​Sydney Water appoints George Hunt as CIO

Sydney Water's new CIO, George Hunt

Sydney Water has appointed George Hunt as its new CIO, replacing Stephen Wilson who had been in the role since June 2012 and will soon be retiring.

Hunt – who will join the organisation on March 14 – is currently global consulting partner for utilities with Wipro in the United Kingdom.

Prior to this role, Hunt was CIO at Wessex Water between July 2011 and October 2013. He has also been CIO/business transformation director at CSC, chief technology officer at the water and power division of RWE AG, with responsibility for the technology operations of Thames Water and American Water.

Sydney Water managing director, Kevin Young, said the appointment demonstrated that the organisation was able to attract the best international talent.

“George has more than 20 years’ experience in senior IT leadership and business transformation roles,” Young said.

Young said Hunt will oversee the rollout of a customer-focused IT roadmap at Sydney Water.

Hunt said in a statement that he was excited to join a progressive organisation that was providing an important service.

“As Australia’s largest water utility, working at Sydney Water presents me with a great challenge as well as a wonderful opportunity,” he said.

“At the end of the day, Sydney Water’s customers are the priority and modern, efficient IT is critical to ensuring they have the best experience possible.”

Hunt will continue the work done by previous CIO, Stephen Wilson. In 2014, the organisation boosted its mobility credentials by rolling out Apple iPads and Windows 8 smartphones across most or its workforce.

Since then, the organisation has also deployed the Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based productivity and collaboration suite and Microsoft Lync.

Customer-oriented mobile apps are a key focus for Sydney Water, Wilson said at the time. The organisation had formed a cross-functional team, which included staff from IT, customer service and delivery, to determine the way forward with these mobile apps.

Stephen Wilson told CIO Australia that he is still working at Sydney Water part time and will 'hand over' to Hunt when he arrives next month. He said he intends to retire from full time work and will have a break before considering non-executive director roles.

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Follow Byron Connolly on Twitter:@ByronConnolly