Sydney Water CIO to retire

NSW water utility Sydney Water is looking for a new chief information officer to replace current CIO Stephen Wilson when he retires from full-time work in January.

Before taking on the position in 2012, Wilson served as the CTO at Qantas. He also spent five years as the CIO at the NSW Department of Education, where he oversaw the implementation of the federal government’s digital education revolution program.

During his time at the utility, Wilson led an enterprise-wide mobility program called Sirius, which aimed to transform the way the agency collects and uses data in asset maintenance.

Scheduled for completion in the middle of next year, the program will overhaul field work practices through the deployment of a new workforce management system, alongside GPS tracking and mobile devices.

Wilson’s IT efforts also included the rollout of the agency’s first cloud-based platform in Office 365, the introduction of new customer billing systems, and the initial phases of an SAP ERP system deployment.

Sydney Water expects the rollout of these projects to be continued by Wilson’s successor.

“Sydney Water thanks Stephen for his valuable contribution to the organisation during his three and a half-year tenure and wishes him and his family all the best for the future," a spokesperson said.

In a job ad for his replacement, the utility asked for an executive with at least five years’ experience in a CIO or CTO role, along with a further 10 years' IT management experience within a utility or service company, including overseeing an SAP deployment.

Based out of Sydney Water’s head office in Parramatta, the incoming CIO will be part of the executive team and report directly to the managing director, with applications closing November 27.

‎Sydney Water IT capability partner Lachlan McEwan will step in as interim CIO from November 9.