Who got that job?

Were you one of the people who applied for this job and wondered who got it?

Job: Chief Information Officer

For: Ministry of Justice.

Sandi Beatie started her working life as a nurse in Hawkes Bay.

Her focus for the next year will be the transfer of data during the current decommissioning of the Wanganui computer into new Ministry of Justice systems.

Palmerston North-born Beatie, aged 51, has come a long way.

She has had jobs as diverse as being one of Prime Minister Helen Clark's press secretaries in the mid-1980s, establishing the Parent Advocacy Council (later abolished after a change of government), completing a masters degree in public policy, managing council services for Wellington City and working as a director with KPMG in the capital.

The justice job appealed to her because of its opportunity to take a leadership role with "a strategic development component" and the chance to work with the police, the courts and the Corrections Department.

One of its demands is linking the Ministry of Justice into the State Service Commission's "e-government" project.

Beatie has already had some involvement with the plan, which aims to put government processes on-line for civil servants and the public, and describes herself as "really interested in what they are trying to achieve".

But the nursing she did so many years ago still has an influence today, she says.

"The things I took from nursing were skills like pragmatism and sure-footedness - things I value in myself and I think other people have valued."