Keynote Speakers

Keynote Speakers - Thursday June 19th

The Hon. Peter Dunne, Minister of Internal Affairs

Hon Peter Dunne, born in Christchurch in 1954, graduated from the University of Canterbury in 1977 with a Master of Arts degree with Honours in Political Science, and has also studied business administration at Massey University.

He worked for the Department of Trade and Industry in Wellington during 1977-78, prior to joining the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council holding various posts up to 1984. He has been an MP since 1984, holding the north-west Wellington seats of Ohariu; Onslow; Ohariu-Belmont and Ohariu.

He was Minister of Revenue and Associate Minister of Health from 2005 to 2013, and also Associate Minister of Conservation between 2011 and 2013. He has been appointed Minister of Internal Affairs, Associate Minister of Health and Associate Minister of Conservation since January 2014.

He has also previously held the Internal Affairs portfolio before, in 1995.

Earlier he was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the fields of Health (1987-89); Trade and Industry (1987-89); Energy (1988-89); Regional Development (1988-90); Commerce (1988-90); Justice (1989); Environment (1989-90); Internal Affairs (1989-90); and Local Government (1989-90).

He has also written two books: "Home is Where My Heart Is", published in 2002, and "In the Centre of Things", published in 2005.

Naomi Ferguson
Commissioner and Chief Executive, Inland Revenue

Naomi Ferguson took up her position of Commissioner and Chief Executive of Inland Revenue on 21 July 2012.

Naomi is an experienced public sector executive with more than 20 years' experience working in revenue agencies in the United Kingdom (UK) and New Zealand. She has successfully delivered major transformational change projects and built effective teams to deliver results. Prior to coming to New Zealand, Naomi was the Director, Business Customer and Strategy at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the UK. Naomi also completed a secondment with Inland Revenue New Zealand from 2003-2006 in the Deputy Commissioner, Service Delivery role.

Naomi has a Master of Arts in English Literature and Sociology from Glasgow University. She has also completed a Tax Inspector Full Programme qualification.

Away from the workplace, Naomi enjoys travel, reading and walking, and is enjoying revisiting favourite spots across New Zealand.

Tim Occleshaw
Government Chief Technology Officer
Deputy Chief Executive of Internal Affairs - Service and System Transformation

Tim reports to Government Chief Information Officer Colin MacDonald, who is also the chief executive of the Department of Internal Affairs. He has a dual role – a cross-government role as Government Chief Technology Officer, and Deputy Chief Executive of the Department of Internal Affairs.

The Service and System Transformation Branch has two main functions. It provides considerable support to the GCIO’s work, and it also manages Internal Affairs’ own ICT requirements. In the cross-government space, Tim’s responsibilities include delivering and monitoring progress towards the Government ICT Strategy and Action Plan to 2017, developing ICT common capability products and services which can be used across government, and leading ICT Assurance.

Tim joined Internal Affairs in December 2012 from Inland Revenue, where he was Deputy Commissioner, Information, Design and Systems, responsible for information strategy, service and solution design, enterprise architecture and IT operations and services, including modernisation and transformation of Inland Revenue’s information systems. Prior to that, Tim was Chief Information Officer at the Ministry of Social Development – both jobs for four years. In July 2008 he won the New Zealand CIO of the Year award.

Tim has spent more than 25 years working in the financial services sector in Australia and New Zealand, in a variety of business and IT management roles including heading IT for ANZ New Zealand.

Alastair Grigg
GM Platform Ventures, Xero

Alastair is responsible for developing new product and service offerings that support Xero's growth strategy and platform vision. Prior to that he was Xero’s COO for over 6 years, overseeing all aspects of product development and production operations since Xero was launched 2007.

Alastair has over 20 years of IT industry experience with roles in IT service providers including IBM, Geac and Telecom-Xtra as well as start-ups Glazier Systems and utilyx.com. Before joining Xero, he was CIO at Air New Zealand, where he was responsible for a large portfolio of 400 enterprise systems and 200 IS staff supporting more than 10,000 staff globally.

Keynote Speakers - Friday June 20th

Steve Hodgkinson, OVUM

Steve is Ovum’s global Chief Analyst for Public Sector research and advisory services. Based in Melbourne, he authors research reports and advises Ovum’s clients on a range of ICT strategy, purchasing and management decisions.

The major focus of his research work is on leading edge thinking and practice about the use and management of IT in the public sector. He covers the evolution of the CIO role, government IT strategy and cloud services as a catalyst for IT-enabled transformation. He aims to provide practical guidance for executive decision makers by explaining the relevance and impact of technology trends and developments.

Steve is regularly asked to chair and present at industry conferences and events around the world on IT trends and issues. He sits on the industry advisory committee for the NSW State Government in Sydney.

Prior to joining Ovum he was the Director eGovernment Strategy & Policy and Deputy CIO for the Victorian State government in Melbourne. He has a doctorate in Management Studies from the University of Oxford and a first class honours degree from the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Andrew Lamb, CEO, Digitalworks Europe / Pacific

A formidable evangelist for the end-user, Andrew specialises in helping businesses understand what their end-users expect, what they actually experience and how to bridge the gap profitably.

Drawing on people / process / systems thinking from an end-user perspective Andrew explains the relationship between brand and user experience, why people give up and the value / viability of fixing the experience so more people successfully complete their interaction online.

Andrew’s teams have achieved double-digit increases in visitors and revenue in financial services, automotive, travel/tourism industries as well as the public sector.

Prior to starting Digitalworks Europe, Andrew was accountable for the online delivery of transactions valued at £300 million per year for the UK’s largest insurance company.