Making the leap from CIO to CEO: Quinton Hall

Quinton Hall, chief operating officer – tourism and group support services at Tourism Holdings, is the latest New Zealand CIO who is moving to the top role, CEO.

Hall is taking on the top job at to Ngai Tahu Tourism, one of the country’s premier tourism operators. He will start in his new role in mid-July and will be based in Christchurch.

If you are a CIO who contributes at a business technology level as opposed to technology delivery level, you will have more opportunities and scope to move into operational roles.Quinton Hall

Ngai Tahu Tourism’s operations in the South Island include the Hollyford Track Guided Walks in Queenstown and and Franz Josef Glacier Guides. In the North Island, it runs the Hukafalls Jet in Taupo, Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park at Rotorua and has a significant investment in the Agrodome at Rotorua. It is a subsidiary of Ng?i Tahu Holdings Corporation, which includes significant seafood and property businesses.

Hall says there are others like him; more and more CIOs and CTOs are making the same transition to other executive roles.

“I think one of the benefits of being CIO is you get to see a lot of the business,” he tells CIO New Zealand. “If you are a CIO that is connected to the business, who contributes at a business technology level as opposed to technology delivery level, you will have more opportunities and scope to move into operational roles.

“It was about being open to new opportunities and putting your hand up pretty much [for these opportunities],” says Hall, who joined Tourism Holdings as CIO in 2006 and shifted to the operations side of the organisation over two years ago.

Before this, he was chief technology officer at NZ Lotteries for three years. He joined the Lotteries as risk and audit manager.

Ross Keenan, chair of Ng?i Tahu Tourism, says Hall brings with him extensive operational experience from the tourism sector and the wider business community, including project management, human resources, asset management, property and information technology experience. “His wide industry knowledge of distribution systems, with particular expertise in systems development, reflects our current business objectives,” says Keenan.

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