The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has announced the appointment of current lead of its CHESS Replacement Solution Design program, Tim Whiteley, as its next chief information officer (CIO).

As CIO, the ASX confirmed, Whiteley will oversee the organisation’s backend technology functions, and data security, data governance, enterprise technology infrastructure as well as leading the delivery of the stock exchange’s multi-year technology modernisation and capability uplift program.

He will report directly to ASX managing director and chief executive Helen Lofthouse.

Whiteley was in November 2022 originally appointed to head the ASX’s CHESS Replacement Solution Design program, following its decision late last year to entirely rejig its chosen blockchain-based solution.

Before joining the securities exchange, Whiteley served nearly seven years at Westpac, initially leading application development and consolidation of its digital, data, customer, payments retail and business banking dev teams. In 2020, he was promoted to lead the development of the big four bank’s Customer Service Hub, a program to consolidate and uplift more than 20 systems across multiple Westpac brands and deliver a single view of the customer.

Prior to his time at Westpac, he was a mainstay of the Commonwealth Bank’s tech team, serving most recently as EGM for service development, a role he held for more than seven years, which provided architecture, design, build and testing services across all CBA business units.

The ASX’s naming of Whiteley as its next CIO comes two months after it announced it would to split its current group executive, technology and data and CIO roles.

The creation of this standalone technology division to be led by a dedicated CIO, would, the ASX said in its March announcement, create a “single point of senior executive focus and accountability for delivering ASX’s enterprise-wide technology renewal program”.

The ASX said the split would also enable its newly separated technology and data division, led by Dan Chesterman, to zero in on its goal to mature the company’s enterprise data capability and customer-facing technologies, data products and services.

Lofthouse praised Whiteley, who is approaching his first full year at the ASX, as “a highly skilled technology transformation executive”, acknowledging his more than 25 years’ experience in business and technology roles across Australia’s financial services sector.

“I am pleased to be making this announcement after a competitive global search with very high-quality candidates,” Lofthouse added.

“Tim’s deep expertise in technology and project execution in the financial services industry will be invaluable as ASX looks to contemporise its technology and deliver critical market infrastructure.”

The ASX confirmed that Whiteley would continue in his role as lead of the CHESS replacement program “until a new leadership team structure is formed”.