The iTnews Podcast (iTnews Australia)

MyState Limited is forging ahead with a “significant program” of digital and technology works that is attached to a broader growth strategy the ASX-listed financial group is pursuing through to the end of FY25.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, MyState’s general manager of Technology, Operations and Product, Paul Moss, discusses the evolution of technology strategy and architecture in MyState’s banking and wealth management operations.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, NAB Chief Technology Officer Steve Day details shifts in strategic thinking around the bank’s highly-publicised cloud journey, which has been running at scale since 2017. He also reveals NAB is undertaking the first major revision of its technology strategy since 2018.

UNICEF Australia used digital transformation as the catalyst to change the way it raises funds to improve the lives of children, moving from four big appeals a year to an “always-on” fundraising approach.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, chief operating officer Sarah Grattan unpacks UNICEF Australia’s IT and digital structure and strategy, as well as a continuing transformation effort that began not long after she joined the not-for-profit in May 2018.

We'll return with new episodes very soon!

Australia Post is nearing the finish line for what was once billed as the ‘largest telecommunications transformation in the country’, and is now setting its sights on smart operations powered by connected devices.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews podcast, Australia Post’s head of technology for network and infrastructure engineering Shane Hazim provides an in-depth view of the four streams of work in the telecommunications transformation, and where the enterprise intends to go next.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, Group Executive Technology Gerard Florian reflects on over five years helming the bank’s technology function, and specifically the role and importance of strategic alignment to its present status within the bank. He also provides an update on ANZ's cloud journey, and discussed the halo effect of ANZ Plus.

CBA is treating its investment in no-code machine learning platform maker H2O.ai as a turning point that will enable anyone in the group to stand up an “incredibly predictive model literally at the touch of a button”.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, CBA’s Chief Decision Scientist, Dan Jermyn, discusses the bank’s AI “democratisation” efforts and mindset, as well as some of the key customer-facing wins that his specific area - decision science - has had to date.

Origin Energy is training its digital focus on the delivery of new features and ‘hero’ experiences for customers, having laid considerable foundations over the past few years. In this week’s episode of the iTnews podcast, Chief Digital & Growth Officer Rod van Onselen discusses his dual remit, Origin’s digital strategy, and where the company is focusing its current efforts.

Essential Energy is using drone-captured imagery and software to create “intelligent” three-dimensional models of its substations that engineers can interact with and plan upgrade works remotely. 

In this week’s episode of the iTnews podcast, Substation Design Manager Jason Streatfeild discusses the work of his team of engineers and drawing officers that manage all aspects of design for nearly 400 substations across the state, and the growing influence of technology on this function. 

Westpac’s BT is modernising its Panorama financial planning platform by migrating it to run in the cloud, which should also make the platform easier to separate from the group if it is divested as planned.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews podcast, Richard Holmes, CIO of Westpac’s specialist business division - the division set up to divest non-core banking assets - discusses the challenges of ring-fencing large IT assets and unwinding tight system integrations to prepare those assets for life outside of the Westpac Group.

We'll return with new episodes very soon!

If you missed out on the State of IT report in 2021, see how we graded the states and territories here.

We'll be back very soon with new episodes!

For now, enjoy our 2021 discussion with Jospeh Vartuli, CTO at CreditorWatch.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, Flybuys (Loyalty Pacific) Head of Digital Katie James provides a status update on Flybuys’ digital transformation, including its cloud migration and future application modernisation efforts.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, Flybuys (Loyalty Pacific) Head of Digital Katie James provides a status update on Flybuys’ digital transformation, including its cloud migration and future application modernisation efforts.

She also outlines how Flybuys intends to digitally evolve its services, by forging closer data ties with its retail partners, and by increasingly surfacing loyalty and rewards data directly in the apps of retailers, in addition to Flybuys own properties.

She also outlines how Flybuys intends to digitally evolve its services, by forging closer data ties with its retail partners, and by increasingly surfacing loyalty and rewards data directly in the apps of retailers, in addition to Flybuys own properties.

New episodes coming soon!

AMP Bank hollowed out its core banking system and refactored up to 40 percent of the remaining code to prepare the system for a new life hosted in AWS.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, Group Executive Sean O’Malley details the bank’s path to core transformation, as well as progress in meeting other pillars of its technology strategy.

