New executive appointments at SAP, Institute of Directors and ISACA

Jim Fisher is now the chief operating officer for for SAP Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), succeeding John Ruthven, who was promoted president and MD for SAP ANZ. Before this, Fisher headed SAP’s Global Partner Operations business in Southeast Asia.

Michael Stiassny is the new President and Liz Coutts is the first female Vice President of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand (IoD) . Stiassny, who was Vice President, replaces Stuart McLauchlan.

McLauchlan says the two newly elected officials will bring exceptional governance experience and skill to the IoD Council. “Both have served on and added value as directors on some of the country’s biggest boards,” he says. “I am excited about where the IoD is headed. Last year was an exciting year with the introduction of the Chartered Membership pathway, a strong move to raise the professionalism of directors and demonstrate to the market what sets IoD members apart.”

Stiassny has been an IoD Council member since June 2009, and was appointed vice president in April 2013. He is currently chairman of Vector, TOWER and Ngati Whatua Orakei Whai Rawa; and director of NZ Windfarms and DNZ Property Trust. Coutts, also a chartered fellow of the IoD, is a director of EBOS Group Limited, Skellerup Holdings Limited, Ports of Auckland and Sanford Limited. She is chairman of Urwin and Co Limited, Oceania Heathcare Limited and the IRD Risk and Assurance Committee.

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Garry Barnes, practice lead, Governance Advisory, at Vital Interacts, was re-elected international vice president and Jo Stewart-Rattray, director of information security and IT assurance at BRM Holdich, was appointed international director at ISACA, the global for information systems professionals.

N4L’s Managed Network is a finalist for two awards – the ANZ Internet Awards’ access and digital skills category; and the AUT Excellence in Business Support Awards for government category.

N4Lsays more than half a million students and teachers across New Zealand are now using its Managed Network to support their learning, with schools continuing to connect to the government-funded service well ahead of schedule. These numbers include more than 525,000 students and 37,000 teachers from 1720-plus schools, or nearly 70 per cent of all New Zealand schools).

Telco and network wholesaler, Vibe Communications, acquires Melbourne-based colocation and virtual server provider RackCentral which owns both the RackCentral and CloudiO brands.

“RackCentral is a logical extension to our rapidly growing New Zealand and Australian business with a similar philosophy around instantaneous provisioning and self-management of services” says Rudi Hefer, CEO of Vibe Communications. “RackCentral and CouldiO’s auto provisioning and instant availability, coupled with IntelliPath (Vibe’s on demand virtual cross connect fabric), will allow customers to create end-to-end network services, including connectivity and infrastructure on demand, in real time and on terms that suit them. This is something that no provider in A/NZ is currently doing.”

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