ASIC's new CIO will tackle a big tech transformation

Australia's corporate regulator ASIC is in the market for a chief information officer to take the reins of the agency's big technology transformation following former CIO Wendy Bryant's departure to the ATO.

Bryant ended a five-year stint as ASIC's CIO when she left to take on a new role as deputy commissioner of service operations at the tax collector last month.

Her successor's first job will be to work out what to do with ASIC's registry business after the government baulked at selling it off to the private sector.

After 18 months testing the market for potential privatisation, the government scrapped its sell-off proposal after failing to find a compelling offer.

Part of the rationale for privatising the registry business was to avoid an expensive upgrade of the 25-year old technology underpinning its operations.

The decision to retain the registry means the new CIO faces the daunting task of pulling apart and replacing the legacy systems that run it.

The successful candidate will also take over efforts to modernise and streamline the agency's IT environment, put in place after a 2015 capability review found ASIC's data analytics, information management, and market surveillance platforms needed improvement.

The federal government last year revealed ASIC would raise $127 million from the industries it regulates in order to improve these areas. The funding kicks in later this year.

Already in train is the 'OneASIC FAST2' infrastructure overhaul, which will create a single repository of regulatory information, and stand up digital portals for external organisations. 

The agency recently created a dedicated data analytics team led by a chief data officer, and is currently working to move off Lotus Notes.