NT reveals first digital govt head

The Northern Territory government has appointed Queensland Health technology director Sandie Matthews as the inaugural head of its new Office of Digital Government.

The Department of Corporate and Information Services began looking for its first whole-of-government technology leader to front the new office in June, which was given $5 million in the latest budget.

The role replaces the government-wide CIO position the Labor government had pledged to introduce prior to entering office.

Matthews has spent the past four years working at the Queensland Health, most recently as senior director of the infrastructure and network integration management branch at its Health Services Information Agency.

Prior to Queensland Health, she worked for more than 11 years at the federal Department of Human Services, and two years at the Department of Defence.

One of her first tasks will be finanalising and implementing the territory's first digital strategy. It remains the only jurisdiction not to release a whole-of-government ICT strategy.

Corporate information services minister Lauren Moss said that Matthews' long service history working in large government agencies positioned her to "enable successful change and deliver outcomes that improves services to the broader community".

“Ms Matthews recently spent nine months on secondment with the Queensland Government chief information officer to assist in lifting leadership capability within the technology domain across government departments by ensuring a collaborative and integrated approach to innovation, strategy, leadership, planning and development activities," Moss said.

Matthews will commence next month.