Published on the 09/06/2016 | Written by Clare Coulson

More than 800 people crowded into the Grand Ball Room at the Langham, Auckland last night to celebrate the best of the best in the world of CIOs…

It was a noisy and exuberant crowd at last night’s CIO Award ceremony where funny-man-cum-MC Jeremey Corbett played host for the second year in a row. There were five awards up for grabs with the supreme award being the CIO of the Year. Winston Fong of Fisher & Paykel won out against finalists Craig Bunyan from ANZ Bank and Tracy Voice from the Ministry for Primary Industries.

The judges said they were impressed by Fong’s “sustained leadership over many years of an IT team that has earned the respect of the business through successful delivery of significant technology transformation on a global stage”.  Fong, who seemed genuinely surprised at the win, said he was just happy to be nominated by eight members of his team and that he saw the gong as “a team award”.

In the other award categories Mike Jenkins from The Instillery was dubbed NZ Emerging ICT Leader of the Year; The Mind Lab by Unitec won the Engaging Youth in ICT category (they also won this category in 2014 but their progress could not be ignored); Westpac New Zealand came away with the Best ICT Team Culture award; and the New Zealand Transport Agency won the Executive Team of the Year category.

In addition to the five main categories, there was the 2016 Outstanding Contribution to Technology in New Zealand Award which grew out of the lifetime achievement award to reflect the fact that many of its recipients (such as Sir Neville Jordan and Rod Drury) have plenty more to offer in the future.

This year Wayne Norrie, Chair of the NZ Hi-Tech Awards, was recognised for his outstanding contribution to New Zealand’s technology sector. In his more than 30-year-long career so far, he has established and later sold Revera New Zealand; worked to create the New Zealand Beachhead programme in the US to support Kiwi companies making a run for the US market; made great strides in the areas of governance and mentoring; resuscitated the NZ Hi-Tech Awards and resurrected the NZ-Tech Hall of Fame to recognise and celebrate New Zealand technology achievements; and much more.

In an eloquent speech, Norrie said how humbled he was to receive the award and described the unique experience of being on the other side of the awards phone call for once. Until now, he said he had marvelled at the fact that NZ Hi-Tech Award recipients always seemed so surprised when he called them with the news… until it happened to him.

In a charming anecdote from his speech he explained how he told his wife: “I haven’t done anything great”, to which she replied “You haven’t done anything great but you have done a million different things that add up to a big difference.” Never a truer word was said.

The full list of CIO award winners and finalists follows.

CIO of the Year
Winner: Winston Fong, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare

Finalists:
Craig Bunyan, ANZ Bank
Tracy Voice, Ministry for Primary Industries

Emerging ICT Leader of the Year
Winner: Mike Jenkins, The Instillery

Finalists:
Chris Cunningham, New Zealand Fire Service
Laura Bell, SafeStack

Executive Team of the Year
Winner: New Zealand Transport Agency

Finalists
The Instillery

Engaging Youth in ICT
Winner: The Mind Lab by Unitec

Finalists:
Accelerating Aotearoa
Gather Workshops
Planit Software Testing
Vodafone

Best ICT Team Culture
Winner: Westpac

Finalists:
ANZ Bank
MYOB
The Instillery