Five roles, each one interface closer to the truck

Mandate

Replace three transport platforms with one, give the board a complete view of operational technology and cyber risk, and make the fleet energy transition technically deliverable.

Outcomes

• Moved all three divisions onto one transport platform by May 2025; customer connections fell from 410 to 236 and invoice disputes from 4.1 to 1.5 per cent of invoices.
• Put 24 battery-electric prime movers into service on an existing 1.5 MVA supply, with peak site demand held at 1.38 MVA.
• Renewed the largest contract-logistics contract on a delivery-event feed; dock waiting fell from 74 to 41 minutes.
• Replaced 27 standing vendor connections into terminal equipment with brokered, recorded sessions.
• Moved 1,100 interstate drivers to an approved electronic work diary in 2023.

Decisions in context

I joined Morrowgate in March 2021 as its first chief technology officer, combining roles that had previously sat with an IT director, a terminals engineering manager and the fleet department. The group had grown through acquisitions and ran three transport platforms, telematics from four suppliers and equipment networks that nobody had mapped as a whole. My mandate from the managing director was to replace the platforms without losing customers, to show the board what was connected to what, and to make sure the fleet energy programme could be delivered on the connections our depots actually had. I lead 360 staff with seven direct reports, among them our chief information security officer, and I report every quarter to the Audit and Risk Committee on cyber and technology risk. The year to June 2026 brought revenue of A$3.42 billion, and every division now runs on the same transport platform.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one non-executive directorship with the Morrowgate board's consent.

Mandate

Rebuild the telematics platform on which the company's fleet-management service depended, and modernise systems before the owners' planned exit.

Outcomes

• Consolidated telematics from three device suppliers onto one data platform covering 31,000 vehicles.
• Launched a depot assessment service in 2019 that completed 140 site assessments and supported 2,100 electric vehicles into customer fleets.
• Moved the company out of its own data centre into hosted services in 2020, cutting infrastructure cost by 23 per cent.
• Built the customer portal through which fleet managers approved leases and reviewed vehicle use.

Decisions in context

Pelloran leased and managed vehicles for companies and government agencies, and its customers increasingly bought it for its data rather than its finance. When I arrived, telematics came from three device suppliers on three platforms, and customers received reports that disagreed with each other. I consolidated the data onto one platform covering 31,000 vehicles and rebuilt the portal fleet managers used. From 2019 I led a service that assessed customers' depots before they ordered electric vehicles. We completed 140 assessments, and in about a third of them the first finding was that the switchboard or the network connection would not support the fleet the customer had planned. That work taught me the electricity network's processes and vocabulary. I also moved the company out of its own data centre in 2020, ahead of a sale process. I left because I wanted to run technology for an operator that carried the operational consequences of its own systems.

Reason for the move

Wanted to lead technology for an operator of heavy vehicles and terminals, where the consequences of a system decision would sit with my own organisation.

Mandate

Replace the terminal operating system and modernise the truck gate without interrupting vessel or landside operations.

Outcomes

• Replaced the terminal operating system in 2014 within a planned nine-hour outage.
• Introduced optical character recognition at the truck gate, with clerks retained for exceptions; truck turnaround fell from 48 to 31 minutes.
• Integrated the terminal with the vehicle booking system used by road carriers to reserve slots.
• Separated crane and gate equipment networks from the corporate network in 2015.

Decisions in context

Tallowmere ran a single container terminal in Brisbane, and its systems decided whether a ship left on time and whether a truck queued for twenty minutes or two hours. I led a team of 34 responsible for the terminal operating system, the gate, the equipment networks and the links to shipping lines, customs systems and road carriers. The operating system replacement in 2014 was the most carefully rehearsed nine hours of my career: we ran four full dress rehearsals on a copy of the yard. The gate project was humbler. The cameras read container numbers correctly 97.6 per cent of the time, so we kept clerks on every lane for the exceptions, and turnaround still fell from 48 to 31 minutes. I completed a part-time graduate certificate in cyber security in 2015, the year we separated crane and gate networks from the corporate network. I left in early 2017 for a CIO role covering a whole business.

Reason for the move

Recruited to lead the whole technology function of a fleet business, a broader remit than a single terminal could offer.

Mandate

Make locomotive and train data usable for maintenance and fuel planning, and manage the onboard interfaces to track managers' control systems.

Outcomes

• Built remote condition monitoring for 74 locomotives, reducing in-service failures by 22 per cent over three years.
• Introduced fuel-use reporting by train and crew, contributing to a 6 per cent fall in fuel per net tonne-kilometre.
• Managed the onboard equipment and procedures for train authority systems on two track managers' networks.

Decisions in context

I joined Corellan in May 2004 as a systems engineer and became manager of train systems and telemetry in 2008. Corellan ran interstate freight trains over track owned and controlled by others, so much of what happened to its trains was visible only through other organisations' systems. My first project gave us our own view: onboard recorders and remote condition monitoring for 74 locomotives, so that maintenance planners could see a failing traction motor before it stopped a train in the desert. In-service failures fell by 22 per cent over three years. I then added fuel-use reporting by train and crew. The hardest part of the role was the interface with track managers' train authority systems, where a disagreement about what a message meant could hold a train for hours. I left in 2011 to lead technology at a container terminal, closer to the commercial customer.

Reason for the move

Wanted to lead a technology function where the operating systems and the commercial systems met, which a container terminal offered.

Mandate

Design, test and commission signalling interlockings on regional lines.

Outcomes

• Designed or tested nine interlockings brought into service between 1998 and 2004.
• Introduced a field-test checklist for track circuits after a wiring error found during a 1999 commissioning.
• Trained twelve graduate engineers in test and commissioning practice.

Decisions in context

I joined the authority as a graduate engineer in February 1997, three months after finishing my engineering degree, and spent seven years designing and testing signalling interlockings on regional lines. The culture was careful and hierarchical, and I am grateful for both. Every design was checked by someone who had not drawn it, and every installation was tested in the field before trains used it. The test that mattered most came in 1999, when a field check found one track circuit connected to the wrong relay after the bench tests had passed. I wrote the field-test checklist we used afterwards and led a crew of six from 2001. By 2004 I had worked on nine interlockings and trained twelve graduates. I left because I wanted to see the railway from the train's side, through the data a freight operator's locomotives produced.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work for a freight operator, where train data would describe what the train had actually done rather than what the infrastructure permitted.