Qantas is her ticket home

cio files | Jamila Gordon
WHEN Fiona Balfour parted ways with Qantas in February 2006 to join Telstra, the national carrier looked to its IT business services head, John Willet, for comfort.

Willet held the fort for more than a year, but company insiders knew they had to quickly fill the gap, as he was about to leave as well.

Qantas scoured the globe for a replacement chief information officer.

It was an arduous task.

The company is a unique beast, with internal and external security threats commonplace, so luring an executive with the right mix of skills was essential.

From managing the impact of surging oil prices to buffering the impact of industrial action on IT, the Qantas CIO has a pivotal role, not only for the company, but for the national economy.

Qantas chief financial officer Peter Gregg was acutely aware of what had to be done.

He was set to leave in October 2007, so fast work was needed.

Headhunters spent months selecting local and overseas-based candidates before presenting a handful to the Qantas executive team.

Jamila Gordon made the final cut and while Europe had all the necessary trappings for a technology chieftain, the lure of home was too much.

With IBM, she had led large-scale IT transformation and outsourcing projects in Europe, based in France and the Netherlands, for six years.

Gordon then joined a major European bank and travelled extensively, as she was responsible for an IT transformation strategy and end-to-end IT service delivery across 11 countries.

Those were exciting times, but she missed home and was itching to return to Sydney if the right opportunity came along.

So when the Flying Kangaroo came calling, all the pieces fell into place.

Contract negotiations lasted a few months, but by August last year her appointment was made public and Mascot was her new hunting ground the following month.

"I only worked with John Willet for a few weeks, but during that time he went out of his way to make me feel welcome and did everything he could to make the transition as smooth as possible," she says.

"I really appreciated it."

Gordon had stints with insurer GIO and Deloitte Consulting in Australia before joining Big Blue, but her low profile seemed to work against her.

And when Qantas showed off "Air Gordon" to the world, not everyone was impressed.

Some critics were quick to home in on her lack of local experience as an IT chief.

Others, such as AMP CIO Lee Barnett, disagreed.

"Jamila is an Aussie expat who was particularly attractive as a result of her extensive outsourcing experience.

"There probably weren't a lot of onshore candidates who met the Qantas brief," Barnett said in an interview in February.

Ten months into the job, Gordon has completed a major plank in Qantas's massive overhaul of eQ, its Oracle-based human resources and finance systems.

"Human resources is up and running," Gordon says.

"Oracle Financials is now in production for Jetstar and the regional airlines.

"The rollout of financials to the rest of the group will take place in July, and it's on track."

Last week she revealed that the airline had purchased 400 BlackBerrys for cabin crew, replacing paper customer service forms.

She has also set her sights on Project Marlin, which involves replacing Jetsmart, a long-running $40 million engineering and maintenance platform.

Jetsmart had been labelled Dumbjet by engineering staff.

In February 2005, Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association members threatened to strike over the system because it required engineers to carry out additional data entry and accounting work.

Project Marlin was on track for the first phase, and in time for the arrival of the new Airbus A380 superjumbos later this year.

The Qantas A380 fleet will rely on engineering and maintenance systems from aviation maintenance management specialist Mxi.

There is no specific timeframe for Marlin, she says.

"After the A380 we will progressively replace the other legacy systems to maintain the other fleet.

"We have no particular timeframe because at the moment we're totally focused on the A380."

It's all hands on deck for phase one of Marlin.

Apart from internal specialists, engineers from Mxi and global outsourcer and Qantas partner Tata Consultancy Services are aiding with the installation work for the superjumbo.

"TCS is involved because they support and maintain our legacy engineering systems," she says.

Juggling myriad partners is one of Gordon's key strengths and she often has brainstorming sessions with them.

She cites the example of new-fangled Web 2.0 technology and the Qantas approach.

"Web 2.0 intrigues us but we work very closely with our vendor partners and they help us by using their labs to test this new technology.

"We're looking at some of the prototypes of products coming out of TCS's labs," Gordon says.

TCS has proof of concept labs the world over, including Sydney.

As a public company and globally recognisable brand Qantas keeps a tight rein on who it does business with.

Its technology governance model is based on a federated approach, with the CIO's office shouldering the main responsibility for technology infrastructure, services and architecture roadmaps, while each division or line of business oversees specific technology functions.

Gordon's team structure is divided into six key areas: planning, architecture and governance; program delivery; IT segment services; managed services; IT people and practices; and IT finance.

While her plate may be filling faster than a Las Vegas buffet line, Gordon says it has been "absolute fun" since her first day at Qantas.

"Work had been very exciting. If it wasn't challenging it wouldn't be fun."