Financial regulator embarks on CIO hunt

The Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA) has opened applications for its chief information officer role, which has been vacant for almost a year.

AFSA is the Australian government agency charged with overseeing personal insolvency and trustee services. It operates the national system allowing property buyers to check whether a third-party holds a security interest over prospective purchases.

The last executive to permanently hold the CIO role was Kerrie Foster. Her one-time deputy Todd Porter has been acting in the role since December 2014.

The AFSA CIO holds a seat on the agency’s senior executive team and board.

The self-funded agency describes its services as “increasingly enabled by technology and data management activities”.

AFSA was one of the first targets of the Australian National Audit Office’s campaign to assess the adequacy of cyber security across all Commonwealth agencies.

At the time of the report (pdf), the audit team assessed AFSA as being less than halfway down the path towards achieving mandatory adherence to the ASD’s top four cyber mitigation strategies.

Cyber security will be key amongst the CIO's list of responsibilities, which will also include platforms and services, enterprise architecture and enterprise systems.

"You will have a focus on data, information, and performance in large scale and complex systems to better meet current and future business requirements," the job ad states.

The agency is looking for an “outstanding leader” with “sound judgment, intellectual rigour, well-developed communication skills and a high level of resilience and integrity”.

Applications for the role close on October 23.