Board of Management

Kathryn Heaton - Chair, National Events

Currently Tools Retirement & Migration Project Lead at HP,  Kathryn's involvement in ITSM has included roles as Service Operation Manager for SA Water and as an ITIL Consultant for Origin Energy. Kathryn is a specialist in helping organisations to understand how ITSM can work for them.  Having worked in the Information Technology space for 20 years Kathryn fully understands the differences between the way "IT" people and "business" people think.  Her goal is to assist these two groups to get the most from the ITIL framework and as a consequence improve the service provided by IT to the business.

Elected as Chair in 2011, Kathryn continues as National Events Director with responsibility for the LEADit National conference.   These National Events provide IT professionals with a forum at which they can gain information, increase their knowledge and share experiences. 

Kathryn joined itSMF because she is enthusiastic about improving the way things are done.  Her focus on process improvement is a good fit with IT Service Management.  Kathryn says she has gained both personal and professional benefits from her Membership; personally through her experience as a Board Member and interacting with new people, and professionally through a recently completed project that was a direct result of her involvement with itSMF.

kathryn.heaton@itsmf.org.au

Harry Powell - Deputy Chair, Strategic & Business Planning

Harry moved to EDS in 1996 from the South Australian Government, where he was Manager of IT Infrastructure for the Department of Treasury and Finance. He became the Team Leader for the Justice portfolio in 1997 and then Manager in 1998. He has also performed the role of Service Delivery Leader on the GMH Account in 1997, participated in the transition of the Ericsson account in 2000 and was a member of the Qantas bid team in 2001. Before re-joining the SA Government in 1990 he worked at Elders IXL as System Manager on their videotex based Elderlink product. Harry holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Computing Studies and Civil Technicians Certificate from the University of South Australia. He has also undertaken various EDS leaders and management training courses, including the Leaders Internship Program.

Harry’s portfolio is Strategic & Business Planning, which focuses on ensuring that itSMF Australia has a vision of where the organisation is going and strategies in place to enable it to get there.

Harry joined itSMF Australia to meet other people who were interested in ITIL. He says that these contacts have enabled him to continually develop his knowledge of ITIL and IT Service Management. Another benefit is that he is able to provide his employer with useful information on what is happening in the industry.

harry.powell@itsmf.org.au

Garry Long - Treasurer, Financial/Risk Management/Industry Awards

Currently Principal Consultant with Planwell Technology, Garry is a highly proficient IT professional. He has eighteen years' IT experience across IT Service Management, IT Project Management and IT Operations Management. Recent experience includes the establishment of life-cycle strategic Service Management Programs at Gold Coast City Council and Queensland Department of Natural Resources & Water. Garry is highly skilled in the alignment of Service Management Tools to Business and Service Management processes - particularly Incident, Problem, Change and Configuration/Asset Management. This experience is utilised with various toolsets and is transferable to any ITIL aligned Service Management Product.

Garry manages two itSMF portfolios: Treasurer and Awards Director. As Treasurer, he is responsible for the overall financial management of the Forum. He is also responsible for financial strategy in conjunction with the General Manager and the Board. As Awards Director, he is responsible for creation and management of the itSMF Awards, which are a genuine indicator of quality in ITSM implementation and Project Management.

Garry says he joined itSMF Australia for several reasons. As a stakeholder in ITSM and ITIL, he wanted to play a part in its future by giving something back to an industry that has treated him well, to forge closer links with his peers in IT and actively contribute to growing the industry as a whole as a force for good.

garry.long@itsmf.org.au

Bradley Busch - Secretary, National Events Deputy

Bradley has been involved with the itSMF since 2002 and has contributed to the NSW Committee as a committee member, Special Interest Group co-ordinator and now as NSW State Branch Chairperson.  He is a regular attendee and presenter at Branch Seminars and the itSMF National Conference in Australia.  When ITIL V3 was released in 2006, Bradley was one of the industry reviewers of the Service Operation book.

Over the past 12 years Bradley has built a career as a Service Management professional with a number of Consulting, Professional Services and Solution Integration organisations.  He is passionate about Service Management and loves working with tools that automate, optimise and integrate Service Management disciplines.  He is currently working at Macquarie Group as the Operations Team Leader for the Online Services Team where he is completing a COBIT based risk assessment and a number of Service Improvement Initiatives.

brad,busch@itsmf.org.au

 Michael Billimoria - Certifications & Qualifications

Michael is a skilled professional and has a proven track record of successfully delivering IT Service Management projects that have realised tangible business benefits in complex environments.  He has a strong people and business process focuss which has allowed him to influence and then lead change in highly political environments across large numbers of cross-functional teams.

With a background in successful customer service delivery, Michael is recognised for his ability to lead and motivate teams through change through the use of strong presentation, facilitation skills, and an ability to quickly understand team dynamics.

Michael has led significant business transformation, service improvement and technology projects, including a redesign of support sprocesses  and the establishment of ITIL practices to a large, international university.

Michael has completed a Masters of Information Management  specialising in IT Strategic Planning, Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management (for which he attained the highest marks amongst his peers) and is also an ITIL V3 Expert and PRINCE2 Practitioner.

michael.billimoria@itsmf.org.au

Claire Brereton - Standards 

Claire has experience as an IT Project Director, and has been responsible for the introduction of Project Management, Methodology and Standards.  Claire has been a mentor to Project Managers and implemented Service Management Standards, Processes and Disciplines.  Claire and her family migrated to Australia from the UK in 2001. Claire's extensive experience in the UK included management roles encompassing Operations Architecture, Systems development and maintenance, project management and education. She is credited with having turned around two ineffective and demoralised IT organisations (Hagemeyer UK IT and Birmingham Midshires System Development), and building them into competent and respected partners in their respective fields.

