealth Bank
IT is vital to the running of a modern bank, but few heads of IT have ever been as prominent as Michael Harte. Since 2006 he has led the Commonwealth Bank on a transformation of its IT infrastructure which includes the replacement of its core banking system with one capable of delivering real-time banking, an effort labelled by the analyst firm Gartner as “world-leading”.

Harte has also driven the adoption of newer technology concepts such as open systems, cloud computing and on-demand infrastructure, and become the de facto spokesperson for these trends amongst his peers. In a sector known for its conservatism, Harte has led from the front and been a prominent advocate of these technologies, while also playing a role in their overall development through his membership of development organisations and boards.

And he is getting results – IT spending on infrastructure at the bank has fallen from 50% of total IT spend five years ago to just 25% today (the balance is focused on customer initiatives), while ‘severity 1’ IT incidents have fallen by a factor of 10.


3. David Thodey, chief executive officer, Telstra
David Thodey became chief executive at Telstra back in 2009 and immediately brought a more temperate tone to the role following the confrontational style of his predecessor, Sol Trujillo. He’s rebuilt bridges with politicians and suppliers, and taken steps to redress Telstra’s woeful customer service.

But the Clark Kent act masks an iron will that has seen Telstra take on one of the greatest challenges it has ever faced – the National Broadband Network – and turn it into an $11 billion windfall for his organisation while offloading its decaying copper phone network. The market has taken notice too, with Telstra shares hitting a four year high in July.

4. Mike Quigley, chief executive officer and director, NBN Co
With a multibillion dollar expense account at his disposal, Mike Quigley brings a lot of buying power to any negotiation. But the highly political nature of the project he manages has seen Quigley subjected to a level of scrutiny that few executives have ever had to endure. And he has done so with aplomb, refusing to lose his cool or his focus on the project at hand.

Not everything has run smoothly however – the most recent report card on the NBN showed it to be over budget and behind schedule, and facing the possibility of being scrapped should the next election deliver a change of government. But none of that seems likely to prevent Quigley from getting on with the task at hand.

5. Malcolm Turnbull, shadow minister for communications and broadband
Malcolm Turnbull was given the shadow communications portfolio following the Liberal Party’s defeat at the 2010 federal election and instructed to wreck the government’s highly popular NBN – very possibly the policy that saw Labor retain power.

He has taken that poisoned chalice and used it to reshape the views of his own party towards the deployment of broadband in Australia, winning support for a modified NBN proposal that would deliver broadband at slower speeds but with a faster rollout time – although full details of the policy, and its costs, have not been released.

Turnbull brings deep experience of the technology sector to his role, having been chair of the internet service provider OzEmail from 1994 to 1999, and a director of the technology company FTR Holdings Ltd until 2004.


6. Philip Cronin, director of regional sales and business development Asia-Pacific, Intel
Philip Cronin achieved solid success in his role as general manager at Intel – enough to see him bumped up to an APAC role in April this year. But it is through his extra-curricular activities that his clout has been felt. As the national chair of peak representative body the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), Cronin has directed the organisation though a turnaround in its financial position while increasing its voice within Canberra.

Cronin is a regular attendee at federal and state government forums, such as the Prime Minister’s roundtable and the Victorian Government eServices Panel meetings, is a member of the NSW advisory panel to advise the Minister for Finance and Services on ICT strategy, and is speaking at the forthcoming Intelligent Solutions Summit in Taipei, as well as the Data Centre of the Future event in Bangkok.

Born in Dublin, he also sits on an advisory board to the Irish government, the Global Irish Network, which was set up to foster trade and investment links between Ireland and Australia.

7. Jeff Smith, chief executive officer for Suncorp Business Services, Suncorp
Another of Australia’s prominent IT chiefs, Jeff Smith instituted a technology and procurement transformation strategy at Suncorp that helped deliver $200 million in benefits in the 2012 financial year, with another $235 million to come in the current one.

Smith was one of the earliest and most prominent supporters of agile software development, which encourages rapid iterative development over the old method of monolithic projects, and is now being widely adopted across Australia. And he has been an advocate of programs to enable workers use their preferred devices at work. He is also behind Suncorp’s graduate recruitment campaign, which is one of the largest in Australia.

8. Blackbird Ventures team
Not so much a person of influence but a dream team of influencers, Blackbird Ventures began assembling this year and draws together Startmate co-founder Niki Scevak, Southern Cross Ventures partner Bill Bartee and former MLC private equity portfolio manager Richard Baker.

