NDIA hires Ajay Satyan as its CIO

The National Disability Insurance Agency has appointed Ajay Satyan as its chief information officer, taking over from Ian Frew who retired in April after a five-year stint.

Satyan joins from the Victorian Department of Government Services (DGS) where he was most recently its inaugural executive director of the state's first whole-of-government grants centre.

The CIO reports to NDIA’s CEO Rebecca Falkingham and manages three branches: ICT strategic projects, ICT support services and protective and cyber security. 

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), according to its most recent annual financial sustainability report, operates via three core systems.

These include an enterprise data warehouse and two SAP-based systems that it shares with Services Australia: one for finance and one for customer relationship management (CRM). 

NDIA is preparing to roll out a Salesforce-based CRM system called PACE from October 30, “subject to a final assessment,” which will include reviewing feedback from a trial of PACE that has run in Tasmania since November.  

The agency plans to gradually bring NDIS’s roughly 600,000 participants to the new CRM over 18 months; new participants will begin in PACE and existing ones will be migrated when they start new plans. 

Prior to working at DGS, Satyan spent four years at the Victorian Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions, first as its director of enterprise architecture and strategic platforms and then as the executive director of its program centre.

He has also previously held other senior IT roles at the federal Department of Environment and Energy and the Australian Taxation Office.