I learnt to ask what a tidy record could no longer explain

I remember a subscriber-service colleague explaining why a record that looked untidy was not necessarily wrong. The person on the telephone had bought a bundle whose terms belonged to an earlier offer. Our current product table did not explain it, but deleting the difference would not remove the promise. I was an applications analyst then, more comfortable with the elegance of a common field than the inconvenience of an old arrangement. The conversation changed what I looked for when someone described a migration as a straightforward cleaning exercise.

I completed a computing degree at Tervale Institute in December 1988 and joined Corvellan Publishing in February 1989. I worked in a seven-person applications team without direct reports or personal spending authority. Subscription operations and production colleagues were my teachers in the practical life of a publishing record. A schedule, account or edition reference could look consistent in a report and still require explanation by someone who knew how the promise had arisen. I learnt to follow that explanation before suggesting how the application should represent it.

In January 1999 I moved to Ellavren Media as publishing systems manager. The business then needed more dependable connections between its production and commercial applications. By the final year of that appointment, it had three brands and 760 employees, with AUD170 million revenue for the year ended June 2006. I led twenty-two people through three direct reports and held AUD3.2 million annual authority. The move gave me responsibility for the people and services behind a recommendation, not just the quality of a particular piece of analysis.

Subscriber platforms became my principal remit in January 2007. Digital access made previously internal distinctions visible to readers who expected the publication they had purchased to be available. I led forty-six people through four reports, with AUD11 million authority in the role's final financial year. Ellavren had five brands and 1,200 staff by June 2014. I worked with commercial owners to distinguish product meaning from the identity used to sign in. The same account could carry several entitlements, and a paid subscription was not automatically a unique member of an audience.

The enterprise-services director role followed in January 2015. It asked me to make shared technology useful across brands whose histories and editorial practices differed. An investment fund took a 45% holding in 2016, while the family retained 55%. That change increased attention to the visibility of investment and the conditions for integration. By June 2020 my remit covered eighty-three employees, five direct reports and AUD28 million authority. I became more careful about the difference between a genuine common service and a local variation whose purpose had not yet been understood.

I became CIO in January 2021. Today my 118 employees work through five direct reports, supported by thirty-two contractors counted separately. My FY2026–27 authority is AUD42 million: AUD27 million operations and AUD15 million change. The enterprise has eight business and culture brands, 2,100 employees and operations in Australia and New Zealand. Its 1.8 million paid subscriptions and AUD640 million revenue for the year ended June 2026 describe the company context, rather than a result attributable to my technology programme alone. I report to Celia Varncombe and work closely with Adrian Hestervale on editorial-system responsibilities.

My decisions often concern a distinction that a simpler account would prefer to remove. In the subscription migration, 1,500 entitlements still needed an assisted explanation after the review. In the correction rehearsal, four journeys remained pending after the source and most destinations agreed. In the archive assistant, twenty abstentions were more acceptable than confident replies that the examined material did not support. None of those positions is a reason to avoid change. They make the next obligation explicit enough for the enterprise to decide what should happen.

I also try to keep the authority behind a record visible. Editors decide what the publication should say and how it should correct an error. Commercial colleagues own subscription terms. Legal and rights specialists interpret the permission attached to a piece of material. My teams can represent those decisions, preserve versions and expose exceptions, but the application does not become the source of authority simply because it is convenient to treat a completed field as the final answer.

My board exposure is through executive presentations rather than a director appointment. I could bring a practical view of the promises embedded in digital investment, alongside directors with broader financial, editorial and sector experience. Twenty proposed external days would require examination against employment and the real calendar. I would need preparation for the collective duties of a board and an appointment-specific review of relationships. What interests me is the chance to improve the questions an enterprise asks before simplifying a system that carries more meaning than its project description first suggests.