Brendan Hopper's strategic leadership and unwavering determination to give everyone the opportunity to develop tech skills have made him a guiding force in propelling Australia towards becoming a true nation of innovators. 

Ensuring Australia has an abundance of technology skills and supporting people through non-university entry into technology will help make Australia a true nation of innovators, according to Brendan Hopper, one of the new Independent Directors of the Future Skills Organisation (FSO). 

This transformative vision is deeply rooted in his own education as he never finished his bachelor's degree, admitting: “I couldn’t afford to.” This fuelled his passion for vocational education in technology, an alternative educational route, which is equally enriching and brimming with potential and prospects.  

“About 30 years ago you could expect the disruption cycle to last roughly your career; disruption is now every four to five years and it is important we start investing in keeping people skilled rather than skilling once and thinking that will do it for life. This is why I think vocational education will play a bigger and bigger role in tech skills development for Australia over the next two decades. 

“It’s also why when hiring technologists, and I have hired many hundreds, I have never checked if someone has a degree. My focus is always on assessing whether candidates have the relevant, up-to-date skills to do the job.”  

NURTURING TECH TALENT 

Brendan applies his beliefs in his role as Chief Information Officer for Technology at Commonwealth Bank (CBA), where he is one of the leaders reimagining banking to better help and serve its customers. He is responsible for the bank’s engineering practice, which includes skills development and training for the group's engineers, as well as relationships with many of the universities and registered training organisations to drive talent development. Prior to CBA, which he joined in 2012, he worked as a cyber security consultant predominantly with the Big 4 banks. 

CBA recently launched a tech hub in Brisbane. The Australian Technology Hubs - Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane have grown to nearly a thousand engineers, data scientists and cyber specialists overall, and exemplify Brendan's commitment to nurturing tech talent and fostering collaboration. 

The Brisbane tech hub works with TAFE Queensland, The University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology to give opportunities to students and engages bank staff to teach and inspire the next generation of tech talent, helping grow Queensland’s tech sector. 

Drawing from over a decade of experience as an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales and as a member of the university’s industry advisory board for the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Brendan has a deep understanding of what motivates and empowers students. 

“If my teaching career has taught me anything, it is that it is 90% inspiration. The skills to learn are more important than what you are being taught, and so if you can inspire people to teach themselves, the job is done. What’s important is that we teach people to self-educate, constantly learn, be curious and understand that what they learnt last week, might not be relevant next week.” 

A TRUE NATION OF INNOVATORS  

“We also need young people to want to be software engineers and data scientists as much as they want to be in any other profession,” says Brendan. “India prioritised vocational education with the result that it scaled from an economy that was very much about agriculture into the software factory of the world. There has been a top-down, continual focus on technology skills.”  

As an Independent Director of the Future Skills Organisation, Brendan aims to accelerate his transformative vision by inspiring all Australians to get the digital skills needed to fully participate in the community, the workforce and in all aspects of life.  

His background allows Brendan to bring his insights into industry-led accredited and non-accredited training, VET and Higher Education to the FSO Board. In addition, his participation in the Digital Employment Forum (DEF) also brings further perspectives. The DEF gets major tech employers, educators and Australia’s most innovative technology companies together to transform Australia's approach to attracting and training tech workers. 

“I envision Australia becoming a true nation of innovators. For example, Australia is well-positioned to be a global leader in Quantum Computing, which will be transformative for every aspect of society, creating the potential to solve highly complex problems in greatly reduced timeframes and to address problems that are currently beyond the capacity of conventional computers,” says Brendan, who is also an alternative director at Silicon Quantum Computing in Sydney. 

“Every minute I spend with the experts at Australia’s Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology, I feel in my bones that I’m standing in a room with the people who will change the world and lead the industry,” he added.

3 QUICK-FIRE QUESTIONS

What's the best advice you’ve been given?  

Never send an email with emotion - always score out of ten how emotional you feel about an email and how emotional the recipient might feel - and if it's more than 2/10 on either side, call them instead. 

A simple thing that makes you happy?  

Dogs. I have a dog - A sausage kelpie cross we got from a foster home in 2012 - she's a good example but really all dogs remind me to take enjoyment from the moment, the value of loyalty, and also how simple and good life can be when you have clarity of purpose. 

What book are you reading currently?  

I'm reading, 'Wiring the Winning Organisation' by Gene Kim and Steve Spears. I really like it - one point it makes I agree strongly with is that the main job of leaders is to create an environment great people can perform in, rather than directly pushing for performance.