Bunnings has assembled an internal team of 700 people across five technology-oriented domains in less than four years, shifting from an almost completely outsourced operating model in the process.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, the architect of that shift, Chief Information Officer Leah Balter, discusses the progression and maturation of the digital, technology, data, architecture and innovation functions at one of Australia’s most iconic retailers.

We'll be back with new episodes soon!

Cancer Council NSW has established a 'single view of customer' across all of the systems it uses to raise funds as part of an ongoing effort to become fully digital and cloud first.

In this week's podcast, chief information officer Frances Waterford discusses the council’s IT structure, as well as the ‘single view of customer’ project and ongoing project works.

We'll be back with more interviews from Australia's technology leaders soon!

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank will put more than 700 staff through a new cloud workforce training program before the end of this year as its public cloud migration starts to heat up.

In this week’s iTnews podcast, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank chief information officer Andrew Cresp discusses the bank's new cloud guild with Amazon Web Services, dubbed Unleash.

We'll be back with more interviews from Australia's technology leaders soon!

BPAY Group is making headway with its goal to bring innovation to Australia’s payment system through its developer portal, and by expanding its global reach and cloud-based approach.  

In this week’s CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, BPAY Group chief information officer Angela Donohoe shares how the e-payment company is building new foundations and enhancing its current systems.

We'll be back with new episodes soon. For now we flash back to our discussion with Zip Co's former director of security and IT, Peter Robinson.

Original Description:

When Zip’s director of security and IT Peter Robinson joined the company two-and-a-half years ago, he was its only security staffer. 

The company - ASX-listed and a major player in the ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) boom - has scaled up rapidly in that time, growing from 100 people overall to over 1000.

The story of that scale-up, and the technology challenges it brought, is told in this week’s CXO Challenge interview on the iTnews podcast.

We'll return with new episodes soon!

Auswide Bank’s chief transformation officer Rebecca Stephens describes the multi-faceted transformation she was brought in to lead and run at the start of this year.

We'll be back with a new episode soon!

Original description:

Deakin University has spent the past 18 months modernising its approach to software delivery, adopting standard CI/CD tooling and removing manual effort in order to get code into production faster.

In this week’s CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, director of software engineering Aaron Whitehand shares the university’s modernisation story so far, covering its adoption of DevOps practices, automation and standard tooling.

We'll be back with new episodes soon!

Original Description:

Travel insurer Cover-More Group cut 15 percent of its enterprise application portfolio as part of a global consolation of its IT operations at the height of the pandemic.

The ASX-listed company – which operates in 22 countries – juggled the project, which is ongoing, while putting out spot fires during one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the travel industry.

Speaking as part of the CXO Challenge services on The iTnews Podcast, global chief information officer Nicki Doble said the standardisation aimed to consolidate systems across the global brand.

New epissodes coming soon!

Cyber security has rocketed to the top of corporate risk registries in recent years. But few board members attain their place due to any deep subject matter expertise. 

In this week's CXO Challenge, we speak to Roger Sharp the founder of North Ridge Partners, and the chair of several large listed companies in the finance and travel sector in Australia. Sharp talks about the need to take an holistic approach to the subject. 

We also discuss the challenge generally for directors to stay on top of the topic of technology driven transformation in an age of rapid digital acceleration.

New episodes coming soon!

Australian start-up Humanitix re-invests 100 percent of the profits from event ticket fees into education projects for disadvantaged kids.

The start-up had to transition its operations online when the pandemic hit, and has since expanded from its ticketing core into helping hard-hit event organisers run virtual events and - when borders reopen - safer in-person events.

NEW EPISODE

Suncorp Group has set a target to exit owned or leased data centres by early 2024, with 90 percent of workloads destined for public cloud and 10 percent for a hybrid cloud environment hosted “in close proximity” to its chosen public cloud infrastructure.

That ambition is to run largely in the cloud, with applications either virtualised or containerised, with few exceptions.

Hansen Yuncken is using 3D modelling software to ‘walk’ customers through the sequencing of their construction projects, improving transparency and explainability of risks such as time delays.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, Rexine Jones - who is both CFO and CIO of Hansen Yuncken - discusses the company’s use of Autodesk’s BIM 360 software.

