Aidan Tudehope (Macquarie Telecom)
Macquarie Telecom Group business unit Macquarie Government has become an employment partner of Fortem Australia to provide upskilling opportunities for first responders.
A not-for-profit organisation, Fortem offers first responders and their families specialised well-being and mental fitness support.
Part of this includes its transition and employment program, which aims to support its network post-service. As such, the partnership with Macquarie will see the business offer first responders and their families with cyber security, cloud and data centre security roles to assist the telco business unit's federal government customers.
Further, the partnership will specifically focus on national security and defence IT and will include training opportunities, resources and networking events, among other initiatives.
“Australia needs to considerably increase its cyber posture right across the economy. To deliver this uplift we need, as a nation, to exponentially grow the available talent pool,” said Macquarie Government managing director Aidan Tudehope.
“The nature of cyber-security means we need to develop and nurture that talent through a sovereign lens – ensuring we have Australians learning and working to protect Australian data.
“Australia’s first responders are among the best in the world. Many of them possess the analytical, investigative, problem-solving, and pattern-recognition skills necessary for success in cyber, defence technology and related industries. In many cases, they already have the essential security clearances needed to work with sensitive data.
“We’re committed to continuing our goal of uplifting Australian sovereign capability in cyber security and ICT and this important partnership with Fortem will help us in that effort.”
Meanwhile, Fortem managing director and co-founder John Bale claimed the partnership “will help more first responder families make a smooth, supported transition into the next chapter of their careers”.
“Partnering with the right companies to enable career transition for first responders and their families is central to our mission to provide specialised wellbeing and mental fitness support to first responder families,” Bale said.
“Macquarie has long championed Australian jobs and skills development and is a leading company in an industry where there is close values alignment with and strong mutual benefits for first responders.”
Macquarie Government's partnership with Fortem comes a week after its parent group achieved Certified Strategic status with the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) for both its cloud and data centre services.
