Telstra CIO quits after just 10 months

Fiona Balfour, who joined Telstra as CIO last April, has left the company to pursue other opportunities.

Fiona Balfour

Balfour, who had just returned to work after a vacation, moved to Telstra after spending the previous 14 years at Qantas. The news of her departure comes just six months after Telstra's deputy CIO Vish Padmanabhan also left the firm.

In an e-mail to staff on Tuesday seen by ZDNet Australia, Telstra's chief operations officer Greg Winn said he regretted Balfour's decision but wished her well for the future.

"I particularly want to thank Fiona for her contribution leading the IT Services (ITS) team in the past year and for putting in place the best people and infrastructure to support the IT transformation program.

"A year on, we now have the right environment for transformation with a modern, simplified IT shop with flexible teams to support our 'One Factory' principles of doing it once; doing it right for the customer; doing it in an integrated way, at the lowest price," he said in the e-mail.

Left without a CIO and a deputy CIO -- as Padmanabhan's position was abolished following his departure -- one of the highest profile IT infrastructures in Australia will be in the hands of Telstra's business transformation adviser Tom Lamming.

Last October, Balfour won the Pearcey Medal for 2006, which was awarded for an outstanding lifetime achievement in ICT.