2024 CIO Awards Winners
New Zealand CIO of the Year
Sponsored by:
Kiwibank
Hamish Rumbold
Hamish led a Digital and Technology team with compassion and ambition, which he describes as the heart of his leadership style. His leadership is centered on creating a strong sense of purpose and meaningful work, championing the customer, a safe environment to speak-up, wellbeing, and a strong sense of ambition. His ambition to inspire and motivate teams to take an owner’s mindset and be transformational is reflected in the team’s strengths, underlined by the culture of always learning through ‘Kohungas’ (learnings nests), self-forming practice and knowledge guilds. When building his team Hamish focuses on attracting high performing talent that works well cross-functionally and highly aligned to customer outcomes building a strong modern product and engineering culture. This is exemplified in its implementation of personalised in-app messaging using innovative technology, Atomic.io. This delivered simpler and better customer and team experiences, cyber resilience, availability of services, and improved development processes to innovate and release new products, features and capabilities faster. Hamish exemplifies how technology leaders can successfully blend of commercial, customer and digital expertise to translate priorities into deliverables across business and technical environments.
Ports of Auckland
Manvi Madan
Manvi is clearly passionate about improving outcomes for organisations and their customers through the application of Data Science; however it was her leadership and the focus on helping and developing others to support these goals which really impressed the judges. Having demonstrated her academic credentials with a Master of Information Technology from the University of Auckland, Manvi has quickly become a significant contributor in the areas of Data Science, including Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, with a number of publications and conference presentations under her belt. As a member of the team at the Port of Auckland, she has helped shape a common data platform migration to the Cloud, while still enabling operations via day to day data reporting activities, often stepping into temporary leadership voids to ensure a successful outcome. Manvi is a strong voice for ethics and equality in one of the fastest growing and most critical areas of Information Technology and sets the standard for emerging ICT Leaders.
Emerging ICT Leader of the Year
Sponsored by:
Business Transformation through Digital & IT
This award honors organisations that have masterfully transformed their business using digital innovation. Winners will demonstrate exceptional leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and tangible outcomes. They are industry pioneers who have successfully navigated the digital landscape to achieve extraordinary results.
Sponsored by:
Mercury NZ
The multi-million dollar migration of Trustpower telecommunication and power retail customers into Mercury Energy technology systems, as a result of the acquisition in 2022 is a master-class in laying the right foundations for success. Mercury formed a powerful coalition bringing together leadership from both brands, plus support and expertise from external partners. Their vision was clear in terms of standardising, simplifying and incremental delivery to minimise any impacts on customers and the ability to accelerate the delivery of multi-product bundles provided a sense of urgency. There was a clear focus on communication, with key decision makers in the programme and a culture of empowerment to act in order to deliver the transformation with customer support outcomes the key focus. The judges were impressed by the balance between execution and review, the focus to hit milestones and deliver as well as the ongoing review, risk management and continuous improvement to feedback into the transformation and continuously improve. An exceptional result, Mercury now have an substantially improved Technology Platform which is delivering outstanding results to their business and customers.
Tōnui Collab
Community Tech Champions
The Community Tech Champions Award celebrates pioneers breaking down digital barriers. By championing diversity, accessibility, and equity in tech, these leaders are empowering all New Zealanders to thrive in the digital age. From women and Māori in tech to regional communities and those with disabilities, their work is building a more inclusive tech future.
Sponsored by:
Best ICT Team Culture & Inclusion
The Best ICT Team Culture & Inclusion Award recognises outstanding ICT team culture, recruitment, inclusion, and diversity practices that contributes to the team's success. The ICT industry is challenged by skills shortages, and today has a strong focus on Diversity & Inclusion at board and executive levels. Practices, policies, and strategies that foster a modern, inclusive, and open workforce and team culture lead to excellence in retention and nurturing of a diverse IT staff and drive a competitive advantage for the entire organisation. The aim of this award is to celebrate organisations that recognise how culture and inclusion enables business success and that see recruitment, retention, and training future talent as a key part of the integral recipe for high performing IT teams.
Sponsored by:
Foodstuffs South Island & New Zealand Red Cross
Christchurch City Council (HIDDEN)
Sustainability Through Technology
The Sustainability through Technology Award, sponsored by Younity, honours the achievements of organisations that have successfully planned and executed a sustainability initiative(s) through the use of technology. Using technology and innovation to drive a sustainable initiative within an organisation that has produced a range of benefits for the organisation and/ or communities. The initiative or project could address any/or all of the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental, and social (profits, planet and people).
