Service NSW chief executive Damon Rees will “hand the baton to the next steward” at the end of this year to establish business consulting firm Better As Usual.
Mr Rees has spent five years at Service NSW, notably hitting the agency’s digital service goal to make more than 85 per cent of government transactions available online two years earlier than targeted. During his tenure he oversaw the launch of the digital drivers’ licence, an app-based QR code contact tracing tool, and Dine and Discover vouchers.
The New South Wales Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Victor Dominello thanked Mr Rees for his service in a LinkedIn post.
“Every time an idea was pitched to you and the team – instead of saying no – you said ‘let’s unpack this’ and then looked for a way to make it happen – with such an acute focus on customer experience and inclusion,” Mr Dominello said.
“You are a zen master. An inspirational leader of the most humble kind. I wish you every happiness and success in your next chapter.”
The new chief executive of accounting software firm Xero will be Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. She will replace Steve Vamos, who has served in the role for almost five years, from February 2023. Mr Vamos will return to his former work in business coaching and leadership development as an advisor, director and investor.
Ms Singh Cassidy has over 25 years of executive leadership including as President of StubHub and President of Google’s Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations. She is also a prolific board director, previously holding positions at Ericsson, TripAdvisor, and Urban Outfitters.
From February 2023, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) chief executive will be Sue McCarrey, the current National Rail Safety Regulator chief executive. She is succeeding Stuart Smith who has been in the role since 2014. NOPSEMA’s head of division for offshore renewables, environment and decommissioning Cameron Grebe will act in the role until Ms McCarrey joins the regulator.
Ms McCarrey formely spent five and a half years as the deputy director general of the Western Australian Department of Transport and is currently on the National Women in Transport chief executive officer advisory group.
The University of Western Australia’s acting deputy vice-chancellor (research) Professor Anna Nowak will be formally appointed to the role from January 2023 onwards after acting in the role since January. She was previously pro vice chancellor (health and medical research) in 2021 as well as associate dean (research) for the faculty of health and medical sciences for half of 2020.
Professor Nowak was a practicing medical oncologist at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital between 2005 and the January 2022.
Professor Ben Eggleton has been made Sydney University’s pro-vice-chancellor (research). He is currently the director of the University of Sydney Nano Institute, co-director of the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN) and a Professor in the School of Physics, where he leads a research group in photonics, nanotechnology and smart sensors.
Professor Eggleton was also the founding director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems between 2003 and 2017. He has also received a several awards, including Academic of the Year at the 2022 Defence Industry Awards.
The AROSE space industry consortium in Western Australia has established an International Space Council to drive its global engagement strategy and long-term strategy. It includes 10 members across the university, public, and private sector. This includes Dr John Blitch, founder of the United States-based Center for Robot Assisted Search and Rescue, and Linda Dawson, the Western Australian government’s deputy director general for industry science and innovation.
Adelaide-based Fleet Space Technologies co-founder and chief executive Flavia Tata Nardini has been celebrated as South Australian Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year. The chair of the South Australian Pearcey Committee Susan Andrews said they were “impressed by Flavia’s leadership, extraordinary tenacity and bravery”.
Scale Facilitation has appointed Adam McEvoy as director, supply chain. He will work to strengthen the supply chain for portfolio company Recharge Industries and its research partners, including CSIRO, the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre, and Deakin University. He previously spent more than 13 years at Woodside.
The new head of data science and engineering at Australia Post is Phil Chan. He is being promoted after almost two years as the AI Platform/MLOps data engineering manager.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has promoted Mark McLeish to general manager electricity markets and Kate Hebbard to general manager.
