Technology Top 50 rationale

NAILING down the first three players in our 50 most influential people in IT list was simple.

Stuart Kennedy

4 min read

3:54PMFebruary 24, 2012.

Updated 12:22PMFebruary 28, 2012

TheAustralian

NAILING down the first three players in our 50 most influential people in IT list was simple in that all three are deeply involved in the country's biggest tech project of all time, the National Broadband Network.

Mike Quigley, the NBN Co chief executive self selected as the alpha animal in Australia's technology zoo because building the $36 billion NBN touches everything from uber politics remember it was Tony Windsor's belief in the value of fast broadband that helped Julia Gillard snare minority government to our neighbourhoods where most of will have to endure a fibre truck roll through our street.

Pushing out fibre fast broadband to most of the population and cutting edge wireless and satellite to the rest has Quigley dealing with and holding influence over a vast swathe of the local and global ICT scene, be they equipment vendors, application developers, satellite suppliers, telcos, retail service providers or regulators such as the ACCC.

All the while, the NBN project will swallow up legions of tech skilled people as the roll out proceeds, including everyone from marketeers to optical network specialists.

Quigley must drive NBN Co in a toxic political environment where the project is the nation building darling of the Labor minority government and the money wasting demon of a Coalition Opposition just a vote or two away from forming government and terminating the project.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, Quigley's political master and the man who established the fibre to the home NBN in a bold stroke in 2009 following the failure of a private sector bidfest, is number two on the list.

As part of the birth of the NBN, Conroy brought about the structural separation of Telstra into wholesale and retail arms.

Conroy not only holds sway over NBN policy but also the upcoming auctions of valuable mobile spectrum as well. While a tireless promoter of the benefits of fast broadband, the socially conservative Conroy has scored the ire and ridicule of local and overseas internet freedom advocates by pushing for a filter on the internet.

Pre-NBN, whoever was Telstra chief would probably head the IT influence list, but even at number three current CEO David Thodey still carries immense clout. Telstra's NextG mobile network is the biggest in the land and has been the standard bearer for speedy new technology like LTE.

Meanwhile, Telstra will be NBN Co's biggest customer and Thodey has had plenty of pull in the manoeuvring around wholesale agreements between Telstra and NBN CO, as well as the terms of the structural separation.

With a big computing background from his years at IBM Thodey knows all about the revenue potential in cloud computing services and appears to be making all the right investments so that Telstra can offer everything from no-lag hi def video to sophisticated cloud-based business applications.

While Facebook has only a small sales and marketing operation in Australia, number four on the list Mark Zuckerberg and his social networking behemoth have enormous influence here.

Who doesn't have a Facebook page these days? In a few quick years it's become the medium over which we announce our births, deaths and marriages and if you feel you are about to get dumped, it's probably already happened on Facebook. The darker side of Facebook is its often questionable approach to privacy.

Our number five has more of an industry profile than a public profile but he exerts major influence over the local CIO community responsible for much of the country's IT infrastructure.

Michael Harte is the Commonwealth Bank's tech chief and when he announced a generational overhaul of the banks IT innards it forced his big four competitors to follow. He is also a big advocate of cloud computing and being fleet of foot in squeezing business value out of worthwhile new technologies like mobile apps.

Harte has done much to lift the profile of chief information officers everywhere from the geek in a white coat to business technologist with board level influence.