Speakers Biographies

Speakers List
Steve Rudlin

Steve Rudlin has enjoyed a successful career for over 30 years as a senior manager in a range of ICT companies, spanning software, services and hardware infrastructure. He has worked for major organisations in Australia, New Zealand, Asia/Pacific, Europe and the United States.

Currently the State Manager for Sun Microsystems, he was formerly the National Manager of Sun's Government practice.

He has been a board member of the DSTC Cooperative Research Centre since 2000 and also sits on the Advisory Board of the Queensland BITS -funded inQbator.

Steve is very committed to IT industry development and in 2002 was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to the IT industry.

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Peter Bars

Peter has over 20 years information systems consulting and project experience in Australia , Asia and Europe . Prior to joining Deloitte he was responsible for Gartner Consulting in the Asia Pacific region.

Peter specialises in the provision of consulting services to clients in areas such as IT strategic planning, system selection and vendor negotiation. Peter has extensive experience with the management, quality assurance and risk assessment of complex, large scale IT enabled change programs for clients such as Australia Post, Woolworths, Colorado , Victoria Police, Boots the Chemist, Country Road and Woodside.

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Peter Grant

Peter Grant was appointed to the position of Assistant Director-General of the Office of Government ICT, Department of Public Works in June 2005. Peter brings to the role a wealth of experience and knowledge of the ICT Industry, from both the Private and the Public Sector.

In his current role, Peter will help foster and develop relationships between the Office of Government ICT and the private Sector, forming partnership arrangements to aid delivery of whole-of-Government and multi-agency initiatives.

He also plays a fundamental role in driving and implementing the action items of the Smart Directions Statement, a key government planning tool to guide Queensland Government investment in projects and services where there is a major ICT component.

Previously, Peter was the Foundation Director of Consulting for Gartner Asia Pacific where he provided advice to more than 60 National and International Clients. In June 1998, Peter took over the role as Director of IT for Queensland Transport and prior to this, Peter lectured in Information Systems Management, Strategic Information Systems Planning and Information Systems Project Management at the University of Southern Queensland.

Peter was also co-founder and Managing Director of OZONE Systems, a Technology Start-up Company which he ran for nine years. In this time he established an extensive Client Base supporting 1200 clients, throughout North America and Europe.

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Fulton Smith

Fulton Smith is General Manager, Applications Services. The Applications
Services team, consisting of over 500 staff, support all core IT applications that in turn support our clients and customers in the delivery of Suncorp's services. Fulton is a relatively newcomer to the IT Industry, having a strong background in the areas of Strategic and Change Management, Leadership and Team Development. He holds tertiary qualifications in Education, Organisational Behaviour, Human Resource Management, and Management Systems Analysis.

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Jeff Alexander

Meet the man that consolidated the  Australia and New Zealand data centers into a single Asia pacific Data Center in a project that reduced the number of Microsoft Data centers from 23 to only 4. 

Jeff Alexander started at Microsoft in August 1987 as a Support Professional focusing on management tools for Microsoft's Enterprise customers. Since then he has moved through several external facing roles before taking on one of the Worlds largest Server consolidations -Microsoft's Asia Pacific infrastructure. 

Jeff Alexander  now focuses his passion for Infrastructure and management technologies as an Evangelist promoting and enabling the community of  IT Professionals through vehicles as Technet events; blogging, the TechNet Web Site (Technet lounge), User Groups, MVP's, and online webcasts.

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Lindy MacPherson

Lindy MacPherson is the National Manager – Organisational Development & Human Resources for Data # 3 Limited. Data # 3 is a publicly listed, Information Technology Solutions Company, with over 500 staff located in five Australian states, with a annual turnover of $197 million.

Lindy’s Organisational Development & Human Resources team develops and implements ‘people’ related strategies and programs, to achieve Data # 3’s business initiatives and outcomes. The team also manages HR policy for the business and provides payroll & HR services to every staff member in the company.

Lindy’s role is responsible for the development of the expertise of Data # 3 staff – technically, professionally and personally. She is the instigator, senior manager sponsor and program leader of Data # 3’s e-Learning strategy.

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Sonja Breeze

Sonja Breeze has been at Ingeus Australia for a little more than 7 months and in that time has risen from IT Purchasing Officer to IT Service Centre Manager. Before that she worked for McCullough Robertson Lawyers where she established and supervised the IT Service Centre.

Born in Australia , Sonja started her IT career whilst living in England on a working holiday.

Following her success in an IT Helpdesk role for a leading business consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group, she progressed into Network Management and Security.

Having no formal qualifications in IT, Sonja has learnt everything from on-the-job experience and training. Whilst working for UK firms she was able to travel to European and U.S. offices to gain invaluable experience in all facets of IT support and network structures.

Following her return to Australia , she was soon recognised as unique in her field and won the 2004 Technical Scholarship offered by Women in Technology (WIT). Sonja is an active member of WIT, participates in the judging of the yearly Scholarship Awards and speaks at numerous WIT events.

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Chris Austin

Chris Austin is the National Instructor Manager of Dimension Data Learning
Solutions. His team of 40 instructors deliver a wide range of technical
training courses in a diversity of products including Cisco, Microsoft,
Citrix, ITIL, Checkpoint, IBM/Lotus and Novell.

After early forays into ITC in the days of punch cards and FORTRAN code
Chris spent many years teaching Physics and Mathematics. The passion for
teaching and ITC led to further tertiary studies and vendor certifications.

This assisted his "career change" into an ITC organisation delivering a
range of vendor certified courses to the vast majority of corporate
organisations as well as stints of consulting with both network and
directory service designs.

Chris is now responsible for managing and implementing strategic planning,
technical skills development and operational areas of the business.

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Andrew Edelsten

Andrew Edelsten grew up with computer game and entrepreneurial aspersions which shaped his and his family’s development. Due in part to Andrew’s deep interest in computers and games his father started Auran in 1995 and Andrew worked there part-time from age 15 until he finished his university degrees. After graduating Andrew took up a position as a commercial lawyer in the Sydney offices of Mallesons Stephen Jaques before returning to Auran in 2002.

Auran currently employs around 60 IT professionals both in Brisbane and in its studio in Gothenburg, Sweden.

The studio has over 10 years of development experience and is well regarded by computer game publishers and developers worldwide having worked for the likes of Activision, Electronic Arts and Atari. Auran is currently working on a Triple A competitive online RPG entitled “Fury” which will launch around Christmas 2006.

At Auran, Andrew has numerous responsibilities that daily see him handling legal issues, management of teams and technical evaluations. Now with over 10 years experience in the computer games industry, Andrew is ready to take Auran, and a new targeted initiative N3VRF41L Publishing, into exciting new areas of computer games and online entertainment.

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Martin Retschko

Martin joined Hudson in 2000 and has held a variety of roles spanning IT Recruitment Specialist, Principal IT Recruitment Consultant, IT&T Service Delivery Manager and IT&T Practice Leader in Melbourne.

Prior to joining Hudson, Martin worked as a Senior Consultant in Executive Recruitment Practices in Melbourne. Before his 11 year’s in the Recruitment Industry, Martin worked as a Project Manager in the Property Sector.

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Megan Peach

Megan Peach is the Australian Orientation and Integration Coordinator for Accenture.  Megan’s qualifications include a Bachelor of Science (Honours in Psychology) and Bachelor of Educational Services.  Her published research work has explored employee readiness for change and she has worked in HR / Change management across IT implementation and organisational development initiatives, for the public and private sectors.

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