Telstra has appointed a new group owner of IT strategy and transformation, securing the services of Suzanne Aitken from Digital Victoria.
Aitken is the second executive to leave Digital Victoria – an entity set up to centralise and simplify the Victorian government’s IT services – in a matter of weeks, after its inaugural CEO Michael McNamara left to head up technology, digital and data at Australia Post.
Both Aitken and McNamara were with Services Australia before joining Digital Victoria.
Aitken’s appointment was announced in a LinkedIn post by Telstra’s group executive of product and technology Kim Krogh Andersen.
“Suzanne joins us from Digital Victoria, a startup within the Victorian government where she was the chief of strategy and operations,” Krogh Anderson wrote.
“With extensive leadership experience in digital strategy creation, execution, and operational management, Suzanne will lead our IT transformation and culture change program – building modern IT, digital, and product engineering functions.”
Krogh Anderson also unveiled the appointment of Cheryl Davis as group owner of sales and commerce engineering.
Davis comes from AWS where she was director of customer engineering for the APJ region – Asia Pacific and Japan. She has also spent time with EMC and VMware.
“As group owner of customer sales and commerce engineering, Cheryl will develop and maintain IT as a service reusable customer, sales and commerce capabilities to deliver exceptional customer and user experiences,” Krogh Anderson wrote.
Both Aitken and Davis are in the software engineering and IT leadership team, which is fronted by Kieran O’Meara, and which sits more broadly in Telstra’s product and technology team.
A Telstra spokesperson confirmed the appointments, saying both Aitken and Davis are “well-credentialed and will play an important role in delivering on Telstra’s digital leadership ambitions.”
A Digital Victoria spokesperson was also contacted for comment.