2023 CIO Awards Finalists

Sean’s leadership style is centred on a client-centric culture that places the client’s success at the centre of everything Chapman Tripp does. He champions open communication and collaboration and believes that this is pivotal to people embracing a shared purpose and goals. Through his leadership his team understands how the ICT strategy links to the business strategy and he encourages continuous learning to reach their career aspirations. Sean has promoted a team culture that encourages his team to ask questions and identify pathways, mentoring other team members for them to contribute more fully as a group and individually. He has regular, interactive sessions with senior leaders across the firm to ensure everyone understands the role of ICT in the business strategy. Through his leadership, his IT team has delivered huge advancements in several areas by taking bold moves to completely modernise core systems that deliver on Chapman Tripp’s transformation goals. His IT team prides itself as being open and collaborative. We are now seen as a trusted business partner to collaborate and engage with rather than a traditional service provider. Sean continues to build strong relationships alongside open and transparent communication to break down the barriers and encouraging our technology teams to think about our strategic priorities as one rather than as a siloed IT area.

The evolution of the digital strategy and transformation at REINZ really accelerated when Miles took on the role as Chief Digital Officer in 2021. He challenged technology decisions, the direction, and ability to execute effectively, looking to the industry for best practice to transform and pivot the digital strategy 180 degrees, and realign it towards the business strategy. Inheriting a substantial multi-year digital transformation programme, Miles took decisive action to reset towards a new Digital Strategy that would not only underpin the organisational strategy, but also help setup capabilities that would strengthen the long-term capabilities of the organisation and result in a full business transformation outcome. This was done in a fraction of the time and cost of the original plan. Miles has a strategic mindset and a natural ability to question and challenge the status quo, look for external factors, look for market and product disruption, and pivot. As a result of the reset Miles was able to shift REINZ’s digital and data strategy to focus on data as being a core asset; promoting innovation for the industry, and creating new commercial and technologically disruptive opportunities around data, focusing on innovation and choice for REINZ’s members. As a result of Miles’s leadership, his team and the wider REINZ business transitioned through a period of change to position the organisation for success through disruption and innovation.

NZ Rugby Commercial (NZRC) manages the commercial activities related to rugby to enable a laser focus on their customers and delivering commercial success back to rugby in New Zealand. They live by Te Ara Rangatira, the four pou of The Rugby Way – Be Welcoming, Be Our Best, Be Passionate and Play Fair. As the Chief Information and Technology Officer, Angela set a goal for NZRC to be the leaders in utilising technology inside rugby in previously not-seen-before ways and creating back-end systems that deliver world-class capability to commercial and rugby teams both on and off the field.  These ambitions led Angela and her team to focus on the data landscape, launching a Data Centre of Excellence (DCoE) and Data Governance Committee with representation from all business units and key stakeholders. The team undertook a full re-architecting and re-building of the data warehouse and SSO solution to scale rapidly. Along with other innovative products this work enabled Angela to drastically move forward technology within NZRC, as a true partner and enabler to the business. Angela hires smart people and lets them be smart, enabling autonomous action for the entire team by creating supportive systems and processes. Deliberately open communication allows for a hightrust, empowered environment and her leadership style promotes a trusted environment where the team can openly challenge and debate outcomes in a healthy way. As a result of Angela's vision and leadership technology inside NZ Rugby is unrecognisable from only a few years ago and provides a platform for more some exciting plans on what comes next.

One of Michael's first action when he joined the University of Canterbury (UC) as Chief Digital Officer,  was to lead the development of a Digital Vision and orientate planning to ensure there was a clear alignment to UC's strategy.  Consulting with the Digital Governance Board, Michael used a democrative approach, forming its own strategy team and co-creating the Digital vision with representative groups from across UC. Now the Digital Vision of UC is described as “a strategic enabler to deliver relevant, distinctive and world class learning, research, and collaborative experiences to a global audience". This is underpinned by an empowering workplace experience that enables its people by digitally embracing Whanaungatanga, Manaakitanga, and Tiakitanga. Building a trusted partnership and reputation for delivery with the University has been key in the successful transformation.  Michael and his team now work hand in hand with UC’s strategy team to ensure all digital services product investments and projects are aligned into UC’s strategy. Michael describes his approach to leadership as adaptive, while being alert and ‘situation sensing’. He has demonstrated a democrative approach to leadership, empowering his teams to make decisions, to feel safe to express their opinions, to be listened to and know they have participated in decisions he needs to make.  He see's his role as guiding the tiller, while his team is the engine in making their transformation a reality.

Recently joining the ANZ bank, Farhein is part of the enterprise BI team in the Data and Analytics Department, enabling her colleagues and customers to achieve better business outcomes, through fit for purpose, reusable, and actionable insights. In her previous role, as a senior analyst at the Ministry of Health, Farhein showed her capabilities as an emerging ICT leader. She led the development of a comprehensive health dashboard aimed to provide a systematic overview of the health of New Zealanders while addressing the focus on equity in healthcare. For Farhein leadership is about empowering herself and others to actively contribute to improving the nation's healthcare system for better health outcomes. From collaborating across cross functional teams to communicating insights to policymakers and ministers, Farhein is an advocate for data-driven decision-making. She plays an active role in mentoring and guiding colleagues, sharing her expertise and knowledge on utilising technology fordata analysis and interpretation. Through this advocacy, engagement with business leaders and raising awareness of the benefits of the use of ICT indata analysis that Farhein has demonstrated her leadership qualities.

Auckland Council's ICT Innovation team developed a low cost, high impact solution using a data telemetry network, open source and real-time data reporting technologies. It was designed to enable efficiency, planning, and decision-making, delivering a triple bottom line of business value, environmental impact (animal welfare, native bird protection, stream water quality) and community empowerment. Testing the solution took the team to remote off grid locations where traditional network or power options were unreliable and patchy such as valleys where streams and pest traps are often located. As a result of this initiative Auckland Council has created a foundation for future innovations such as water resource monitoring, waste processing, and building energy/carbon impact reporting. From generating value of real-time data to create insights, improve business processes and inform decisions, it is changing the organisation's approach realise the opportunities for to deliver operational improvements and track progress towards a sustainable future.

Auckland based technology leasing specialist Quadrent is aiming to solve two ESG problems in Aotearoa. First, 120,000 students lack access to a digital device for their education, exacerbating digital inequality and impacting learning. Secondly, only 4% of e-waste is properly recycled in Aotearoa, with most going to landfill. Quadrent utilises the leasing model to create a circular economy product, the Quadrent Green Lease. Customers donate 20% of their leased devices, such as laptops, to students from communities in need. At the end of the school year the student returns the device, where it can be passed to the next student or properly recycled if it has reached end of life.