Tech sector advocate Sunita Bose turned heads this week, announcing she will take over as CEO of the Alliance for Gambling Reform (AGR) starting next week.
Ms Bose stood down from her role as managing director of peak tech sector association the Digital Industry Group (DIGI) earlier this month. She succeeds Martin Thomas, who departed AGR this week for family reasons.
Established in 2015, the AGR lobbies for harm prevention reforms to gambling standards and has been a major presence in recent campaigns for industry ad bans.
Beginning her career as a media officer for the United Nation children’s aid organisation UNICEF, Ms Bose relocated to San Francisco in 2012 to work as a media lead for Oxfam, before going on to almost six years at Change.org as its head of global policy.
Joining DIGI in 2019, Ms Bose has coordinated the platform industry’s response to a surge in misinformation and had been one of the chief critics of the Albanese government’s social media ban while advocating on behalf of Group members including Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok.
“Sunita brings deep industry and regulatory expertise, the ability to build coalitions and drive legislative change — exactly what this growing movement to protect Australian families from gambling harm demands at this moment,” AGR Chair Angela Tillmanns said.
Ms Bose said her seven years leading DIGI had seen rapid implementation of online safety laws and consumer protections.
“The slow pace of gambling reform [by contrast] is stark — despite high levels of community concern, no countervailing social benefits from betting, and mounting evidence of harm,” said Ms Bose.
“I’m eager to be part of the solution, and to lead the Alliance for Gambling Reform at such an important time.”
Artificial intelligence hyperscaler Anthropic has opened recruitment for a jack of all trades policy and communications expert to be the public face of its Australian data centre rollout.
Per a job ad posted Friday, the community engagement manager for data centres will be tasked with delivering an “engagement playbook and repeatable processes that scale as Anthropic’s infrastructure footprint grows”.
Anthropic has plans to buy up almost half of Australia’s operational data centre capability – around 1.4 gigawatts – by the end of 2027. But centre developers like Firmus and NEXTDC have been grappling with community push back and a push by Canberra to regulate how the infrastructure is powered and cooled.
“When we signed an MOU with the Australian Government in April, we committed to aligning with Australian expectations and values to maintain a strong social license for investment,” Anthropic head of policy ANZ David Masters said in a LinkedIn post. “The person in this role will help us deliver on that.”
The job description tasks the community engagement manager with establishing relationships across state and local governments and building Anthropic’s social license as it takes up data centre tenancy.
Anthropic’s forthcoming share market float is expected to be the largest in corporate history.
Tech research strategist and software engineer Amr Hassan has departed Monash University after 10 years to join data centre operator Firmus Technologies.
Mr Hassan joined Monash as technology services and e-research lead in 2018, and most recently has been leading its Project Maveric – a $60 million advanced AI research supercomputer which came online in Melbourne earlier this year.
His new role at Firmus is yet to be revealed.
Federal trade and investment promotion agency Austrade has lost one of its top US executives Jessica Richman, who will take on a new States-side role as managing director with Macquarie Group.
Ms Richman departs Austrade after a decade in San Francisco as its director investment and its quantum technologies lead.
She joins Macquarie Capital, the Group’s corporate advisory arm, as its go between with tech companies on artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum.
Software provider TechnologyOne’s long serving COO Stuart Macdonald has announced he will resign in November to join Hansen Technologies as CEO.
Mr Macdonald will succeed Andrew Hansen, who will transition to executive chair after 36 years as the software company’s CEO. Current chair David Trude will also retire in November.
Tech leader Dr Sue Keay has been voted deputy chair of the Kingston AI Group, Australia’s top academic advocacy body for AI innovation.
Currently also director of the UNSW AI Institute, founder of the Robotics Australia Group, and an Adjunct Professor at QUT Centre for Robotics, Dr Keay has been a Kingston member since its founding in 2022.
Griffith University has tapped IT research and health tech expert Sarah Flaim as the next director of its Office for Research. The Oxford grad will join the Brisbane university in November.
Ms Flaim has been COO of the federal government-backed National Imaging Facility since 2022, previously working as a general manager at the University of Queensland’s School of IT & Electrical Engineering.
Decidr AI has appointed Andre Liao CEO of its new acquisition, US workflow software developer Sugarworks ahead of planned Asia Pacific expansion.
A c-suite veteran within the tech sector, Mr Liao was CEO and president of software test platform Appvance for five years through 2024.
He succeeds Sugarworks founder Vanessa Liu, who will oversee a transition of leadership before joining Decidr’s board.
Green tech startup Samsara Eco’s founder and CEO Paul Riley will step down after almost six years due to illness, but will stay on in an advisory capacity.
Samsara’s interim general manager Matthew Koenings will take on the CEO role while recruitment is underway for a successor.
Global fintech and data communications firm Transaction Network Services has appointed Michael Johnson as global managing director payments market business.
Mr Johnson returns to TNS after a year as CEO of rival fintech PAX Technology Australia, which has yet to name his successor.
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