Open Universities hires former Service Stream exec as IT boss

Open Universities Australia has appointed Robert Pickering as its new head of IT, with the executive to take the lead on a wide-scale simplification of the education provider's technology environment.

Robert Pickering.

Pickering left former employer Service Stream in June, where he had been the head of IT delivery and support for around a year. He previously served as the chief technology officer and national engineering manager at Anittel.

An OUA spokesperson told iTnews Pickering’s new role would see him focus on simplification across OUA’s infrastructure and application landscape.

“OUA has many key projects in the investigation phase, including infrastructure consolidation, contact centre infrastructure and targeted operational improvements to digitise OUA across areas where manual work takes place today,” the spokesperson said.

“Pickering’s role will also focus on security and risk identification, continuing to build on the very robust platforms and keeping ahead of the curve in this essential area.”

The position was previously held by Erik Van Eekelen, who initially joined the online education provider in early 2013 as an agile and UX manager.

According to LinkedIn, since leaving OUA in April, Van Eekelen has been a “researching a number of topics related to technical leadership, artificial intelligence and startup acceleration” as a “travelling innovation leader”, and has plans to return to Europe in September.

It's the second loss of an IT executive for Service Stream in the first six months of this year. The company's former CIO Hubert Van Dalen left the company after 15 months in the role, attributing the departure to "cultural differences".

Van Dalen has since taken on a senior role with enterprise messaging solutions vendor MessageMedia.