Fairfax Media taps Rainer Rhedey as tech GM, replacing CIO

working-promotion-job-100522319-orig.jpg

Fairfax Media has named Rainer Rhedey as general manager of technology, a new role that replaces the duties and responsibilities of CIO Robyn Elliott, who resigned late last year.   

Rhedey, who was formerly Fairfax Media’s group general manager of technology for the past five years, was also head of technology for Metro Media for eleven months, and the director of infrastructure and operations for Fairfax Digital from August 2008 to June 2011.  

As tech GM, Rhedey will manage enterprise systems, infrastructure, governance and security at a corporate level, reporting to CFO David Housego.  

Meanwhile, Fairfax Media CEO, Greg Hywood, praised the work of Elliott at the time of her resignation, saying she led “the successful transformation of Fairfax IT.”

“Since joining Fairfax in March 2015, Robyn and the tech team have significantly improved the flexibility and efficiency of tech platforms, embedded agile development techniques, and enabled product innovation and revenue generation initiatives. Technology and data have driven customer engagement and process improvement.

“Robyn has disentangled complex legacy technology built up over many years to create leaner, simpler and separate tech functions. These are now managed by and integrated as part of our businesses.

Hywood said Elliott helped make Fairfax IT “fit for the future.”

“Fairfax has benefited greatly from Robyn’s depth of expertise, including her time as CIO at Foxtel, in consulting roles at IBM, and at Accenture where she worked her way up from graduate to partner.