She also details the lived experience and advantages of having finance and IT led by a single executive.

St Vincent’s Health Australia (SVHA) has set up a new enterprise-wide system to record, manage, and analyse data about incidents involving patients, clients, and residents. This includes falls, along with any safety hazards, across their hospitals, aged care facilities, and services nationwide.

Manager of Clinical Governance Informatics, Edel Murray, told the iTnews Podcast Team that the application called SVHA Riskman replaced five previous instances of a system formerly known as just ‘Riskman’.

New episodes coming soon!

Register for the State of IT 2022 report: itnews.com.au/state-of-it-2022

Strandbags has re-platformed its Australian and New Zealand websites with Shopify Plus and a mix of plug-ins under what it is calling ‘Project Future’.

In this week’s iTnews podcast, CTO Stuart Freer and head of digital & data delivery Paul Erskine discuss the origin, status and next steps for Project Future, as well as a new set of transformations beyond it.

PEXA runs core platforms for e-conveyancing and financial settlements of property transactions in Australia. It also has a growing insights business, and is expanding internationally. Chief Technology Officer Eglantine Etiemble talks about some of the projects underway, from a “big program of change” around customer and employee experience, to the rearchitecting of PEXA’s backend around a modular and API-first driven approach. She also walks us through the company culture and what she looks for in new hires.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, RBA chief information officer Stephen Smith describes the wide-ranging technology agenda and infrastructure currently being pursued by Australia’s central bank.

We begin this episode with a special message from editor-in-chief Ry Crozier.
We look forward to bringing you new episodes in 2023!

What does it take to set up the IT infrastructure at a zoo from scratch? It’s not something many IT managers will do, but Alonzo got the chance to, and shares a very different kind of startup story. This talks to the evolution from a one-person IT shop to the gradual build-up of resources and systems, and particularly how the zoo leant on technology partners to create innovative systems, from point-of-sale, to telecommunications, to accepting a wide variety of electronic payments. A specific case study in the episode also speaks to the zoo’s data analytics and BI environment, which is based on Azure and Power BI.

Our guest this week is John Cox, the CTO of Coles Group. There’s a lot of interesting things happening at Coles, including an in-progress shift to an events-based architecture. This has wide-ranging use cases, from in-store replenishment and reducing out-of-stocks on ecommerce orders, to anticipating customer service and listing next-best actions for team members. We also discuss the Group’s IT strategy, and why adoption of cloud services is not a specific strategic pillar.

In this weeks episode we’re joined by Alex.Bank chief executive Simon Beitz. As Australia’s newest bank we’ll discuss future plans and how the bank ensures its technology foundations are capable of scale and instilling the right processes while keeping the customer at the forefront of its mission. We’ll also talk about the early days of sleeping on shed floors as team mapped out its digital banking journey.

Executive Director of Information Systems & Technology, Hamish Cameron was a guest of the podcast back in mid-2021 when he outlined his ambitions for a mobile workforce transformation program, equipping 6000 sworn and non-sworn staff with a smartphone. Almost two years on, they are now in live pilot, and the podcast discusses device choice, applications developed and loaded, and UX efforts being run in parallel. Outside of the transformation, we also discuss IS&T’s efforts to transform its own operations so as to move from a service provider to a trusted advisor and influencer on technology matters to the broader SAPOL. This reflects the broader role that technology is playing in policing, and IS&T’s desire to have a front row seat strategically.

Head of Information Security and IT, Elliot Colquhoun. Airwallex is an Australian finance unicorn ($1bn+ valuation), and Colquhoun runs its IT and information security operations. The company has spent the past two years overhauling its application landscape and upgrading computers - a 50/50 Windows/Mac end-user environment. One of the reasons to do this, however, is that Colquhoun believes the state of internal systems is a signal to developers and builders about the quality that should be built into customer-facing products. The idea is to set a high internal bar, which then gets reflected in the products. IT and infosec also makes itself available to product teams to provide input and guidance.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews Podcast, Police bank chief executive office Greg McKenna talks about the banks ongoing whole-of-bank transformation which has been on the path of renewal as customers increasingly seek digital channels.

Horizon Power has completed a large-scale migration of applications and workloads from its data centres to a private cloud run by Macquarie Cloud Services. The shift to private cloud was for several reasons.

The WA government wants agencies and owned companies to have more of a cloud mindset. In parallel, the government has set ambitious targets to reduce whole-of-government carbon emissions, and exiting its data centre was seen as a key way for Horizon Power’s Technology team to do its part.

The private cloud choice was also partially for security reasons - Horizon Power has obligations under the Security of Critical Infrastructure or SOCI Act to contend with. Horizon Power is now set up to achieve some future-facing and data-driven ambitions, leveraging other cloud-based services.

La Trobe University's Director of Data & Analytics Anthony Perera leads a data and analytics centre of excellence that brings together data, analytics and data science operations that previously existed as distributed “pockets” of capability within the university structure.It is driving a major three-phase program of work, the first phase of which - standing up an Azure-based enterprise data analytics platform, or EDAP - was completed last year. The focus through 2022 was on the second phase, around data governance. A third phase, planned for 2023, will see La Trobe University “turbocharge” the migration of clean, standardised datasets from across the institution into the EDAP.

As Australia's largest online pet supply store, Pet Circle is investing heavily in technology, including most recently to support a trial of fully-owned last-mile delivery services in Perth, as well as in digital systems that make it easier to interface with courier partners elsewhere in Australia, and specifically to have more visibility into its supply chain. 

Some of this work has involved uplifting an existing Google Cloud Platform environment to track data on a “per customer order” basis. 

Behind the scenes, the company is also embracing infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and automation to increase velocity and speed-to-value.

iTnews spoke with Westpac's CTO David Walker to learn more about the bank's recent AI coding experiment.

This week iTnews speaks with the leader of NAB's Technology & Enterprise Operations Leadership Team and acting CIO of Personal Bank Paul Norman. 

iTnews speaks with Dale Hurley, Founder and Chief Digital Officer at Avenue Bank, one of Australia's newest banks about its current operations under a Restricted Authorised Deposit-taking Institution licence — and what the future holds. 

This week, iTnews speaks with Douugh Founder and CEO Andy Taylor about the fintech's future plans — and how it intends to help bring financial education into its user experience.

This is a repeat of one of our most popular episodes — we'll have the rest of Season 3 for you soon!

Our guest this week is John Cox, the CTO of Coles Group. There’s a lot of interesting things happening at Coles, including an in-progress shift to an events-based architecture. This has wide-ranging use cases, from in-store replenishment and reducing out-of-stocks on ecommerce orders, to anticipating customer service and listing next-best actions for team members. We also discuss the Group’s IT strategy, and why adoption of cloud services is not a specific strategic pillar.

iTnews speaks with SBS CTO Darren Farnham about the media organisation's tech strategy, strategic pillars, and a recent CMS overhaul.

This week we speak with Sandip Kumar, who’s the Executive Director of Transformation, about what digital transformation looks like in Australian healthcare, and his direct operations.

iTnews speaks with Sherrie Killiby, Executive Director, Strategy & Engagement at Transport for NSW.

This week iTnews speaks with Robert Lopez, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer at Norths Collective.

 As part of the 2024 iTnews State of Security report, iTnews speaks with  Sandro Bucchianeri, Group Chief Security Officer at NAB.

This episode of the iTnews podcast brought to you by Mimecast.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

As part of the 2024 iTnews State of Security report, iTnews speaks with Marcelo Dantas, Chief Information Officer at Automic Group.

This episode of the iTnews podcast brought to you by Jamf.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

As part of the 2024 iTnews State of Data report, iTnews speaks with Jared Woodruff,  Head of AI Engineering at Lander & Rogers.

iTnews is excited to announce the launch of the inaugural State of Data report on Thursday, June 20th, at a special Data Forum Breakfast at the NextDC Sydney Data Centre.

Readers are invited to register their interest here:

iTnews will host panel discussions with CIOs, CDOs, Data Analysts, and Data Scientists, covering topics from the report, such as Data Security, Data Analytics/AI, Data Storage, and Data Governance.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

As part of the 2024 iTnews State of Security report, iTnews speaks with Paul Russell, CTO at Gumtree Group . 

This episode of the iTnews podcast brought to you by Interactive.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

As part of the 2024 iTnews State of Security report, iTnews speaks with Jeroen Buwalda, Group Executive, Transformation, Technology & Operations at Colonial First State.     

