NDIA CIO steps down from role

NDIA CIO steps down from role | Insurance Business Australia

Insurance News

NDIA CIO steps down from role

He played a key role in the agency’s tech improvements

Insurance News

By
Roxanne Libatique

National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) chief information officer (CIO) Ian Frew has retired after five years in the role.

Frew is a technology expert who entered insurance in 2003 as the manager of personal insurance systems at Suncorp, where he was responsible for managing a department of more than 80 people in seven teams across the complete software development lifecycle (SDLC) and staff for major projects.

In 2006, Frew joined Allianz Australia as the head of IT development, leading over 80 staff to deliver the company’s general and life insurance projects across all channels. In 2008, he became a consultant at Veridical, where he reviewed IAG’s SDLC. He then moved to IAG, where he served various senior roles.

In 2017, Frew became a senior consultant at Veridical Integration. In January 2018, he joined the NDIA as the CIO.

Former NDIA CIO announces retirement

In a LinkedIn post, Frew announced that he has stepped down from his leadership role and highlighted his team’s achievements over the years.

“I can’t express how proud I am of the OCIO team who have consistently delivered massive change in record time. The NDIA has not only successfully delivered its new, accessible CRM into pilot last November but, in parallel, also implemented a new network and unified comms environment with fully accessible cloud-managed laptops and virtual PCs. The NDIA is now a leader in federal government cloud technology with a ‘cloud only’ approach using zero trust architecture and modern authentication technologies,” he said.

According to ITNews, a source with knowledge of NDIA’s operations said Frew would be a “tough act to follow.”

“NDIA [has] transitioned from a helpless satellite agency of Services Australia to a cloud powerhouse of federal government under Ian Frew, with deep strategic relationships to some of the best leading edge global technology providers, such as Microsoft, AWS, Cloudflare, Zscaler, and Salesforce,” the source said, as reported by ITNews.

Lyle Well, the general manager of information technology and security at the NDIA, is the acting CIO while the agency seeks a permanent replacement.