Swinburne University's CIO moves to Gartner

Swinburne University’s chief information officer of almost two years Sean Elwick has left the institution and taken up a senior executive partner role at Gartner.

Elwick announced his departure from the university on August 12 and revealed his shift to analyst firm Gartner ths week.

Jeff Murray has been appointed acting CIO at Swinburne University while a permanent replacement is sought.

Elwick said in his farewell letter to staff last month that he was “proud of all that the IT Team has achieved over the last two years, particularly through the demanding circumstances that we faced.”  

“Significant achievements include the enabling and evolution of online learning, remote and hybrid working, collaborating with the ‘business’ in the delivery of major projects such as Workday, the significant improvement in our cyber security environment and last but not least the rebrand and refresh of our mobile application platform,” he wrote.

“These and other achievements have made a positive difference to students and staff.”

Gartner said Elwick brought a range of skills to the organisation, including “the full remit of CIO responsibilities, strategy, financial governance and risk control, project delivery, vendor management and operational management.”

In addition to landing the services of Elwick, Gartner is also set to bring in MLC Life Insurance’s head of enterprise architecture Andrew Holcombe next week as a leadership partner.

Holcombe was at MLC for about a year-and-a-half.

Before that he was director of IT strategy at Victoria’s Department of Transport, director of enterprise architecture at Victoria’s Department of Justice and Community Safety, and a longtime financial architect with the likes of ANZ, NAB and AXA.