Claire's portfolio is Certifications and Qualifications, supporting and influencing the development and consistency of qualifications and certifications within the field of IT Service Management - in particular ITIL® and ISO/IEC 20000. This portfolio also encompasses ensuring that Australian views are represented in the development of global standards.

Claire joined itSMFA because, as a new arrival in Australia, she wanted to make professional and personal contacts. Claire says she discovered that itSMF is a real community, through which she has found friendships, career opportunities and constant encouragement.

claire.brereton@itsmf.org.au  

Justin Clarke - Member Services & Branch Management

Justin Clarke is a senior IT Leader with over 20 years experience in Service Management. He has worked extensively, both client side and supply side, with large Corporations across Europe and Australia and is passionate about driving customer and service centricity into IT Organisations. Justin has provided significant thought leadership into the development of a holistic IT Services Model which leverages the ITIL V3 framework and aims to assist organisations in maximising the value of their Technology services. Justin is a regular presenter at conferences both internationally and locally and won the best first time presenter award at the annual ITSMF conference in 2009. Justin holds the ITIL V2 and V3 Manager's Certificate, together with an MBA and MSc in Strategic Focus.

Justin joined ITSMF to meet, share knowledge with and further learn from other Service Management professionals

justin.clarke@itsmf.org.au

Karen Ferris - Publications

Karen is a Director of Macanta Consulting providing business consulting to small, medium and large organizations in IT Service Management. She is a regular contributor to IT Service Management publications worldwide, either in a contributory, review or quality assurance role. Karen has been involved with ITIL and ITSM Best Practice since 1994 in the capacities of manager, practitioner, consultant and trainer, both in the UK and Australia. She has assisted many organisations to adopt Best Practice IT Service Management as per ITIL, including NAB, Telstra, Department of Defence, Monash University, NSW Health Department, Coles Myer and Victorian Parliamentary Services.  An outstanding speaker at the inaugural itSMF Conference in 1998, Karen went on to win the President's Award at the 2005 itSMF conference in Brisbane.  She has presented on ITIL and ITSM related topics in USA, UK,  & New Zealand and is our most popular speaker for itSMF state chapter seminars.  In 2007 Karen was awarded the inaugural Service Management Champion Award for her contribution to the industry.

Karen's portfolio is Publications - one of the most important benefits of belonging to the itSMF community.  She plays an active role as a member of the itSMF International Publication Editorial Sub-Committee (IPESC), which coordinates and reviews publications produced by all chapters, and provides endorsement for publications to carry the itSMF identity. She is a member of the international Editorial Advisory Board working on the itSMF International Library.

Karen joined itSMF to contribute to the Service Management community and promote Best Practice.  She has found that a major benefit of belonging to itSMF is the ability to learn and leverage from the experience of others in the industry.  She says the networking opportunities at a local and national (and international) level are also invaluable in helping to improve service within your own organisation. 

karen.ferris@itsmf.org.au

Justin Gasparre  - IT Strategy & Infrastructure

Justin has thirteen years of operational and strategic IT management experience gained within the public and private sector in Australia.  He is currently the Director of the Chief Technology Officers Capacity Planning directorate within the Department of Defence.

Justin has been with the itSMF since 2002 and joined to find other like minded ITSM professionals to learn from and increase his understanding of ITIL and other best practise methodologies.  The benefits from networking and learning has enabled Justin to grow as an IT Service Manager and he now actively contributes to the local chapter and national board of management in order to help and assist others seeking to increase their understanding of ITSM and peers in their community.

The Infrastructure portfolio is managed by Justin and improvements in the current system have been recently made with further work being undertaken in order to implement a CRM for the organisation in order to better deliver services to our members.

justin.gasparre@itsmf.org.au

Rinske Geerlings - Marketing & Communications

Rinske has been specialising in Business Continuity (BC) Planning, Disaster Recoverty (DR) and business process implementations for 15 yeasr.  She built extensive hands-on experience, as well as Senior Management consulting and training roles.

Rinske is often souorced as a panel expert or speaker on Disaster Recovery subjects such as Terrorism, SARS and Avian Flu, and the related implications for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as major businesses.  Key topics include 'Developing practical Business Continuity Plans', 'How to promote BCP across your organisation' and 'How to perform successful DR exercises'.

Her company Business As Usual assists organisations with BC Health Checks (pre-audit assessments), executive/board presentations, benchmarking exercises, Disaster Recovery rehearsals, training, marketing and awareness programs.  Ut also provides Business Process Improvement services - including (Sarbanes-Oxley) compliance, cost efficiency and productivity enhancement - and assists with integration of BCP/DR and ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library).

rinske.geerlings@itsmf.org.au

Mike Webb - Immediate Past Chairman

Mike Webb has over 30 years' experience in the IT industry employed in various roles in both the UK and Australia, and is now the Executive Manager, ICT Service Management with WA Police. Achieving his ITIL Foundations certification in 2001, Mike performed a key role within the team that implemented WA Police's ITIL's framework.

Mike served on the board for over seven years holding numerous potfolios including Secretary and Chairman. 

Mike has been a very active member of the itSMF professional body since 2001, when he assisted in forming the Perth Chapter of itSMF Australia. He got involved because he believed there was ‘a lot of good stuff' happening in WA that could contribute to the Forum, and it has been a great way to share knowledge and learn from his peers.

mike.webb@itsmf.org.au