This episode of the iTnews podcast brought to you by Brennan.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

In our latest iTnews podcast episode, we dive into the transformative
journey of Torrens University, a digital-first institution that has grown
from zero to nearly 20,000 students in just a decade.
Eoghan Hogan, former transformation director of Torrens University,
discusses the university’s commitment to online education, their innovative
digital learning model, and the significant transformation initiatives
undertaken to stay ahead in the competitive higher education sector.

Discover the Fusion5 approach to cloud migration with insights from Kris Jackson, General Manager for Cloud Infrastructure and Security, on achieving reduced costs, improved security, and stronger governance through strategic planning and effective management.
To learn more about maximising the value of your cloud migration. Please go to https://www.fusion5.com.au/

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

iTnews Associate Editor Eleanor Dickinson interviews David Griffiths, the Chief Information Security Officer of Northern Beaches Council. Griffiths shares insights on developing and implementing a cohesive security strategy for the council, emphasizing the importance of understanding information control, applying appropriate security measures, and building a roadmap for the future. He also discusses his transition from state to local government, highlighting the unique challenges of managing security across a diverse range of services and the importance of leveraging external partners and tools to enhance cybersecurity capabilities.

iTnews Podcast sponsored by Lacework and the 2024 State of Security Report

Stay tuned until the end to hear Anthony Rees, Field CTO at Lacework, discuss the importance of security hygiene, cloud posture, and code security, along with the need for visibility and prioritizing internet-facing assets to protect critical data and infrastructure.

As part of the 2024 iTnews State of Data report, iTnews speaks with Ashley Taylor, Global Voice of Customer Lead at Flight Centre.

This week's episode brought to you by NRI

Checkout the inaugural State of Data report. 

We explore the trends that are driving data analytics through to the latest strategies for how data is stored and secured, and focus on the rapidly maturing disciplines of data governance and AI governance.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

Vote Now for the iTnews Podcast in the Listeners' Choice Award at the Australian Podcast Awards! VOTE HERE

This week's episode brought to you by Stellar Cyber and the  2024 State of Security report.

NBN Co has launched a new five-year security strategy to align with the Australian government's cyber security initiatives, while reinforcing the role of security as a business enabler. Chief Security Officer Darren Kane, in a recent iTnews Podcast interview, discussed how NBN Co’s strategy integrates physical and cyber security into a unified model. The strategy emphasises the quantification of security risks in financial terms to enhance communication with executives and the board.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

Vote Now for the iTnews Podcast in the Listeners' Choice Award at the Australian Podcast Awards! VOTE HERE

The latest episode of the iTnews Podcast hear from ANZ Banking Group’s CISO, Dr. Maria Milosavljevic, as she discusses ANZ's security strategy, focusing on embedding security, building resilience, and driving business transformation.  

The iTnews Podcast is brought to you by Fortinet and the 2024 State Of Security Report.

We love to hear from our readers and advertisers, so please get in touch and let the friendly iTnews team help with your enquiry.

This week we're revisiting a discussion from last season — we'll be back on schedule with on October 14!

Senior Manager of Technology, Jeff Campbell

Horizon Power has completed a large-scale migration of applications and workloads from its data centres to a private cloud run by Macquarie Cloud Services. The shift to private cloud was for several reasons. The WA government wants agencies and owned companies to have more of a cloud mindset. In parallel, the government has set ambitious targets to reduce whole-of-government carbon emissions, and exiting its data centre was seen as a key way for Horizon Power’s Technology team to do its part. The private cloud choice was also partially for security reasons - Horizon Power has obligations under the Security of Critical Infrastructure or SOCI Act to contend with. Horizon Power is now set up to achieve some future-facing and data-driven ambitions, leveraging other cloud-based services.

This week we speak with Chris Crozier, CIO at Defence.

A boot camp run ahead of CyberCon this week aims to build future CISOs’ peer networks and business communication - skills that could help them make the transition into a security executive role.

It’s the second year the RSA Conference CISO Boot Camp has been held in Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Information Security Association (AISA), the organiser of CyberCon.

This year the boot camp’s co-chairs are longtime Thales Australia and New Zealand CISO Ben Doyle and Cyber Resilience Group founding partner and former Endeavour Drinks CISO Grant McKechnie.

