Tennis CIO Chris Yates looks to improve his serve

Being appointed an organisation's first CIO is a challenge at the best of times, but when you have an international Grand Slam tennis tournament to prepare for in two months things are just that much more hectic.

That's what it was like for Tennis Australia's first CIO, Chris Yates, who began the job with a baptism of fire by managing IT during January's Australian Open. Helpdesk calls average 120 to 150 per month at Tennis Australia, but during January it answered 1200 helpdesk calls. All these things run on technology.

But as Yates puts it, "after the party there is a lot of mess to clean up", and Tennis Australia wants its information systems to offer more than just coping with a huge rush for four weeks of every year.

"My predecessors did a great job, but my role is a new position and is on the senior management team," Yates says, adding that his appointment is part of Tennis Australia's strategy to promote the sport by leveraging IT.

Tennis Australia's basic charter is to "make Australia the greatest tennis playing nation on the planet", and it has approached this objective at a number of levels - from player development at the grassroots tennis club level to making the game enjoyable to watch and planning how to put money back into the sport to improve it.

When former Nortel Networks executive Steve Wood took over Tennis Australia in 2005 his focus was a restructure using people with proven business skills. He also revived a focus on IT which was "lacking".

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