Nikoletatos quits La Trobe Uni for Optus

La Trobe University chief information officer Peter Nikoletatos has resigned from his role to join the public sector strategy and innovation team at Optus Business.

The CIO today informed staff at the university that his last day would be July 14.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to all of you who have made my time here such a great experience on both a professional and personal level," he said in a note to staff, sighted by iTnews.

"For me, business survives less on leadership skills and more on the commitment and dedication of employees.”

Nikoletatos did not return request for comment. Optus later revealed he would lead the business operation's education and local government team.

The executive will leave just a few months shy of his three-year anniversary at the university.

He joined La Trobe in September 2014 following a two-year stint as CIO at the Australian National University, and an interim gig as technology leader at UNE.

He has spent around 12 years in technology executive positions within Australia's tertiary education sector.

During his time at La Trobe, Nikoletatos helped to make the university the first enterprise in the world to go live with SAP's cloud-based finance suite S/4HANA - an initiative started by his predecessor Ged Doyle - part of an aggressive shift to the cloud that also saw the uni's core student management system shifted to a cloud-based TechnologyOne platform.

A spokesperson for the university said it would now commence a recruitment process for a replacement CIO.