Speaking to the iTnews Podcast, Doyle said Australia was the first country outside of the United States that the boot camp had been run.

Hello and Welcome to a brand new season of the iTnews Podcast. This week's episode is brought to you by Arctic Wolf and the State of Security Report. Stick around until the end to catch insights from Arctic Wolf’s Director of Engineering Steve Hunter on how AI is transforming cyber security—helping analysts cut through the noise, detect threats faster, and strengthen defences against evolving attacks.

But first, we have Endeavour Energy’s Information Security Manager Gijo Varghese. At the end of last year, Endeavour achieved ISO 27001:2022 certification for its Information Security Management System (ISMS) - a milestone in its ongoing execution of a 2024-2029 cyber security strategy. We start the episode with Gijo describing his domain function and the strategic pillars that the organisation is working to.

Hello and welcome to the iTnews Podcast. Our guest this week is Mark Potter, the chief information officer at Optus.

Optus has stood up a unified data platform that brings data from across a number of repositories into an Azure-based ‘lakehouse’ environment. Mark walks us through this large program of work, which is continuing, but he starts where the iTnews Podcast often does - discussing key priorities of the telco’s IT strategy.

This episode is brought to you by techpartner.news. Our sister channel publication CRN Australia is rebranding to techpartner.news on the first of April. Make sure you book mark techpartner.news in your browser, subscribe to the newsletter and register for our line up of events including Pipeline, the Impact Awards, Channel Meets, the MSP Index program and FAST 50.

Major Australian rail, infrastructure and building company John Holland is embarking on a comprehensive three-year digital transformation journey. For this, the inaugural episode of the iTnews CXO Challenge podcast, we explore the key pillars and systems up for transformation, and how emerging technologies will reshape both the company's operations and the broader industry.

Optus has restructured its enterprise business into a series of “digital practices”, areas of “deep specialisation” that are set up to work collaboratively on both internally-facing and external customer projects.

In this week’s iTnews podcast, Optus Enterprise vice president of customer solutions and cloud Theresa Eyssens talks about her arrival at the telco, the new structure of its enterprise business, and ongoing efforts to train thousands of staff in the cloud.

Cancer Council NSW has established a 'single view of customer' across all of the systems it uses to raise funds as part of an ongoing effort to become fully digital and cloud first.

In this week’s CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, chief information officer Frances Waterford discusses the council’s IT structure, as well as the ‘single view of customer’ project and ongoing project works.

IAG is a year into a major program of work aimed at uplifting the skills and capabilities of both its technology and operations organisation, and now people from across the group.

IAG - Insurance Australia Group - is the largest general insurance company in Australia and New Zealand, and is home to brands such as NRMA, CGU, NZI and Lumley.

In this week's CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, IAG’s executive manager for ‘technology enablement’ Suzanne Nottage, and technology capability development manager Sheryn Crummy, share the origins, strategies and successes of the ‘technology enablement’ function and team.

When Zip’s director of security and IT Peter Robinson joined the company two-and-a-half years ago, he was its only security staffer. 

The company - ASX-listed and a major player in the ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) boom - has scaled up rapidly in that time, growing from 100 people overall to over 1000.

The story of that scale-up, and the technology challenges it brought, is told in this week’s CXO Challenge interview on the iTnews podcast.

South Australia Police is preparing to embark on its most ambitious mobility program to date, with plans to equip all 6500 front and back office staff with a smartphone for the first time.

Australia’s fourth largest police force revealed plans for the four-year program in February give its officers the tools need to access information from critical systems on the fly.

Speaking as part of the CXO Challenge series on The iTnews Podcast, chief information officer Hamish Cameron unpacked the project and reasons for pursuing it.

Travel insurer Cover-More Group cut 15 percent of its enterprise application portfolio as part of a global consolation of its IT operations at the height of the pandemic.

The ASX-listed company – which operates in 22 countries – juggled the project, which is ongoing, while putting out spot fires during one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the travel industry.

Speaking as part of the CXO Challenge services on The iTnews Podcast, global chief information officer Nicki Doble said the standardisation aimed to consolidate systems across the global brand.

Woolworths anticipates a greater degree of cross-collaboration, partnership and embedding of skills between its WooliesX and Group IT functions in coming years, as digital technology is worked even deeper into the company’s core operations.

