Kompozition has appointed former Department of Defence executive Damien McLachlan as Field Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Defence, as the company targets closer engagement with Defence and government customers on digital engineering and requirements management.
McLachlan joins Kompozition after a 31-year career with the Australian Department of Defence, most recently as Director General Defence Landworthiness, a role with senior accountability for technical regulation for Australian Defence Force land materiel systems and land capabilities.
Kompozition said the Field CTO position is intended to sit between the company’s technology and customer missions, with responsibilities including advising senior stakeholders on adoption and strategy and ensuring operational requirements inform platform development.
McLachlan is a Chartered Professional Engineer and a Fellow of Engineers Australia. His qualifications include a Master of Laws from the Australian National University, a Master of Systems Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) from the University of New South Wales, and a Bachelor of Science from Monash University.
In a statement, Kompozition chief executive Michael Ninness said the appointment was aimed at supporting Defence and Defence industry in Australia.
McLachlan said he was drawn to the role to apply his experience on the industry side of engineering, citing the impacts of poorly defined requirements on schedule and cost.
Kompozition describes itself as an Australian-owned digital engineering company focused on Defence and government sectors, offering a model-based platform it says is designed to replace document-centric approaches with a “living digital model” for managing requirements across complex programs.
