Australian Attorney-General's Department – Canberra ACT

Employment Opportunity

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) provides strategic leadership and direction for the department’s Information Division and is accountable for delivering secure, contemporary, and reliable ICT and information management services that support departmental outcomes. This critical role encompasses both operational accountability and a significant transformation agenda, requiring the ability to maintain service delivery while shaping the department’s future digital environment.

Reporting to the Chief Operating Officer, the CIO ensures operational performance, availability, stability, security and service quality across core enterprise platforms whilst engaging in the strategic transition from on-premise systems to modern, resilient and cloud-based environments. The CIO provides authoritative advice to the Executive Board and senior leaders, ensuring ICT strategy, investment, capability and delivery are aligned to the department’s legal, policy and program priorities. The role requires maintaining a high level of expertise and awareness of emerging trends to identify strategic technological innovations, digitisation, and knowledge management opportunities to better meet stakeholder needs.

Operating in a complex and dynamic environment, the CIO leads the delivery of an agile, resilient, and contemporary ICT function, including shared services to portfolio agencies. This includes embedding a security-first, risk-based approach, with clear prioritisation of cyber and information security uplift to strengthen the department’s resilience. The CIO is accountable for maintaining a strong security posture and strengthening disaster recovery and business continuity capability, responding to evolving cyber threats, and managing cyber and operational risks within a regulated environment.

The CIO drives cultural and departmental change by translating reviews, audits and reform initiatives into sustained improvements in capability, performance, and ways of working. This involves driving an uplift agenda, including cloud alignment, infrastructure renewal and improved service integration, while maintaining operational stability. This includes setting the strategic direction for the department’s adoption of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, ensuring governance, capability and safeguards enable their safe, ethical and effective use to improve decision-making, service delivery and productivity.

The CIO will foster innovation, creative thinking, and solutions within an environment of transparency and accountability, and lead the development, continuous improvement and evaluation of information systems and ICT project management frameworks, strategies, and tools for appropriate governance and improved service delivery.

The Attorney-General’s Department is responsible for delivering outcomes across a wide range of justice related policy areas. Through the Australian Government Solicitor Group,



the department provides legal services to clients across the Commonwealth. Working in partnership with all business areas as well as portfolio agencies, the CIO is positioned as a trusted strategic partner.

The role requires establishing and maintaining effective relationships and partnerships with key internal and external stakeholders to ensure ICT outcomes align with and support organisational priorities.

The CIO leads high-performing teams, manages significant resources, and fosters innovation with a strong focus on practical delivery and measurable outcomes. This includes building a strong culture of accountability, continuous improvement and delivery. The role also ensures accessible, inclusive and integrated services, strengthening cultural capability and supporting the department’s commitments to Closing the Gap.

How you can help us make a difference

We are seeking a strategic, collaborative and culturally aware leader who can operate effectively in a complex and high-profile environment. Our ideal candidate will bring strong judgement, composure and delivery focus, with the ability to lead through complexity and ambiguity, ensuring the department’s ICT services remain secure, resilient and fit for the future.

Our ideal candidate will:

- Bring a strong security mindset, with demonstrated ability to prioritise risk and focus effort where it delivers the greatest impact. This includes a demonstrated capability in managing cyber and operational risks within a regulated environment, with the ability to strengthen resilience, assurance and compliance across enterprise platforms. They will possess a strong commitment to lead integrity, fraud and corruption control through enabling accountability, effective governance and transparency.
- Have experience leading cultural change, including embedding new practices and lifting digital, data and cyber literacy across the department. This also includes a demonstrated ability to build capacity within information and cybersecurity areas to ensure the provision of consistent and integrated services.
- Build trust and work in genuine partnership with senior leaders, business areas, and key providers. This includes the ability to influence senior leaders, navigate complexity, and align ICT outcomes with organisational priorities.
- Be a team-oriented leader who develops capability, fosters accountability, and creates an inclusive and high-performing culture. This requires experience in building organisational skills and responsiveness, overseeing the implementation of improvement and change initiatives through a collaborative leadership culture, and capability in empowering, motivating,



and developing the diverse talents of people to ensure an optimum level of appropriate skilled employees.
- Show an entrepreneurial mindset, balanced with pragmatism and a focus on outcomes and delivery. change initiatives through a collaborative leadership culture, and capability in empowering, inspiring, and developing the diverse talents of people to ensure an optimum level of appropriate skilled employees.
- Demonstrate experience shaping and implementing approaches to artificial intelligence adoption, including establishing governance, managing risk and delivering practical, outcome-focused use cases.
- Demonstrate genuine commitment to Closing the Gap, including supporting Priority Reforms through inclusive, respectful and informed approaches. An understanding of how diversity in experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds strengthens service delivery, productivity, capability and innovation is highly valued.

Eligibility

To be eligible for employment at the Attorney-General’s Department applicants must be Australian citizens.

Applicants offered employment will be required to successfully undergo a police record check and be able to obtain and maintain a security clearance at a specified clearance level. The successful applicant must be willing to disclose all relevant and required information.

Successful applicants engaged into the APS will be subject to a probation period.

Notes

A merit pool of suitable applicants may be created from this process, and will be active for 18 months after the date of this gazettal.

The department is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive working environment. We actively support and encourage people of all backgrounds; gender, age, ethnicity, race, cultural background, disability, religion and sexual orientation to apply and aim to ensure that the recruitment and employee experience is as accessible and inclusive as possible.

First Nations people can contact us to discuss options for working from Country.

Getting to know the Attorney-General's Department

The Attorney-General's Department delivers programs and policies to maintain and improve Australia's law and justice framework, and to facilitate jobs growth through policies that promote fair, productive, flexible and safe workplaces. Through the Australian Government Solicitor, we also provide legal services to the Commonwealth, including legal advice and representation. Our department is the central policy and coordinating element of the Attorney-General's portfolio.

Our department is structured into four groups:

- Australian Government Solicitor
- Justice and Communities
- Integrity and Security
- Enabling Services

The department operates in a diverse and complex environment to address challenging issues. We have a highly-skilled and engaged workforce involved in policy development and implementation and program administration. The department also has a large number of practicing lawyers, mainly within the Australian Government Solicitor Group within the department.

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📌 First Assistant Secretary, Chief Information Officer (CIO) (Canberra)
🏢 Australian Attorney-General'S Department
📍 Canberra