NZX tech boss quits

Photo / File

NZX today said its chief information officer, David Godfrey, has resigned and will be leaving at the end of 2020.

An international search to appoint a successor is underway with executive recruitment firm, Hobson Leavy. NZX's Technology Committee will be involved in the selection process.

In a statement, NZX chief executive Mark Peterson said Godfrey had been "first-class".

Peterson made no mention of the local exchange's recent IT issues, which have included yesterday's daylight-saving blunder and multiple outages caused by a sustained DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack - whose week-long duration surprised many tech experts.

The wake of DDoS attack saw a substantial overhaul of the NZX's connectivity setup, with multinational content delivery specialist Akamai drafted in and a backup site added for market announcements

Godfrey has held a range of IT leadership roles over more than 11 years with the company, NZX said in its statement.

He joined NZX in June 2009 through the M-co acquisition, and became IT Manager for NZX Energy Services. He subsequently headed up Regulated Systems & Operations, before leading the company's full technology function as Head of IT in June 2011, and CIO since February 2016.

Chief Executive, Mark Peterson, said that David has been an incredibly valuable and loyal member of the NZX team over the past decade, and a great contributor to the organisation.

"NZX has changed materially over the years and we are very grateful for the contribution David has made to the business. His attitude, commitment and support of everyone across the business – and through the wider capital markets community – has been first-class," Mr Peterson said.

"We wish David all the best for the future."