EDS announces Easter replacement

Service provider EDS has appointed Chris Mitchell as its new head of operations in Australia, following a regional restructure and loss of local MD Don Easter.

Mitchell takes on the newly created role following the amalgamation of EDS Asia-Pacific North and EDS Asia-Pacific South into one.

Former Australian operation MD Don Easter left earlier this year following that regional restructure. Easter now fills a board of directors chair at Brisbane-based distributor Cellnet Group.

New Australia MD Mitchell will report to Phil Pryke, who became vice-president and GM for EDS Asia-Pacific in April.

Mitchell promised a strong focus on what he called EDS' 'core strengths' in the coming year. EDS employed around 12,000 staff in the Asia-Pacific, providing business technology and services to verticals such as financial services, manufacturing and telecommunications.

'They're still talking through what we will be focusing on this year, but we will be continuing to use the real strengths we've got globally,' he said. 'We have an obvious focus on service quality and delivery. EDS is a pretty exciting place to be.'

Mitchell - a UK-born Australian citizen -- had just finished a two year 'tour of duty' in the US, where he was based in the state of Texas as an EDS overseer of global communications sector development and president of strategic technology services.

Previously, he was a senior vice-president at EDS management consulting subsidiary AT Kearney. At AT Kearney, he led the Asia-based communications, media and entertainment practice.
 
He began his career as a programmer, moving on to systems programming, program management and technical consulting and on to his more recent managerial and executive roles in his 20-year career.

'With my previous roles, I've obviously got a good head for strategy. I think I will be bringing strategic thinking as to how we focus on the market here,' Mitchell said. 'I've got management relationship and development skills and consulting experience. With AT Kearney, I've done operations, and IT technical consulting.'