Key Clients

• NSW Government – Stronger Communities
• Suncorp
• Woolies X
• ASX
• Woolworths
• Telstra
• Graincorp
• Westpac
• AMP
• Macquarie Bank
• Mobil Oil
• TNT Australia

Key Achievements

As Program Director for Wave 2 of the NSW Government, Process and Harmonisation (PaTH) program, Rob worked with stakeholders across the Stronger Communities (SC), the Dept of Planning & Environment (DPE), Dept of Enterprise, Innovation & Technology (DEIT), Regional NSW (DRNSW); as well as Accenture and the PaTH Program Team to plan for the Wave 2 deployment of the consolidated NSW Government, SAP platform.

As Program Director at Suncorp, Rob oversaw the establishment of a new plan and budget that encompassed the entire enterprise and the first launch of the ForgeRock platform. Suncorp were looking to replace their unsupported Oracle identity platform with a new ForgeRock identity platform.

As Program Director at Woolies X, Rob worked to manage the initial planning and priorities of the program to re-platform the Woolworths Rewards and Loyalty systems with a SAAS solution.

As Program Director at ASX, Rob managed the restructure of the CHESS Replacement Program to replace the legacy CHESS Clearing and Settlement system with a world-first technology solution using Distributed Ledger Technology (Blockchain). The highly complex project utilised both agile and waterfall methodologies and required the coordination of 3 major vendors alongside multiple internal ASX project and business teams to provide a new system that once complete, will be deployed to / integrated with 100+ ASX customers.

As Program Director at Woolworths Petrol, Rob worked to confirm that the Fuel Business was ready and able to legally separate from Woolworths (during the sale to the EG Group) within a very tight sale deadline. The deal saw the fuel business having to establish a stand-alone IT capability in a short timeframe and utilise a Technical Services Agreement with Woolworths to permit continued access to key systems.

As Program Director at Woolworths, Rob oversaw the deployment of the new 1Store systems (managing all POS, Ticketing, and Inventory functions) to all 3,475 Woolworths Group stores across 7 banners (Woolworths, Countdown, BWS, Dan Murphy’s, Metro, Big W and Petrol) across both Australia and NZ. This challenging project used both agile and waterfall methodologies to optimise the project risk profile. This project was recognised as being highly successful, finishing on time and on budget and winning multiple internal awards.

As Program Manager for Telstra International’s Project Fun, Rob successfully managed and implemented the commercial launch of an $8B new telecommunication start-up / joint venture in the Asian market. The program team won the FY16 Telstra CEO Award. To ensure issue-free launch, Rob worked closely with the business units to deliver scope and implemented a large-scale business simulation of the launch itself to identify and rectify any defects, scope gaps, training and process gaps before finalisation. The project launch was then cancelled within 4 weeks of initial go-live due to commercial risk reasons.

As Program Director for Telstra GES, Rob designed and ran two key programs – Program Teal and ServicePLUS. These were important strategic initiatives with budgets in excess of $50M to improve efficiencies for the business. As part of his role, Rob was successfully able to deploy SAP ERP functionality to capture sales, delivery, and billing information. He also successfully realised significant reduction of Quote Turnaround Times and Quote Conversion Rate. The program was delivered ahead of budget and schedule.

As Program Director for Grain Corp’s Program Connect, Rob drove the highly strategic program consisting of 36 separate key initiatives and a cost of $55M over three years to realise enterprise-wide benefits including reduction of supply chains costs through improving efficiencies across rail, IT systems, and program planning. He also enabled better engagement with growers and buyers via mobile applications and new products. The program was able to fundamentally reduce the costs of the GrainCorp supply chain and increase the overall revenue by $40M EBITDA.

As Program Director at Westpac, Rob managed the Scope, Commercials, R&I, Quality, and Procedures for the $280M Online Transformation Program. This was the largest IT program within Westpac and the biggest Online Banking Program in the world at the time. Rob defined program scope and documented the business case for submission to the board. He then managed and resolved all key issues, managed the contract between the Bank and the primary vendor, and all changes to the program scope including change requests and their associated cost impact.

As Project Director for Westpac – IT Infrastructure for the St George Merger. Rob successfully defined the strategy to align the IT infrastructure of the two Banks and optimise into one Enterprise. He was able to navigate key challenges for the merger including IP Network Address Resolution, Virtual Desktop solution rollout for 600 staff to work across the two organisations and introduced a Common Desktop / Email strategic solution. The role included oversight of project teams, funding, and compliance.

As Program Director at Westpac, Rob managed the 2010 Program / IT Infrastructure Contract. This program was responsible for developing and implementing the strategic structure of Westpac IT and its major outsource contracts. Rob managed all aspects involving IT infrastructure (i.e., mainframe & midrange processing, storage, data centers, and security). Rob was successfully able to design & develop a future operating model for Westpac IT including team structures, technology strategy, and shadow organisation identification. For the Program, Rob also developed a new IT outsource contractual model – this included documenting Westpac and St George’s current state and future state.

As a Program Director for Westpac, Rob led Program Unity as a Program Director. The program involved relocation to Auckland and creation of a new Auckland-based Head Office for the Westpac New Zealand. Rob managed the full building design & handover to the construction partner. He also managed the development of plans to rationalise nine existing CBD locations into a single new location including Data Center relocations, application relocations, HR, Change Management, Risk & BCP, IT Infrastructure, Building Operations, and Finance.

Rob served as the final Westpac Program Director for the Our Great Place (OGP) project, managing the final stages of the staff migration into the new Westpac building at 420 Kent St and managing the decommissioning and migration of the data centers and technology from the multiple redundant sites across the Sydney CBD.

As Program Manager at Westpac, Rob successfully delivered the Enterprise Business Recover / Disaster Recovery program. The was a $24M, 2-year program to provide better Disaster Recovery and Enterprise Business Recovery by re-engineering approximately 30 applications and replicating a copy of the data across the secondary data centre. Rob was able to increase the ratio of protected critical applications within Westpac from 79% to 99%.

As Program Manager at Westpac for the Datacenter Refurbishments for the Enterprise Business Recovery / Disaster Recovery Group, Rob managed an $8M program to install critical IT capability into the chosen BCM sites. He also successfully delivered a $12.5M project to refurbish critical Electrical, IT, and Engineering infrastructure to lower the risk of a Datacenter failure in the North Ryde and East Chatswood DCs.

As Program Director for Westpac, Rob led the One Bank Platform (1BP) for the ambitious $100M initiative. He was able to successfully deliver the leading edge standardised, stateless, managed, desktop platform across the Bank. As a Program Director, he had full responsibility for delivery including implementing Enterprise IT Infrastructure across Australia and New Zealand. This involved multiple project streams on time and within budget. Rob under his management, rolled out approximately 15,000 workstations (out of a final program total of 26,000) across the Business Banking, FP&A, International Operations, and Corporate Business Units.