Australia’s state and territory governments run the systems behind planning, transport, education, and the everyday services that millions of people depend on. The five CISOs below protect agencies in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and the ACT, and their routes into the role are strikingly varied. One spent years managing businesses for national law firms and co-founded a pricing consultancy before leading cyber transformations. Another supported the Reuters Monitor Service in the 1980s and held a CISO role at the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service in the 1990s. A third led the establishment of a territory’s cyber security centre, and others rose through electoral systems, telecommunications, and health technology to the top security seat.
Natasha Scott – CISO, NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure
Natasha Scott began in marketing and strategy roles in Newcastle and Sydney before serving as a senior national business manager at EY, Clayton Utz, and Allens. She co-founded Proven Matters, leading pricing implementations for law firms across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the United States, and Europe for more than a decade, then led large-scale change programmes at David Jones, Woolworths, and Commonwealth Bank. She moved into cyber security at Ausgrid, leading change across eight streams of a major cyber and protective security transformation affecting around 5,500 staff at 250 sites. At Lendlease she designed a global cyber awareness programme that reached about 13,000 staff in four languages, led a $30 million cyber maturity uplift programme, and became global head of cyber security delivery. As director of the cyber defence portfolio at Transport for NSW, she led around 150 people and $52 million in annual investment. Scott became CISO of the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure in March 2025, leading a team of about 45 and a budget of around $30 million across a shared-services environment supporting three departments and about 20,000 staff.
Julian Valtas – CISO, ACT Government
Julian Valtas has spent more than 20 years in the ICT industry and public sector, and nearly 18 of them with the ACT Government. He has served as director of ICT security operations since 2009 and has held senior cyber security leadership roles for more than a decade. As CISO of the ACT Government since 2020, he led the establishment of the ACT Cyber Security Centre. Valtas focuses on improving cyber maturity, engaging with the business, and building a positive cyber culture, drawing on a background in enterprise architecture and broader ICT operations. He contributes as faculty to the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and has joined other territory CISOs in a fireside chat published by the Australian Cyber Security Centre.
Darryn Van Someren – SA Government CISO, Department of Treasury and Finance
Darryn Van Someren worked as a project leader at Fusion and co-founded Rezon8 as its technical director. He joined South Australia’s Department of the Premier and Cabinet in 2012, spending nearly eight years in business delivery and strategy before moving into cyber security. After a year as business systems architect at the Electoral Commission of South Australia, he returned to the department as cyber security project manager and then deputy director of service design and integration for cyber security. Van Someren served as acting Government CISO in 2025 and became South Australian Government CISO in April 2026, based in the Department of Treasury and Finance. He discussed the state’s cyber security landscape on the Public Sector Network podcast and spoke at the Government Cyber Security Showcase SA in 2025.
Greg Adamson – CISO, Department of Transport and Planning (Victoria)
Dr Greg Adamson started as a technical team lead at AAP Information Services, supporting the Reuters Monitor Service, then spent six years as national communications manager at the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, a role that included CISO responsibilities. He managed networks at Airservices Australia, implemented Medibank’s e-business gateway, and led e-business consultancy work for Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland at Fujitsu in Edinburgh. Over nearly 13 years at ANZ, he rose to associate director of operational assurance, managing cyberfraud, IT failure, and compliance risk in transaction and institutional banking. He has held fellowships at the University of Melbourne since 2008 and has run his own cyber risk advisory since 2016. Adamson became CISO of Victoria’s Department of Transport and Planning in September 2022. A longtime IEEE leader, he served as president of its Society on Social Implications of Technology, chaired its Victorian Section of around 2,000 members, and now chairs its work on dignity, inclusion, identity, trust and agency in cyberspace. He sits on the board of Internet Australia and has spoken at the Australian Cyber Conference and on IEEE’s Digital Privacy podcast.
Omer Jamal – CISO, NSW Education Standards Authority
Omer Jamal spent several years in telecommunications service delivery at Huawei, Vodafone Australia, and Optus before moving into NSW Government cyber security. As cyber security prevention lead reporting to the NSW Government CISO, he contributed to the development of the NSW Cyber Security Policy. At the NSW Telco Authority he established an information security management system, led Essential Eight implementation, and developed a security strategy for LTE networks. At eHealth NSW he managed cyber security, served as product owner for the ACSC Essential Eight, and acted as associate director of governance, risk and compliance. Jamal became CISO of the NSW Education Standards Authority in March 2024.
Steady Hands Across the States
These five CISOs show how many paths lead into public sector security. Scott brought deep change management experience into cyber transformation, while Adamson combined decades in banking and networks with academic and IEEE leadership. Valtas, Van Someren, and Jamal built their careers inside government, rising through operations, delivery, and policy to lead security for the agencies they know best. Together they help keep the services Australians rely on secure and available.
Discover more CISOs securing their organizations:
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.