Wanted: A CIO to save the environment

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) – a donation-funded community organisation with more than half a million members – is seeking its inaugural chief information officer.

After making headway on digitally transforming the organisation in recent years, including moving most systems to the cloud, the embrace of advanced data analytics and greater use of digital channels to reach stakeholders, the ACF is now seeking someone to “bring the vision and expertise to build from this and take our technical capabilities to the next level” it said.

“At ACF our mission is to inspire, our decisions are data driven, our teams are organised, and our people are energised, all of which creates an endless thirst to exploit technology to help us maximise our People Power,” the group said in a job posting.

“We are looking for someone to immerse themselves into the needs of our people; to simplify what has become complex with our legacy systems, and to implement what has become possible with advancements in applications, data analytics, machine learning and automation,” it continued.

Potential candidates are expected to have knowledge of Office 365, Azure IaaS and PaaS, voice and data management from an IT operations standpoint, while familiarity with not-for-profit business processes is considered a plus.

As well as advancing ACF’s use of technology, the successful applicant will also be expected to bring about cultural changes to the in-house IT team, bringing a “necessary understanding of Enterprise Architecture, Agile Development, Integration and DevOps”.

“You must be extremely data savvy, and have implemented strategies to acquire data from disparate places (structured and unstructured), make sense of it, and mine it for insights. A major focus of the role is to implement big data platforms and analytics to service the thirst for actionable insights across the organisation,” the job listing states.

The ACF is currently campaigning to stop Indian coal company Adani from establishing a coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, for a national plan to harvest all Australia’s energy from the sun and wind, stronger environmental laws to curb pollution and more action against the “rogue irrigators and their political backers” attempting to erode the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

In its more than 50 years, the ACF has chalked up a number of successful campaigns; helping to win and retain World Heritage listing for Tasmania’s ancient forests, establish the grassroots Landcare movement, win National Heritage listing for the West Kimberley and World Heritage listing for Kakadu in the Northern Territory.

“If you’ve ever asked – what can I do to make a difference? – join us,” the ACF said.

Applications will be accepted until July 20.

Earlier this year, non-profit Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) sought its inaugural chief information and technology officer in what was claimed to be Australia’s first technology leadership role dedicated to the conservation of endangered wildlife.