Strengthening digital leadership: Trent Dawson appointed Chief Information Officer

We’re proud to announce the promotion of Trent Dawson to the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO), reinforcing our commitment to building a digitally resilient, scalable and future-focused organisation.

Since joining Symal in 2021, Trent has been instrumental in transforming our technology function from a single-person operation into a high-performing, 25-strong team. Under his leadership, IT has become a key enabler of growth, with clear capability across cybersecurity, infrastructure, enterprise platforms and applications.

This digital transformation has supported several defining milestones for Symal:

• Defence sector readiness – Building governance and security maturity to DISP standards, including the implementation of a 24/7 Security Operations Centre and uplift to Essential Eight and NIST maturity

• IPO support – Delivering transparency through real-time data platforms and embedding governance frameworks that gave investors confidence in Symal’s resilience and scalability

• Cloud-first operations – Transitioning to enterprise-grade systems including Dynamics 365 and SAP SuccessFactors, and enabling data-driven decision making through real-time insights

As CIO, Trent will sit on the executive team, ensuring technology remains tightly aligned with Symal’s strategic direction. His appointment reflects both the scale the business has achieved and the importance of technology in supporting our next phase of growth.

“Technology is central to everything we do as we continue to expand and integrate new businesses,” says Trent. “Data will guide our decisions, integration will bring everything together, AI will help us work smarter and enterprise systems will give us the scale we need to deliver on our strategy.”

For stakeholders and shareholders, this appointment signals Symal’s continued investment in digital leadership, cybersecurity and scalable systems. With Trent as CIO, Symal is well positioned to deliver sustained growth, operational resilience and long-term value creation.