Interactive taps SoftwareOne's Stuart Hogben as new CTO

Melbourne-based managed services provider Interactive has appointed its first chief technical officer, naming Stuart Hogben to the role.

In the Sydney-based customer-facing role, Hogben will report to Interactive’s chief revenue officer Simon Durkin to align the “long-term strategic goals with the evolving digital infrastructure needs of customers,” according to a company statement.

Prior to joining Interactive Hogben spent the past five years as managing director of SoftwareOne. He also held senior positions in the managed services businesses of DXC and Fujitsu.

“With most businesses now reliant on digital technology to stay competitive, it’s an exciting time to move into the role of Chief Technology Officer at Interactive,” Hogben said in a statement.

“Cloud technology offers enormous potential to innovate business models and create new ways of working, however, it needs to be carefully integrated with physical devices, networks, and on-premises solutions to form a true digital platform. This is where I see Interactive playing a major role in helping customers with their digital transformation, blending cloud services capability with infrastructure maintenance, leaving no gaps for CIOs to have to plug.”

Interactive boss Brendan Fleiter said the company prided itself on “delivering exceptional service to our customers every day”.

“Our standards are high, and our vision is to be our customers trusted technology partner. I’m delighted to welcome Stuart to Interactive. He is an outstanding addition to our team and his deep experience will play an important role in our customers’ success.”

Hogben is the second senior hire for the company this year following the appointment of Fred Thiele as its first chief information security officer (CISO) in January.

Thiele was hired out of the New South Wales Government, most recently as CISO of Transport for NSW from 2019.

The company’s recent customer wins include furniture and homewares retailer Freedom Furniture which it migrated to Microsoft Azure in a project completed late last year.

Interactive said at the time was tapped for its CloudFlex delivery model, a scalable, pay-as-you-go offering that gives its customers access to a dedicated multi-cloud project team.