New South Wales has a new privacy commissioner in Sonia Minutillo, who has led the Information and Privacy Commission NSW’s regulatory functions for the best part of a decade.
Ms Minutillo, who has been acting in the role since long-time privacy commissioner Samantha Gavel left in September 2023, was appointed for a five year term on Thursday.
She has spent almost 12 years with the Information and Privacy Commission NSW, including seven years as the director of investigations and reporting and a stint as acting information commissioner.
Before joining the privacy watchdog in 2013, Ms Minutillo spent eight years at Greenacres Disability Services and five years as an investigator at NSW Industrial Relations before that.
Announcing her appointment, NSW Customer Service and Digital Government minister Jihad Dib said Ms Minutillo would play an important role in ensuring personal information is handled responsibly.
“Ms Minutillo has demonstrated her expertise in this area while acting as privacy commissioner over the past 18 months, drawing on her experience leading programs in the fields of industrial relations and employment rights and obligations…”
Petra Andrén has been named the inaugural chief executive of Quantum Australia, the government-funded research and commercialisation networking group for Australia’s nascent quantum sector.
Ms Andrén, who was also recently appointed to the board of Industry, Innovation and Science Australia, brings extensive experience in deep tech commercialisation to the high-profile role. She is currently the chief executive of Sting Advisory.
“With world-class research and a rapidly growing industry, we must act decisively to translate our quantum expertise into real-world impact,” Ms Andrén said upon her appointment.
Keeping with quantum, Silicon Quantum Computing has appointed Brett Freeman as chief operating officer and Mathew Bradley as vice-president of corporate development.
Mr Freeman has spent the last two years at BT Imaging and previously worked at the likes of GE and Intel. He will lead the scaling of SQC’s simulation products, while growing atomic precision manufacturing operations.
Mr Bradley, meanwhile, has relocated to Australia from the United Kingdom, where the former investment banker had spent the last two years investing in startups through his company Tikto Capital.
Sydney-based laser diode manufacturer BluGlass has established an Industry Advisory Board to “accelerate its technical roadmap and commercial advancement of its gallium nitride laser portfolio”.
Professor Steven DenBaars, an expert in materials science and commercialisation, and Richard Craig, who co-founded Sorra Laser Diode and served as CEO until it was acquired by Kyocera, have been appointed.
As reported by InnovationAus.com earlier in the week, Amber-Jade Sanderson has been named Western Australia’s new Minister for Manufacturing, a role she will hold alongside the portfolios of Energy and Decarbonisation and Skills and TAFE.
A separate Economic Diversification portfolio, to be led by WA Premier Roger Cook, has also been created. Mr Cook is also Minister for State Development, Trade and Investment.
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