Swimming Australia IT leader dives into CTO role at A&S Labels

Ecommerce fashion brand A&S Labels has appointed former Swimming Australia general manager of IT Michael Ciavarella as its first chief technology officer.  

Melbourne-based A&S Labels is the parent company to online global fashion brands Tiger Mist and I.AM.GIA, which mostly promote products via social media.

Its chief financial officer and chief operating officer Nick Kenny told iTnews the CTO role was created as the retailer “identified the need to introduce digital innovation and technological leadership into the business to support our global growth strategy.”

“As a business, our core ethos is flexibility and nimble-ness, so we sought a technology leader, as opposed to a traditional CIO," Kenny said.

“The ability to adapt quickly to a rapidly changing global market and understand how our customers engage with us across all touchpoints is critical.

“We needed a technology mindset to inform and challenge our strategy, further enhancing our flexibility with changing shopping habits."

Prior to the creation of the CTO role, “there wasn't a specific technology leader” at A&S Labels but rather “an innovative founder” plus “a collaborative leadership team”.

“As the business has grown significantly on a global level, it was the right time to introduce the key strategic role of CTO," Kenny said.

The inaugural appointee is Michael Ciavarella, who said via LinkedIn that “after a very rewarding two-and-a-half years at Swimming Australia, I’ve made the decision to move to new adventures.”

“I’m thrilled to have recently joined A&S Labels as chief technology officer," he wrote.

“I’m focused on driving transformational change, ensuring we will scale across technology, e-commerce, and data.”

Ciavarella added he is now “currently building my team”, including “actively recruiting for a technical lead of engineering”.

Ciavarella told iTnews that “it’s an exciting time to join the business” as he plans to put “people first, reduce silos and inspire through a vision and direction”.

“Once the basics are in place, we’ll execute on reimagining experiences and business opportunities, that’s the space I love most," he said.

 “We’ll prototype and build digital experiences in collaboration with our customers.

“I’ve implemented this across several organisations, and not only does it improve customer satisfaction, [but also] the feeling for teams is infectious and exhilarating. It's an environment teams want to be part of”.

Ciavarella added A&S Labels “have a very strong following on social media platforms” as “customers explore and discover across social and our site”.

“However, the point of transaction is our site, [and] it’s imperative that this experience is as frictionless as possible.

"We'll continue to evolve our core channel.”

In his new role, Ciavarella reports to A&S Labels CFO and COO Nick Kenny.

Kenny told iTnews that Ciavarella was “brought in for his technology vision and strategic direction, knowing it would accelerate the growth we’ve experienced to date.”

“Not only will he provide strategic leadership and direction across technology, digital and data, a key focus will be to transform our way of working, improve customer experience and support our strategic growth via innovation and emerging technologies."

During his time at Swimming Australia Ciavarella helped develop and build the first live streaming capability for Swimming Australia, SwimTV.

Ciavarella also worked at Target Australia for four years, first as head of innovation before adding data analytics to his title.

He also worked at Telstra from 2011 to 2015 in various digital-led roles and has run technology projects across Manheim Australian, Honda Australia Motor Vehicles and Tabcorp.