2005 Canberra Branch Conference IT in Government

Information Management – Striking the Right Balance Ms Rozanne Frost, General Manager Chief Information Officer, CSIRO IT Corporate Operations Group   Biography: After completing a maths degree, Roze started work as programmer at BHP Steelworks in Newcastle. She continued as a programmer analyst for the next four years working mainly in commercial and manufacturing areas until leaving to have children. Yes even in 1980 maternity leave had not been granted! In 1986 Roze entered the workforce part time again as a programmer analyst at BHP Newcastle but over a five year period started to move into establishing governance frameworks for IT. In 1989, when BHP IT was formed, Roze commenced full time work and was part of a taskforce to agree and implement the governance framework as a key part of establishing BHP IT from seven different entities. This program took four years to implement with a focus on accreditation to IS9000, implementing methodologies and processes for IT development and project management. This was a key role in strengthening Roze’s management skills as the role depended on working by influence as opposed to working in line management. In late 1994 Roze transferred to BHP Engineering in Sydney as the business project manager to implement ERP systems. After 15 hard months of major business process change, an SAP solution was implemented successfully. However the added benefit was being coached in project management by the engineers. Roze stayed in BHPE as their IT Manager with the main goal of transitioning the IT staff in BHPE to BHP IT. In 1997 Roze transferred to BHP IT as program director for a $20m portfolio of projects for Newcastle and Whyalla Steelworks. After a few months this lead to a transfer to Whyalla to project manage two major projects which were in trouble – Roze rescued one and closed the other. In 1998 Roze was appointed as Transition Manager for Whyalla in charge of all IT with a goal of reducing IT costs to BHP Steel Whyalla from $16m to $9m. This was a major organisational change program with the end result of reducing the staff from 160 to 30 over an 18 month period. This was a very intense but incredible period in Roze’s career and very formative in her abilities as a leader. In mid 1999 Roze moved to a management position in BHP IT as second in charge to the leader of the infrastructure services organisation – a $120m business with 900 staff. In this role Roze was the planning manager and responsible for the organisational change in implementing the serviced delivery model (trialled in Whyalla) across BHP IT’s sites. In 2000 Roze transferred to CSC and spent the first four months in the team transitioning BHP IT to CSC. As a reward Roze was appointed service delivery manager of a $90m contract for CSC at AMP. This was a national position based in Sydney and at the time AMP / GIO had commenced on a downward business trend. Roze also was project director for a portfolio of projects around property moves. In 2001 Roze commenced work at the Health Insurance Commission as vendor manager for the IBM outsourcing contract. This involved good relationship skills and working with IBM as a business partner rather than only an infrastructure service provider. In this role negotiation skills were required to resolve all the contractual issues. Again Roze oversaw a portfolio of projects as HIC commenced a major business improvement program. In 2003 Roze moved to CSIRO as the CIO. In her time she has established an enterprise wide $60m IT unit for CSIRO out of 22 units in Divisions and Corporate. In 2005 Roze is looking forward to indulging in the information management role in CSIRO and being part of the value add to the science.

 

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Last updated: 8 November 2005