Professor John Bancroft will stand down as QCIF’s CEO in early June to retire and return to England, his home country.
John, who replaced Dr Phil Gurney as QCIF’s CEO in March 2020, said he is sorry to be leaving QCIF but is looking forward to spending more time with family and friends.
“Like many people during the pandemic, I’ve reassessed my lifestyle and priorities, and decided it was time to retire and move back home to England after having lived in New Zealand for seven years and Australia for two years,” said John.
“I have really enjoyed my time with QCIF and am very excited about its prospects for the future, which I believe to be truly excellent.
“Over the last two years we have seen about $6m of external investment into QCIF’s cloud compute infrastructure and Members’ research support activities, plus QCIF has brokered access for its Members to free high-end, high-performance computing and high-throughput computing, and discounted data storage capacity.
“As a result of this and other external investment, QCIF has consistently provided an excellent return on investment for its Members, exceeding 300% on average.
“QCIF is growing in terms of revenue, services, staff numbers, membership and customer base, and is full of optimism and confidence in the future, which is wonderful to see.”
Professor Ian Smith, Chairperson of QCIF’s board, said although he was personally disappointed, he fully respected John’s decision to retire. “I’ve very much enjoyed working with John and appreciated his leadership and the work he has done to reshape QCIF, leaving the organisation in excellent shape and very well placed to support and help meet the needs of its Queensland membership into the future,” he said.
A search is currently underway to find John’s successor. If a suitable replacement is not in position prior to John’s departure, the QCIF board will nominate an acting CEO, likely from QCIF’s experienced management team.
Ian and the board will assist QCIF in its search for a new CEO.