Its mission is to back maturing companies with investments up to $10 million, and is focused exclusively on Australian-born globally-focused internet companies. Although not fully launched yet, the team intends to be in the market within a matter of months, and early backers include Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and Southern Cross Venture Partners managing director Larry Marshall.

9. Peter Fleming, chief executive officer, National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA)
Since 2008, Peter Fleming has performed the equally thankless and vital task of leading the Australian healthcare industry into a digital future through the implementation of the National E-Health Strategy records.

While NEHTA has been criticised from many sides for its ponderous progress and method of implementation, Fleming has been successful in guiding it to milestones such as the delivery of the national Healthcare Identifiers Service, a common clinical language, and secure and standardised ways for information to be exchanged between healthcare providers, and most notably the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system launched in August 2012.

10. David Caspari, managing director for South Pacific, Hewlett-Packard
One of the youngest influencers on the list, David Caspari was not even born when HP arrived in Australia 45 years ago. But he has risen up the ranks quickly to lead the Australian operations of the world’s largest IT company and is part of a reinvention of the business led by global CEO Meg Whitman.

In June this year, David oversaw the opening of HP’s $200 million Aurora Data Centre in Sydney’s Eastern Creek, which is a key element in HP’s program to offer next-generation IT services. Caspari has been a strong advocate for stronger engagement from business in transforming Australia’s value chains to solve ‘bigger picture’ problems, including our impact on the environment. He is also a director of both the AIIA and the Society for Knowledge Economics, a professional body formed to address Australia's need to develop more innovative, fulfilling and high performing workplaces.

11. Andrew Stevens, managing director, IBM Australia and New Zealand
While many IT companies have struggled with Australia’s two-speed economy, IBM has outperformed the market, growing by 5.7% to $4.54 billion in 2011. Part of that performance can be attributed to Andrew Stevens.

Under Stevens’ stewardship IBM opened a new research and development lab in Melbourne, creating positions for 150 research staff, and launched the landmark research report A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050. He has also been a strong advocate for the recruitment of women into the ICT sector, particularly into senior positions through membership of Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick’s Male Champions of Change group.

12. Dr Ian Oppermann, director at CSIRO Digital Productivity and Services Flagship
Under Dr Ian Oppermann’s leadership the CSIRO’s ICT Centre strengthened its position as a hub for research excellence, and he was recently rewarded by being made director of CSIRO’s newly established Digital Productivity and Services Flagship.

Oppermann is a regular speaker on digital technologies and their ability to reshape industry – particularly service delivery – and drove the establishment of the $20 million Human Services Delivery Research Alliance with the Department of Human Services. He has also authored or co-authored approximately 30 journal and 90 conference papers.

13. Suzanne Campbell, chief executive officer, Australian Information Industry Association
Although only appointed to lead Australia’s peak body for the ICT sector a year ago, Suzanne Campbell has already built an admirable record in turning around the financial fortunes of the organisation, bringing it back to profitability after a run of losses. Both membership revenues and overall revenues are up, and she has worked closely with her board to create a new three-year strategy to foster industry growth and development, aligned with the AIIA’s mission to drive the digital economy and build industry capability.

She has also driven numerous representations on behalf of the industry, on topics such as research and development support, taxation, and the ongoing IT pricing review, with victories including the uplifting of a 2.6% tax on ICT contracts in NSW, and influencing the creation of the framework of a new eServices panel in Victoria.

14. Pip Marlow, managing director, Microsoft Australia
This will be a big year for Pip Marlow. She will oversee the Australian launch of Windows 8, the latest version of her company’s flagship operating system that many have predicted will make or break the company.

Marlow is tasked with delivering a smooth rollout into a market where much of the impetus has been stolen by Apple and Google. Marlow has stamped her authority on Microsoft Australia since taking the helm in early 2011, driving a change management program across the company’s work practices to promote flexibility and improve productivity.

15. Bob Hayward, chief technology and innovation officer APJ at Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)
Bob Hayward is a stalwart of the Australian information technology industry, having been the first employee for the analyst firm Gartner in the region back in the 1990s, before taking numerous start-up, director and advisory roles that have led him to the role of chief technology and innovation officer at IT service firm CSC.

Another director of the AIIA, Hayward has led the organisation’s taskforce on environmental sustainability, is a member of the National Standing Committee on Cloud Computing, and is an in-demand speaker across the ICT industry.

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