Macquarie Government Invests In Defence And National Security With Senior Appointment

Former Fujitsu A/NZ CEO Mike Foster joins Macquarie Government as Director of Strategic Growth, Defence and National Security portfolio

Mike Foster and Aidan Tudehope - Macquarie Government

Macquarie Government, part of Macquarie Telecom Group (ASX: MAQ), today announced the appointment of Defence ICT industry leader and former CEO of Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ), Mike Foster, as Director of Strategic Growth.

The newly created position has been designed to lead Macquarie’s expanding Defence and National Security capabilities and pursuits, including vertically integrated cyber-security, cloud, data centre and telecommunications services.

Foster also joins Macquarie Government to support the policies relating to the Hardening Government IT (HGIT) Initiative[1], which is uplifting cyber-security capability across government agencies. Macquarie works with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which has been selected as the fourth trial agency in the HGIT’s Cyber Hubs Pilot.

During his decade-plus tenure at Fujitsu, Foster led unprecedented growth in that company’s Defence business, including developing a dedicated workforce for the Department of Defence totalling more than 500 employees2, and the signing of a $99 million contract3 with Defence to provide desktop-related services to 100,000 personnel across more than 450 Australian locations.

Foster’s resume also includes six years as a non-executive director of Telstra Clear, four years as Chief of Business Sales at Telstra and two years as Managing Director A/NZ for EMC, now part of Dell.

Foster said his decision to join Macquarie Government was made easy given the company’s track record managing and mitigating the cyber threats launched against Australian government agencies

“For over a decade Macquarie Government has gained unparalleled insight into the digital landscape in which Australian government agencies now operate,” he said.

“The expertise the Macquarie team has gained from providing cyber-security, infrastructure and cloud services to a wide range of Federal Government agencies is unparalleled. That expertise is highly valued by the Federal Government and I’m excited to be leading the company’s next evolution to further support the Defence and National Security sectors.”

Macquarie Government Managing Director Aidan Tudehope said the appointment of Foster demonstrates the organisation’s strong and ongoing investment in homegrown talent and is reflective of its impressive multi-year growth.

“Mike’s deep experience leading large and complex ICT programs for Defence will be critical for Macquarie Government as we continue to build on our capability offering to Federal and State Government customers,” he said.

“This appointment comes during a time of unprecedented growth for Macquarie Government. In January alone we welcomed and on-boarded 10 new starters and we expect that to grow by a further 40 in the coming months as we fill a range of roles in security, cloud, and DevOps areas.

The appointment of Foster follows recent senior appointments including Peter Merrick as General Manger, and Mark Vardy as Strategic Bid Manager. In 2021 Macquarie Telecom Group also surpassed 200 government-cleared security staff.

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About Macquarie Government

Macquarie Government, part of ASX-listed Macquarie Telecom Group, has provided sovereign cloud and cyber-security solutions to Australian governments for over 19 years. Our sovereign clouds and cyber security services are trusted by over 42% of federal government agencies.

Macquarie Government is one of a few Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) providers to the Australian Government that’s connected to the Intra-government Communications Network (ICON) and the NSW Government’s GovDC data centre. We’re built to comply with the ASD’s Top 35 cyber mitigation strategies.

With the highest customer satisfaction NPS score in the industry, Macquarie Government provides unrivalled support with 24x7 access to our Hosting Management Centre. Our Security Operations Centre (SOC) and 200+ government-cleared cloud and security specialists ensure our government customers’ data and systems are safe.

Visit this site for more information.

[1] https://www.dta.gov.au/our-projects/hardening-government-it-hgit-initiative#:~:text=The%20HGIT%20Initiative%20has%20been,%2C%20detection%2C%20and%20response%20capabilities.

2 https://www.fujitsu.com/au/about/resources/news/press-releases/2014/20140213-01.html

3 https://www.fujitsu.com/au/about/resources/news/press-releases/2019/fujitsu-to-support-100-000-defence-personnel-through.html

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