Sponsored by:
Outstanding Contribution to Technology and Business in New Zealand
This award is given to a high profile business person from a public or private company whose contribution has significantly and uniquely impacted the greater New Zealand or global business community in an information technology sense over the course of his or her career. The award recognises people at the intersection of business and technology. That could be someone who has had a long and successful career in IT, who has contributed significantly to the effectiveness of business through technology, or someone who has had great success in a technology company. The recipient is selected by the judging panel. However, if you believe you know a worthy candidate please drop us a line and let us know why you think they should be considered.
Sponsored by:
Dianne Daniels
Dianne (Di) Daniels grew up under the radar, a rebellious underachiever, until discovering a flair for start-ups and becoming a no-fuss innovator, activist and champion for equality. An adventurous edge sees Di saving native falcons, Kaimanawa horses, taming wild foals from the Far North forests, horse trekking and touring motorcycles around Aotearoa.
Family philosophy was to take every opportunity available and to never stop learning. Working life began in veterinary diagnostic and research science before embarking on a teaching career, eventually spanning every level of the education system. Classrooms proved restrictive, so creative ways of learning and teaching were up for exploration into the community sector.
Di specialized in empowerment education, accelerated learning, disability and Rangatahi education to employment. This included alternative education seeking new ways of engaging youth learning, and the acute need for Treaty education, although these were challenging paths that few chose to tread. Di found a niche in start-up magic with a community hub that thrives today as the Kāpiti Women’s Centre.
Di’s more unusual employment, while caring for family, was shoveling horse-poo to sell from the car-boot and Artificial Insemination Technician on local farms. In those days AI had a totally different meaning!
After 15 years as Tiriti o Waitangi educator across five tertiary degree programmes, Di made a rapid switch in middle life to championing Digital Inclusion during a Masters of Māori Education, which set the scene for the next 25 years. Seeing the impact of technology on students and the travesty of the digital divide sparked a passion to make a difference which rages until this day. A pilot project with 20/20 Trust for digital literacy in low-decile schools became a national programme under this manager’s leadership, across 22 regions delivering digital impact to 165 families around Aotearoa every year.
Running a remote, eclectic nationwide team on a tight budget earned Di recognition for leadership from Human Rights Commission and Equal Employment, a Computerworld Excellence Award for best value, and a place on IDG’s judging panel. This mover and shaker gained a reputation as outspoken champion for underserved communities, a stakeholder bridge between community and corporate sectors, “Ghostbuster” by business colleagues and “The Fixer” by team members.
Di actively sought corporate input to address digital inclusion, raising significant cash and hardware sponsorship for Computers in Homes. In 2017 she created the Digital Wings programme, encouraging businesses to donate decommissioned computers for redeployment to the charitable sector. They engaged 101 businesses, gifted to 852 charities, rōpū and marae nationwide who reported impacting over 2.5M clients. This enabled the business sector to make an impact via technology in an environmentally sustainable way, while diverting company e-waste as part of the business model.
Di’s end goal for an equitable and bi-lingual Aotearoa that honours and implements Te Tiriti o Waitangi underpins all she does, promoting business and social outcomes that truly reflect our unique country. She has worked hard to build trust with remote communities and raises awareness in the business sector about forgotten areas that get passed by for services, infrastructure, investment and opportunity. Since her move to Taitokerau in 2020, 90 Northland charities benefited from Digital Wings technology with new local corporate donors. Recently Digital Inclusion Alliance contracted her networking skills to teach technology in remote Taitokerau communities, and InternetNZ engaged her Tiriti knowledge in constitutional reform. Her personal contributions include NCEA exam supervision and tutoring Rangatahi.
Di’s leadership and inspiration with these initiatives (and the many others in which she is still participating today) have transformed lives and opened doors to digital inclusion and equity in Aotearoa’s communities.
And she has already achieved many awards of recognition. This includes 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honour MNZM for Services to Digital Literacy and Education; the 2019 Education Woman of the Year; a 2017 Woman of Influence Finalist; the 2018 TechSoup Lifetime Service Award for Technology in the Charitable Sector and in 2020 Di was announced as Kiwibank’s New Zealander of the Year Local Hero for Services to Digital and Empowerment Education.
Di is a true inspiration to our community and the next generation of technology leaders that will become the beating heart of Aotearoa’s digital future!
