"Mike's deep experience leading large and complex ICT programs for Defence will be critical for Macquarie Government as we continue to build on our capability offering to Federal and State Government customers," said Macquarie Government managing director Aidan Tudehope.

"This appointment comes during a time of unprecedented growth for Macquarie Government. In January alone we welcomed and on-boarded 10 new starters and we expect that to grow by a further 40 in the coming months as we fill a range of roles in security, cloud, and DevOps areas."

Foster will lead Macquarie's expanding defence and national security activity, as well as supporting the Hardening Government IT (HGIT) initiative. Macquarie works with the Australian Taxation Office, which has been selected as the fourth trial agency in the HGIT's Cyber Hubs pilot.

He is probably best known for the ten years he spent as ANZ CEO of Fujitsu, but he previously served as CEO of Kaz, chief of business sales at Telstra, ANZ managing director of EMC, and ANZ managing director of NCR.

Since leaving Fujitsu, Foster has been advising various companies including provenio.ai, Brennan IT, and Carbonix.

He holds a bachelor's degree from Victoria College Rusden (an antecedent of Deakin University) and a master's in marketing from Charles Sturt University.

"For over a decade Macquarie Government has gained unparalleled insight into the digital landscape in which Australian government agencies now operate," Foster said.

"The expertise the Macquarie team has gained from providing cyber-security, infrastructure and cloud services to a wide range of Federal Government agencies is unparalleled. That expertise is highly valued by the Federal Government and I'm excited to be leading the company's next evolution to further support the defence and national security sectors."