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QBE Australia hunts for new CIO

IT restructure leads to staff cuts

Listed insurance company, QBE Insurance Group, (ASX:QBE) is looking for a new chief information officer following a review of its IT functions that led to about 200 IT staff redundancies, mainly from its Sydney office.

According to a report in the Australian Financial Review, the company has appointed an executive search firm to help it recruit the new hire who would fill the vacancy left by general manager of strategy, Pranav Pasricha, who left QBE in May 2011 after four years with the company. Pasricha joined Indian financial technology company, Polaris Software Lab, as global head of insurance, based in Sydney.

Due to a change in reporting lines, the new appointment will answer to an Asia-based executive rather than the local chief executive.

In a statement, QBE Australia said that the company has implemented a new operating model aimed at providing "more effective and robust" IT services for its staff and customers.

"Unfortunately, this process has resulted in a number of IT roles being made redundant and QBE remains committed to redeploying staff where possible," the statement reads.

According to QBE, it maintains a "significant" IT presence in Australia, with more than 400 IT staff employed across the country in NSW, Victoria, ACT, WA, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

CIO Australia has contacted QBE for comment.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow CIO Australia on Twitter: @CIO_Australia

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: ACT, Australian Financial Review, Australian Financial Review, ecruit, QBE
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Comments

1

Noel Kelly

Thu 07/07/2011 - 20:43

Talk about department bloat.... how could you possibly need 400 IT Staff to support 6700 staff (QBE Website 2011). Especially in todays modern web 2.0 environment.

Even a cull to 200 staff leaves you with 1 IT staff member to every 32 employees.

No wonder cloud style utility computing is all the rage....

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