Microsoft has appointed Christopher Healey as chief financial officer for Australia and New Zealand, marking his return home after more than seven years based at the company’s Seattle headquarters.
Mr Healey succeeds Gael McLennan, who transitioned from CFO to chief operating officer ANZ in April.
“It’s a privilege to return home and take on this role at such an important time for our industry,” Mr Healey said in a LinkedIn post.
“AI is changing how organisations operate, make decisions and serve their customers, with the potential to lift productivity, strengthen global competitiveness and create broader economic opportunity.”
Previously a commercial manager with Coca Cola Europacific, Mr Healey joined Microsoft as an investment controller in 2017, most recently serving as senior finance director Microsoft AI.
Nick Walton has meanwhile stepped in as managing director of Microsoft New Zealand. Mr Walton was Amazon Web Services managing director Southeast Asia and New Zealand for five years through 2021.
He succeeds Vanessa Sorenson, who transitioned to become GPS ANZ director in March.
Energy and water infrastructure expert Ben Lathwell has been appointed director of the New South Wales Investment Delivery Authority, the government’s front door for private investment in infrastructure like data centres.
Previously a policy manager with Snowy Hydro and an advisor to former NSW Planning minister Rob Stokes, Mr Lathwell most recently was director policy and regulation at WaterNSW.
“[I’m] looking forward to playing a meaningful role in facilitating delivery of major private investment projects and in turn supporting NSW productivity and prosperity,” Mr Lathwell said in a LinkedIn post.
The Bureau of Meteorology is on the hunt for a new chief information security officer. Senior public servant Cassy Baker has been acting in the role since January.
The band one executive role will oversee the national weather agency’s cybersecurity and cyber engineering operations. The new appointee will be the agency’s fifth CISO since 2019.
The Tech Council of Australia has poached Kate Blashki from tech industry association the Digital Industry Group to be its new head of regulatory affairs.
Previously Meta’s head of content regulatory compliance policy Asia Pacific, Ms Blashki has also worked for TikTok owner ByteDance and most recently as DIGI’s associate director policy.
“Kate brings broad experience across global technology regulation, having led regulatory policy on governance issues including online safety, privacy, AI, and digital platforms,” the TCA said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ former press secretary and long-serving Labor Party staffer Megan Lane has joined Airbnb as its head of public policy ANZ.
Ms Lane worked with the shadow treasurer for two years through 2021 and most recently served as executive director strategic and crisis communications for cybersecurity and cloud provider CyberCX.
US-headquartered PsiQuantum has appointed Skype co-founder and deep tech venture capital fund Atomico’s chief executive Niklas Zennström to its board of directors.
Atomico has invested in multiple of PsiQuantum’s fundraising rounds since 2020.
“Atomico has partnered with PsiQuantum for years and watched this team build technologies beyond the state-of-the-art. It is thrilling to see them now execute and scale,” Mr Zennström said.
Australian quantum computing scale up Diraq has appointed veteran deep tech executive Amy Leong as its inaugural head of commercialisations and partnerships.
Ms Leong joined the Sydney firm earlier this month having most recently served as CEO and senior advisor of global semiconductor testing firm AEM.
The newly launched Global Quantum Industry Group has also named Ms Leong its inaugural chair; the invite only, C-suite organisation was launched in April to build networks and develop quantum industry standards.
The head of Australia’s largest public service union Melissa Donnelly has been tapped to lead the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
Ms Donnelly joined the Community and Public Sector Union as a senior legal officer in 2005 and has been its national secretary for the past seven years.
Current ACTU national secretary Sally McManus will depart at the end of August, with the peak union body’s president Michele O’Neil set to follow later in the year.
CSIRO has tapped its change integration director Kate Callaghan to step into a new director strategy role.
Beginning her career in marketing, Ms Callaghan joined the national science agency as COO space and astronomy, most recently serving as change integration director.
The National Australia Bank is undergoing a tech leadership reshuffle ahead of the departure of its group executive, technology and enterprise operations Patrick Wright and COO Les Matheson in September.
Mr Wright will become an advisor to NAB CEO Andrew Irvine from October ahead of his retirement early next year.
NAB executive Peter Steel will transition to a new role as group executive for technology and AI, while Shane Conway will transition to group executive of transformation and operation.
Academic advocacy body Kingston AI Group has welcomed Monash Laureate fellow and professor of data science and AI Geoff Webb as a member.
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