Telstra’s chief information officer and executive director digitisation John Romano has departed the telco, the company has confirmed. Romano has been with Telstra for close to 30 years, in a variety of technology and executive management roles, and took the dual CIO/CDO role in 2016. Romano’s last day at Telstra was March 9, the company said. “We will commence the search for a permanent replacement. Chief technology officer Hakan Eriksson, an accomplished leader during his time with Ericsson including as CEO Australia and New Zealand, will act as CIO in addition to his responsibilities,” a Telstra spokesperson said. Over the past year Romano has overseen a major digitisation program which has seen new cloud-based systems – including Salesforce and ServiceNow – being rolled out and legacy systems and applications decommissioned. Other initiatives, as reported bysister publicationComputerworld, have included replacing multiple customer notification systems with a single notification engine and the rollout of a revamped service status page that offers more granular detail about service outages and expected recovery times. He also oversaw the launch of a business focused mobile app mdash; Telstra Connect mdash; that offers tools for enterprise customers and Expert Finder, which helps customers directly contact a relevant Telstra expert. Romano also helped facilitate theadoption of agilemethodologies within the technology function. As of the end of last year more than 100 teams were using agile, with the expectation that 400 teams, some 5,000 staff, would be within a few years. Prior to taking the CIO role, Romano led the Telstra Property Group and was responsible for leading a national integrated and cost-effective network facilities and property strategy across the company. Romano replaced Erez Yarkoni who left the rolein October 2016, to return to his homeland, the United States. Related content brandpost Survey: Marketers embrace AI at expense of metaverse investments Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has quickly rocked the world of marketing. Sitecore polled B2B marketers on their perceptions of GAI. Here’s what they said. By Dave O’Flanagan, Sitecore Jun 01, 2023 4 mins Artificial Intelligence news Zendesk to lay off another 8% of its staff, cites macroeconomic issues The new tranche of layoffs comes just six months after the company let go of 300 staffers and hired a new CEO in order to navigate its operations through macroeconomic distress. By Anirban Ghoshal Jun 01, 2023 3 mins CRM Systems IT Jobs feature 5 CxOs on leading change To be the agents of change that businesses require today, IT leaders must embrace a flexible mindset, prep their orgs for change, and recognize that intention and purpose are vital to empowering transformation. By Dan Roberts Jun 01, 2023 13 mins Digital Transformation Change Management IT Leadership feature Top 8 data engineer and data architect certifications Data engineers and data architects are in high demand. Here are the certifications that will give your career an edge. By Thor Olavsrud Jun 01, 2023 9 mins Certifications Big Data Data Mining Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe