Mr Blackley’s position follows eight months in the role of acting CEO.
Sandstone’s co-founder and chairman, Bob Hall, said that the decision to appoint Mr Blackley was an easy one given his background and performance in the role to date.
“Julian’s focus since he assumed the CEO role has been on forming strategic and mutually beneficial partnerships with our customers and partners,” Mr Hall said.
“His passion, enthusiasm and collaborative approach to doing business have already resulted in some tremendous feedback from customers and partners alike,” he said.
Mr Blackley maintains that there is still a lot of hard work to be done to meet the demands of the ever-evolving banking and technology landscapes.
“Sandstone Technology was formed in 1996 by Bob Hall and Violet Yu to provide better banking experiences for banks and their customers through technology and know-how,” he explained.
“We have been proud to lead some of the innovations in internet banking and loan origination automation over the last 20 years and have built up a product range that has real depth and breadth throughout the front-end banking services value chain.
“Our ability to adapt to evolving customer needs by delivering regular innovations has seen Sandstone grow to over 270 employees and 35 customers across three continents. We need to remain focused on enabling our customers locally and abroad to capitalise on a rapidly changing banking environment.”
Mr Blackley joined Sandstone as the company’s CFO in November 2015 and subsequently assumed the additional responsibility of acting CEO in June 2016. He has over 20 years of corporate and professional services experience in financial services in Sydney, New York and other international markets.
Before joining Sandstone, Mr Blackley worked as a partner at global professional services firm Deloitte and prior to that held a number of senior leadership roles within PwC, Centuria and the international investment company, Global Investments Limited.
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