Coles hires more new heads of technology

Coles Group has made changes to its 'corporate, liquor and emerging businesses' technology function, appointing three senior technology managers so far while searching for three more.

The retailer has also made Cameron Amling, who was seconded into the role of general manager, corporate, liquor and emerging businesses earlier this year, the permanent leader.

While on secondment, Amling oversaw many projects as part of Coles' technology transformation, including the digitisation of many HR processes and the recent launch of the retailer's recruitment platform.

According to Amling's LinkedIn profile, he also now has overarching responsibility for Coles' financial technology - FinTec - payments platform function as well.

Under Amling sit a number of new heads of technology:

• Anthony Nigro has been named head of corporate technology, supporting safety, risk, legal and insurance products. He was previously head of liquor digital and technology, announcing his internal shift via LinkedIn.
• Ben Youl will now oversee Coles’ liquor transformation as head of liquor technology. This role will lead an ERP replacement and use machine learning to optimise liquor products at a store level. Youl's previous role at Coles, head of disruptive technology, has been recast as head of tech innovation, and is in active recruitment.
• Sonja Steiner was recently appointed head of financial technology (FinTec) to lead payment platforms.

An additional three heads of technology are also being recruited to sit under Amling as well.

The team will soon add:

• A head of people technology role to digitise team member HR experiences
• A head of enterprise application technology role to focus on all enterprise application engineering capabilities across platforms such as Microsoft, SAP and Salesforce
• A head of finance and procurement spot to focus on all technology underpinning Coles’ finance, procurement, treasury, leasing and property systems.

A Coles spokesperson told iTnews that the retailer's stratyegy "continues to evolve" under chief technology officer John Cox.

The evolving strategy "will enable Coles to build on its ambition to become a technology and digitally empowered organisation."

“This is underpinned by a technology strategy that is focused on modernising our core, enabling action through data and creating exceptional customer and team member experiences," the spokesperson said.

“To deliver on our ambition we are focusing on building capability, by bringing in external talent and giving opportunities to our existing team members.”