Erez Yarkoni new Telstra CIO

Telstra has appointed Erez Yarkoni as its new CIO. The telco’s former executive director of cloud replaces Patrick Eltridge who quit his post last October after four years with the company.

Yarkoni has more than 20 years of experience in the software and telecommunications sectors, from large corporates to startups, Telstra said.

Before Telstra, Yarkoni was division president at software firm Amdocs, and prior to that spent five years at T-Mobile USA as CIO.

He was appointed as cloud director at Telstra in October 2013 with responsibility for cloud across Telstra in Australia and overseas. He will continue to lead this function as CIO, the telco said.

Telstra’s COO, Kate McKenzie, said in a statement that Yarkoni will share his time between Sydney and the west coast of the United States. This will enable him to the lead the IT team in Australia, and work with Telstra’s global teams and partners, McKenzie said.

“I regard this as a significant and positive step forward for Telstra, particularly at this point in time as we’re becoming ever more reliant on our IT capabilities to shape Telstra’s future in this fast-changing environment,” he said.

CIO Australia was seeking comment from Yarkoni at time of publication.

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