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John Wadeson

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John Wadeson PSM
Chief Information Officer, Infrastructure
Department of Human Services

From 2010, John Wadeson has led the Department of Human Services (DHS) ICT Infrastructure Group. DHS encompasses Centrelink, Medicare Australia, the Child Support Agency, CRS Australia, Australian Hearing and HSA Group as well as the Department of Human Services. ICT Infrastructure underpins all the services delivered through these agencies as well as providing the network to support 35,000 staff. DHS is in Australia’s top 100 organisations in terms of size and turnover and also has one of the nation’s largest IT groups.

The DHS ICT Group delivers a staggering amount of “business as usual” services to Australians, with an increasing number available online. The Group also stands ready to respond quickly to new Government initiatives and provide fast, agile ICT support for agency staff helping Australians caught in major emergencies such as the recent floods, cyclones and bushfires. As the person in charge of the Infrastructure group, John’s role is to ensure that DHS has the required capabilities to meet these expectations.

As head of Infrastructure John is also tackling the huge and complex task of managing the integration of ICT platforms across DHS agencies as well as furthering the Governments shared service agenda. This must all be done without interruption to service delivery.

Prior to taking up his role in DHS, John was CIO at Centrelink, the largest of the five Australian Government service delivery agencies. John was a foundation member when Centrelink was formed in 1997 and was made CIO in 2006 after what was already a long and distinguished career in Australian Government service delivery. During his time at Centrelink John led many of Centrelink’s first substantial direct customer capabilities, online – on the ‘Net, by IVR Natural Speech Recognition and electronic communications with “third parties”.

Underpinning John’s critical IT role is an extensive background in social welfare at the national level in Australia, including two extended periods working in service delivery in Brisbane and Perth and an extended stint in charge of Centrelink’s Disaster Recovery program.

John was awarded the Public Service Medal in June 2011.

John was part of the debate team at WIC's 2011 Winter Dinner and Debate.

Last modified at 17/09/2011 9:22 PM by WebAdmin