Women in Information and Communication

Air Vice-Marshal Margaret Staib was appointed Commander Joint Logistics in January 2010 and as Australia's Senior Defence Strategic Logistician, is accountable for the oversight and assurance of the Defence logistics capability.

In 2000, Air Vice-Marshal Staib's contribution and leadership in the field of ADF Aviation Inventory Management was recognised when she was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross.

A posting with the United States Air Force at the Pentagon furthered her experience of logistics transformation, including strategic procurement initiatives with industry, supply chain integration and technology and her service was recognised with the United States Meritorious Service Medal.

Air Vice-Marshal Staib is a graduate of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the Australian Defence College and the Harvard Club of Australia.

She is also a graduate of the United States Marine Corps Supply Chain Executive Program at Penn State University.

Air Vice-Marshal Staib is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Member of the Australian Institute of Management.

Air Vice-Marshal Staib holds a Bachelor of Business Studies, a Masters of Business Logistics and a Masters of Arts in Strategic Studies.

In January 2009, Air Vice-Marshal Staib was appointed as a Member in the Military Division of the Order of Australia.

Air Vice-Marshal Margaret Staib is a senior female leader in the Royal Australian Air Force and as such, is interested in the future direction of women in the Australian Defence Force.

Air Vice-Marshal enjoys spending time with her fourteen-year-old twins, Alexandra and Lachlan, and catching up with friends.

Helen Skrzeczek began her ICT career in the the private sector before joining the Public Service in the late 80s.

She has worked for several years in the Department of Social Security and subsequently Centrelink. As one of the IT National Manager's her responsibilities included managing a large number of mission critical systems, leading a wide range of high profile projects as well as managing Centrelink's Infrastructure branch.

In November 2008 she joined the Department of Education, Employment & Workplace Relations. As Group Manager Technology Solutions she is currently responsible for the delivery of applications covering Early Childhood, Schools, Higher Education, Workplace Relations and Corporate. She is also responsible for Enterprise Architecture, IT Strategy and Portfolio Management.

WIC is excited to announce that all WIC members are invited to a members’ only high tea event!

 

WIC will be inducting Senator Kate Lundy as our WIC Patron. While you enjoy some relaxing afternoon tea, Kate will start a discussion on “the internet, public sphere data and technology related policy”.  The following is a sneak peak of the topic:

 

In a recent speech to the CeBIT Gov 2.0 Conference, Senator Kate Lundy advocated that there is a key cultural and attitudinal shift that needs to occur if we are going to leverage the opportunities of the Internet to engage with and serve the changing needs of citizens as they choose to engage online.

 

Kate will discuss invading public data and the need for cultural and attitudinal change to embrace modern technologies and communications tools in the day to day business of government.

 

 

Register via http://2010wicmembershightea.eventbrite.com/

 

Pip Marlow has worked for Microsoft for 15 years, and currently holds the Enterprise and Public Sector portfolios as a Director for Microsoft Australia.  Her role is responsible for managing one of the largest sales teams in the company, servicing Commercial, State and Federal Government clients. Prior to taking responsibility for these areas, Pip was the Director for Small and Medium Business Solutions & Partners in Australia and has held multiple roles in the US at Microsoft’s  corporate head office in Seattle.  Pip was born, raised and educated in Palmerston North, New Zealand. She currently lives in Sydney with her Scottish husband and two daughters, Sophie & Lucy.

 

Register at http://2010wichotbreakfastseries.eventbrite.com/

Amanda Green is Field Enablement Lead for IBM’s Growth Markets Unit. In this role she is responsible for ensuring deployment of IBM’s growth play strategies to our sales force in over 200 countries. Based in Canberra she has worked across the public and financial services sectors. She started her professional career working for a global management consultancy based in London and Hong Kong, has lived and worked in several countries but would hate anyone to think that represented a planned and considered approach to her career.

 

Her working life has included driving Nigella Lawson’s husband’s car, taxi driver, sales, teacher, child care worker, cinema usherette, librarian, waitress, management consultant all of which have given her considerable experience in motivation and organisational change, alignment of organisational strategy with structure and process and how to get the best out of your workforce. She is the parent of two teenage daughters. She may own too many pairs of shoes, has a crush on Jason Statham, likes cake, has pets, blogs and twitters. Not all of the preceding may be true.

Register at http://2010wichotbreakfastseries.eventbrite.com/

 

Join us to elect and welcome the 2010-2011 WIC Board.

 

The annual WIC AGM is a great opportunity to network and also hear from an excellent speaker.  Louise Carter, Director of Performance Partnership will be joining us to discuss the topic “Better than chocolate – Do we love our jobs too much?”.

  

If you are interested in joining the WIC board, then please nominate!  Being a part of the WIC board is a fantastic opportunity to grow your skills, experience and network, and looks pretty good on your resume too.  To nominate, simply download and fill in the nomination form and return it to the WIC Secretary (emailwic@gmail.com) by 2/06/2010.

 

The WIC AGM is a free event but we do encourage you to register for catering purposes.

 

Kate Muir, MBI

  

 Kate is the Assistant Secretary of Information Management and Corporate Systems (IMaCS) in the Division of the CIO, in the Department of Human Services, Australia.

