New Zealand CIO of the Year
New Zealand’s CIO of the Year is a visionary leader who has strategically elevated IT to drive business success. Demonstrating innovation and tangible results, they align technology with organisational goals. A proven change-maker, they inspire teams, influence leadership, and build a world-class digital enterprise.
Contact Energy
Tighe Wall
Tighe Wall is recognised for leading an enterprise-wide technology transformation at Contact Energy that directly enabled the organisation’s five-year growth strategy.
Tighe’s work unified ICT, data, digital and acquisition technology teams into a single high-performing function, while simultaneously delivering AI across generation, retail and corporate operations. This leadership resulted in a 30% reduction in cost to serve, self-service adoption rising from 30% to 80%, and the development of Māpuna – an in-house geothermal management platform built on 70 years of proprietary operational data that no commercial tool could replicate.
Judges were particularly impressed by a leader who, when asked what created the greatest impact for the least cost, did not reach for a technology – but spoke of walking the talk, building trust before it was needed, and holding to strategy even when it cost him personally.
Emerging ICT Leader of the Year
The Emerging ICT Leader award shines a spotlight on New Zealand’s brightest tech talent under 35. We seek visionary leaders shaping our digital future. Whether building tech empires, leading high-performing teams, or mentoring the next generation, this award celebrates those making a significant impact on the ICT sector.
Aram Karim
This year’s recipient is recognised for leading a comprehensive, transparent reset of the cyber security operations protecting the University of Otago’s staff, students, and vast research assets.
Their work addressed a critical gap in organizational maturity by courageously establishing a factual risk baseline, managing over one hundred real-world security incidents, and introducing innovative, AI-assisted threat modelling.
The initiative resulted in lifting the university’s cyber maturity, replacing a failing Security Operations Centre for a fraction of its original cost, and sharing these threat models sector-wide to protect other institutions.
Judges were particularly impressed by his values-based leadership style, his ‘Golden Thread’ approach of connecting high-level strategy to real-world outcomes, and his deep commitment to community growth through mentoring.
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.
NZ Post
NZ Post have delivered an impressively broad and deep fundamental change to their entire business. From where people turn up in the morning to the core infrastructure that moves parcels to the process they use to administer and everything in between, they have delivered a true transformational impact that sets them up for the future.
The change to their people, their models and their customers is both complex and challenging and was outstanding in both scale and complexity.
Best ICT Team Culture
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.
AsureQuality
This year’s recipient is recognised for demonstrating that technology delivers its greatest value when people, purpose and innovation move together.
Rather than treating AI and digital capability as technology projects, they built a ‘movement’- connecting communities of practice, new ways of working and strategic planning to create momentum for change across the organisation.
The result is stronger organisational performance, measurable business outcomes and a workforce equipped to embrace change with confidence because they helped create it.
Judges were particularly impressed by the authenticity of the leadership, the team’s deep connection to the frontline, and the way people, governance and innovation combined to create sustainable organisational impact.
Excellence in Customer Value
This award celebrates technology teams that redefine customer engagement, delivering increased levels of customer value and experience through a refreshed approach to user engagement. By prioritising user needs and fostering meaningful engagement, they set a benchmark for excellence in creating lasting customer value.
Suncorp New Zealand
Suncorp New Zealand is recognised for a service transformation that redefined customer and broker value in New Zealand’s competitive insurance market. Their work addressed the challenge of frontline teams navigating 19 largely disconnected systems, replacing complexity and fragmented execution with clearer workflows and a more streamlined service experience. The initiative resulted in substantial measurable improvements across productivity, customer and broker experience, and organisational capability. Judges were particularly impressed by the strength of the impact delivered and the clear link between operational simplification and better customer outcomes.
Innovation for Impact and Purpose
This award recognises an outstanding initiative that delivers meaningful, measurable impact for people, communities, or the environment in Aotearoa New Zealand by improving access to, understanding of, or participation in digital and information technology.
Initiatives may focus on education, digital equity, diversity and inclusion, environmental sustainability, accessibility, or expanding pathways into technology and digital careers.
Pūhoro STEMM
Pūhoro STEMM empowers rangatahi Māori through STEMM and emerging technologies, creating meaningful pathways into tertiary education and future careers. Their nationally scaled, culturally grounded approach and measurable social impact make them a deserving winner of the Innovation for Impact and Purpose Award.
Innovation Leadership through an Emerging Technology
This award celebrates an organisation or startup that is redefining innovation by harnessing emerging technologies to create new business models, transform processes, or develop new products and services. The recipient showcases how emerging technologies can drive competitive advantage and resilience while navigating the complexities of evolving technologies and regulatory frameworks. This award recognises excellence in innovation but also has the vision and processes in place to prepare for the next generation of emerging technologies and guiding leadership teams to embrace change and drive transformative outcomes.
FortySouth
This year’s recipient is recognised for pioneering a next-generation digital twin programme across New Zealand’s mobile tower network, becoming one of the first TowerCo organisations globally to provide near-complete, self-service access to accurate, AI-enhanced infrastructure models. Their work tackled long-standing challenges in asset visibility, upgrade planning and customer collaboration, replacing weeks of manual effort and on-site visits with shared, immersive views of each tower that align engineers, sales teams and mobile operators in a single session. The initiative has delivered substantial outcomes, including 40–50% reductions in engineering effort for upgrades, avoidance of more than 1,000 truck rolls in a year, significant carbon savings, and at least one insight that prevented a costly tower replacement, effectively paying for much of the programme. Judges were particularly impressed by how Fortysouth embedded the digital twin into day-to-day operations across engineering, commercial and planning teams, and by its commitment to sharing this capability through a sector centre of excellence rather than keeping it as a closed competitive advantage.
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.
Graeme Muller
Graeme Muller is honoured for his outstanding contribution to technology and business, demonstrating visionary leadership and a sustained commitment to advancing New Zealand’s technology ecosystem. Since becoming Chief Executive of Tech New Zealand in 2014, he has championed the sector’s role in driving innovation, productivity and economic growth, while bringing together industry, government and education to influence national conversations on technology, digital skills and workforce development. His leadership has helped build a stronger, more connected and influential technology community, shaping a more innovative and globally competitive future for Aotearoa.