In this week's CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, Woolworths’ chief digital technology officer (CDTO) Nick Eshkenazi provides a detailed look inside the company’s technology operations and strategy, its customer-first approach to innovation, and some key projects that are creating value.

He also provides insight into his own - and WooliesX’s - approach to recruiting and retaining talent and his encouragement of a culture of experimentation.

Deakin University has spent the past 18 months modernising its approach to software delivery, adopting standard CI/CD tooling and removing manual effort in order to get code into production faster.

In this week’s CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, director of software engineering Aaron Whitehand shares the university’s modernisation story so far, covering its adoption of DevOps practices, automation and standard tooling.

TPG Telecom is taking a five-to-10 year view of its technology landscape and investments as it digitally transforms after forming from the combination of TPG and Vodafone last year.

In this week's CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, group chief digital and information officer Rob James discusses TPG Telecom’s merger and transformation into a digital telco, and provides his own take on approaching transformational strategy and initiatives.

PwC Australia is looking to reach the “next horizon” of its ongoing digital and data transformation under the gaze and drive of a new-look technology leadership team.

In this week’s CXO Challenge on the iTnews podcast, CDIO Jacqui Visch discusses her new role and remit at the firm, what the next transformation “horizon” looks like, and opportunities to leverage the global PwC ‘network’ to drive change in the local operations.

She also tackles technology leadership approaches, from care for tech teams to fostering an environment that allows people to constructively challenge ideas and canvas alternate approaches.

Australian start-up Humanitix re-invests 100 percent of the profits from event ticket fees into education projects for disadvantaged kids.

The start-up had to transition its operations online when the pandemic hit, and has since expanded from its ticketing core into helping hard-hit event organisers run virtual events and - when borders reopen - safer in-person events.

This week on iTnews CXO Challenge Rugby Australia's Head of Analytics, Cathal Garvey, discusses strategy, data architecture along with new and emerging use cases for data analytics.

This week on the iTnews podcast we speak with CreditorWatch CTO Joseph Vartuli as part of our ongoing CXO Challenge series.

Cyber security has rocketed to the top of corporate risk registries in recent years. But few board members attain their place due to any deep subject matter expertise. 

In this week's CXO Challenge, we speak to Roger Sharp the founder of North Ridge Partners, and the chair of several large listed companies in the finance and travel sector in Australia. Sharp talks about the need to take an holistic approach to the subject. 

We also discuss the challenge generally for directors to stay on top of the topic of technology driven transformation in an age of rapid digital acceleration.

A deep dive with CDO Rob Hale on the state of open banking in Australia.

On the show this week we have two guests from global education provider Navitas: Charlsey Pearce, who is Head of Marketing Services for Navitas’ Australasian and University Partnerships Division, and Richard Eason, Head of Technology and Systems in Global Sales & Marketing.

Navitas is building on some technology foundations to - in their words - redefine the educational journey for domestic and international students in Australia with increased tailoring and personalisation. 

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank will put more than 700 staff through a new cloud workforce training program before the end of this year as its public cloud migration starts to heat up.

In this week’s iTnews podcast, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank chief information officer Andrew Cresp discusses the bank's new cloud guild with Amazon Web Services, dubbed Unleash.

Australia Post is nearing the finish line for what was once billed as the ‘largest telecommunications transformation in the country’, and is now setting its sights on smart operations powered by connected devices.

In this week’s episode of the iTnews podcast, Australia Post’s head of technology for network and infrastructure engineering Shane Hazim provides an in-depth view of the four streams of work in the telecommunications transformation, and where the enterprise intends to go next.

In this week's episode of the iTnews Podcast, we have CBA’s chief digital officer Fredrik Lindström and CIO for technology for the bank’s retail division and distinguished engineer Brendan Hopper.

You’ll hear about CBA’s transformation of its software engineering practices, team and culture. 

We also talk about what digital looks like beyond apps and online services, and where CBA’s thinking is around future experiences and personalisation.

On the show this week, we have Westpac Group Chief Technology Officer David Walker talking about the bank’s ongoing transformation agenda, its transformation roadmaps and guiding principles.

David also talks us through Westpac’s efforts to adopt an evolutionary architecture and evergreen technologies as a way to transform the backend and set foundations for faster changes on the frontend.