Jason O’Connell
Jason specialises in all aspects of information technology law, outsourcing, privacy, data protection and cyber security, intellectual property and general commercial contracting. Jason has over 19 years of experience both in private practice and in-house in blue chip companies in Australia and the United States.
Prior to joining HWL Ebsworth in 2017, Jason was Head of the Commercial, Technology & Innovation Legal team at National Australia Bank where he was responsible for strategic legal advice and support regarding all aspects of IT and general commercial procurement, ‘fintech’ projects, outsourcing, privacy, cyber-security, intellectual property (including trade mark portfolio management), marketing and sponsorship arrangements and management of the bank’s real property portfolio. Jason also played a strategic role in major projects, including digital transformation programs, and the support of joint ventures, acquisitions and divestitures from a business process and IT operational perspective.
Jason enjoys using his many years of experience in negotiating with most of the major global technology and data services providers to provide his clients with perspective and context when designing strategy and seeking solutions to seemingly intractable issues.
Jason’s extensive experience leading in-house legal teams makes him keenly aware of the challenges faced by clients in delivering their strategic priorities. Jason is known for his commercial pragmatic approach and for his ability to break complex problems down into manageable issues to enable clear risk-based decision making.
Experience
Jason’s experience includes advising:
- A major Australian bank regarding multiple managed service arrangements for critical systems, including support services relating to the bank’s core banking system, and build/run services relating to the bank’s payment system infrastructure;
- An international IT consulting services firm in relation to major IT outsourcing, managed service and system integration arrangements with clients in multiple sectors, including telecommunications and financial services;
- An international payments company regarding multiple business process and IT outsourcing projects, including outsourcing of its HR recruitment operations, and diversification of its IT infrastructure managed service provider panel;
- A multinational financial services institution regarding several white-labelled online service offerings, including the development and operation of a global online retail FX trading platform;
- A major Australian corporate regarding the design and implementation of its big data, IP and privacy strategy, including its contractual relationships with data analytics firms and other third party data providers;
- A major Australian bank regarding negotiation of multiple cloud based service arrangements, including ensuring such arrangements met APRA’s prudential requirements for outsourcing, where applicable;
- A major Australian corporate on an agile innovation strategy which included the design and implementation of project methodology to enable such client’s innovation “centre of excellence” to quickly experiment and trial new third party technologies; and
- A multinational financial services institution regarding the integration of an acquired corporate payment cards business, including all necessary agreements with multiple technology service providers.