Defence CTO appointed Immigration CIO

Defence chief technology officer Matthew Yannopoulos has signed on as CIO at Australia's Department of Immigration and Citizenship following the retirement of DIAC's current CIO Tony Kwan.

Matthew Yannopoulos.

Yannopoulos will take on the CIO role in early October.

Kwan has served as Immigration CIO since 2011 after a long stint as CIO of the Australian Government's former Department of Education, Science and Training (now Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations).

Yannopoulos has served as Defence CTO since November 2008. As Defence CTO, Yannopoulos designed and planned the IT environment of Australia's biggest technology spender, with an annual IT budget of around $1.3 billion.

Yannopoulos managed a team of around 400 staff through a variety of programs such as the $800 million centralised processing project and $100 million next-generation desktop upgrade.

He championed Defence's data centre migration project, the recipient of a public sector Benchmark Award presented in February.

Yannopoulos finished his role as Defence CTO last Friday. The position has been temporarily filled by Major General Michael Milford and will be advertised shortly, a spokesperson said. 

Entries are now open for the 2014 Benchmark Awards, recognising excellence in IT project delivery during 2013.