 She has had many years experience in ICT founding the first Information Management areas within the Australian government.  She created the Knowledge Team in Centrelink, which became a centre of excellence for the management of metadata, business intelligence and data warehousing.

  

 She has done some consulting before returning to the Public Sector 2 years ago to set up IMaCS.  She has also lectured in Information and Knowledge Management at University of Canberra, and the Canberra Institute of Technology.  She (gratefully) graduated with her Masters of Business Informatics last year.

  

 She is the co-founder of act-KM, a world wide pre-imminent Community of Practice and founder of the KM awards within act-KM.  She is also a moderator for the KM awards program for IKMS in Singapore.

Helen Austin is the Chief Solutions Architect for the Standard Business Reporting Program at the Treasury. This draws on her 30 plus years of experience in ICT, as the SBR program brings together systems from 12 federal and state government agencies and several hundred commercial software developers. Before joining Treasury, Helen was Assistant Secretary Transaction Delivery for the Access Card Program in the Department of Human Services. The major part of her long career in ICT was spent as a contract programmer for Health, Social Security and Centrelink, with valuable spells out in Crimtrac and a private software company. She joined the public service in 2001 as Enterprise Architect for Centrelink. During her career she has seen the proportion of women in IT rise and fall and would like to get this stabilised.

  

 Helen has an MBA from Canberra University and is a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society.

The annual WIC in Winter Dinner and Debate has become a night many will not miss. The night once again was a combination of celebration of the year past, networking, acknowledgement of achievement and humorous debate.

  

 WIC Vice President Horrigan had the honour of announcing the WICked Woman of the Year for 2009, Nerida Gill.

  

 The debate this year headed into murky waters of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

  

 Overseen by Amanda Bresnan, Greens MLA, the two teams battled out the argument of could women have controlled the barons of Wall Street? and finally would the world be in such a financial mess if women were in control?

  

 For the affirmative was:

 Shelley Oldham - Public Sector Lead Capgemini

 Kate Lundy - Senator for the Australian Capital Territory

 Phil Sloper - ACT Regional Manager Oracle

  

 For the negative was:

 Brendan Smyth - Member of the Legislative Assembly (Member for Brindabella

 Judy Hurditch - Director Intermedium

 Terry Moloney - Federal Director for Microsoft

  

 It was a strong battle with quotes from Wikipedia, searches from Google, several references to Margaret Thatcher and Monica Lewinsky. However, in the end, it was determined by the audience that there would not have been a GFC if women were in charge.

  

 The debate was followed by the traditional monster raffle with some wonderful prizes on offer.

 

  

 WIC in Winter Dinner and Debate was once again proudly supported by KAZ Group Pty Ltd (a Fujitsu Company).

WIC held a cocktail party to coincide with the AGM. Along with the normal AGM activites, WIC was pleased to have Sheryle Moon, CEO of the AIIA as a speaker. She spoke in both a humorous and thought provoking manner on "IT Takes A Woman".

The inaugural WIC in Winter Dinner and Debate was a great success.

  

 The evening began with a welcome and a few pithy comments from the newly elected President, Heather McEwen, before the Vice President announced the winner of the WICked Woman of the Year, Dr Pei Yean Lee.

  

 Following main course the debaters took to the stage to argue the topic that, "Women are not emotionally, intellectually or genetically disposed to work in the Information & Communications Technology industry!".

  

 Arguing for the topic were the purple team of:

  

 Senator Kate Lundy

  

 Catherine Jaktman - Vice President of the Australian Computer Society

  

 Sheryle Moon - Director of Recruitment and Staffing Solutions for Manpower

  

 Arguing against the topic were the orange team of:

  

 Senator Gary Humphries

  

 David Lamont - Lurker, Urger and Coat-tugger

  

 Tony Robey - Executive Chairman of Wizard Information Services

  

 Interestingly however, all the teams ended up arguing against the topic (although the Chatham House Rule prevents any more detail being released) and even though they didn't really prove the point they were meant to the purple team won the day when a show of coloured serviettes was called for.

  

 The night wound up with the massive lucky door prize draw with prizes donated by various businesses in the ACT.

  

 The inaugural WIC in Winter Dinner & Debate would not have been possible without the support of Acumen Alliance.

A Canberra tradition, WIC proudly supported by Accenture, once again brightened up the cold winter months with our annual Christmas in July. WIC members and guests alike joined together for an evening of Christmas merriment mixed with networking.

Ann Steward (General Manager, Capability Creation and Management, Centrelink) was the guest speaker for WIC's annual Christmas in July which was held at the National Botanic Gardens.

WIC held a cocktail party at the Canberra Museum and Gallery at which Sherry Pullen, Senior Executive, Minter Ellison Consulting and Principal, spoke.

Kate Lundy, Senator for the ACT, Australian Labour Party, addressed the WIC membership at The National Press Club. This luncheon was sponsored by Acumen Alliance.

Guest speaker Maryanne Campbell

 Funnybone Counselling

 Sponsored by Transact

Guest speaker Kathy Black

 Vice President, Engineering for Teradata Database

 Sponsored by NCR Corporation

Guest Speaker Professor Dale Spender

 Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland

 Sponsored by Compaq