A year passes and still no RailCorp CIO

A year after departed chief information officer Vicki Coleman stepped down from the role, NSW transport agency RailCorp is still trying to replace her with a permanent appointee.

Then-NSW Transport Minister David Campbell acknowledged in June last year that Coleman had been stood down from the CIO role following an allegation of "dishonest or corrupt behaviour". The CIO resigned in October.

Since July, Coleman's IT portfolio has been managed by Railcorp's group general manager of finance and corporate services Gary Pedersen in an acting capacity. However, yesterday RailCorp advertised the CIO role. A spokesperson could not immediately comment on how difficult the agency was finding it to fill Coleman's shoes.

Coleman herself has since started working as a project manager at a charity in Sydney's Eastern suburbs, according to her LinkedIn profile , assisting with an archiving project.

The description for RailCorp's CIO role (PDF) clearly points out how serious the responsibilities are for the position. The new CIO will oversee 360 staff in total, as well as a capital budget of over $100 million and an operating budget of $105 million.

Five other senior IT executives within RailCorp report directly to the CIO — general managers of strategy and architecture, project management, ERP delivery, portfolio delivery and operations delivery — as well as several other staff, and the new CIO will report to Pedersen in his finance and corporate services role.

(Front page image credit: New Train Line... image by Sailor Coruscant, CC2.0)