Logicalis Australia appoints Luke Gardiner to lead new Technology Assurance Services practice

Logicalis Australia has appointed Luke Gardiner to lead its newly launched Technology Assurance Services (TAS) practice.

Gardiner brings more than 20 years' experience across resilience, cyber, and assurance programs in regulated environments. His appointment comes as Australian and international regulators sharpen requirements for maintaining critical operations during disruption and for managing risks arising from complex supplier ecosystems.

The TAS practice is aimed at organisations in banking and financial services, insurance, government, legal and professional services, manufacturing, utilities, and critical infrastructure. Logicalis said these sectors are under increasing scrutiny to demonstrate how technology controls operate in practice and how supplier obligations are enforced across day-to-day operations.

In Australia, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has introduced CPS 230 Operational Risk Management, setting out expectations for maintaining critical operations and managing material service providers. Logicalis also pointed to overseas regulatory developments including the European Union's NIS2 directive and the Digital Operational Resilience Act.

Logicalis said the practice is designed to address a common gap between policy, procurement, and legal agreements on one side, and operational controls on the other. Boards and executives are being asked to provide evidence that technology environments, suppliers, and contracts align with stated risk tolerances.

Technology Assurance Services operates as a consulting-led function within Logicalis, linking assurance assessments with project delivery and managed services. The company said this approach allows customers to align governance, technology controls, supplier commitments, and service operations across enterprise environments.

The scope of the practice spans workplace technology, cloud and infrastructure, connectivity, identity, and collaboration. Logicalis said it works across service design, contracting, operations, and measurement to ensure resilience requirements are embedded in how services are delivered.

Gardiner has previously held senior roles at Dell Technologies, NTT, and Ethan Group. Earlier in his career, he worked on resilience and outsourcing programs at Siemens, including transformation initiatives and merger and acquisition integration and separation activities, before moving to Dell Technologies where he led cyber resiliency and security consulting.

"TAS exists to close the last mile between policy and production," Gardiner said. "Regulated organisations don't need another slide deck; they need defensible evidence that their critical operations, suppliers, and contracts can withstand disruption. By building technology assurance capability inside a systems integrator, we can pair governance with the engineering and managed services that make resilience real."

A central element of the practice is a methodology called Technology Operations and Readiness Assessment (TORA), which Logicalis described as a structured discovery and assessment approach aligned to control standards relevant to Australian regulated industries. The methodology covers areas linked to CPS 230, obligations under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, and privacy requirements, producing a gap analysis and a costed uplift roadmap for investment planning and regulatory reporting.

Peter Cardassis, Technical Services Director at Logicalis, said the new capability reflects changing customer expectations around managed services in a regulatory environment increasingly shaped by operational resilience and third-party risk oversight.

"In a CPS 230 world, standard managed services aren't enough," Cardassis said. "Clients need a governance layer that is baked into the technology itself. The objective was to ensure that every dollar invested in cloud and infrastructure is inherently regulatory-ready from day one."

Logicalis said the practice supports executive accountability and board-level reporting, with engagements structured around CIO, CISO, and risk leader requirements. This includes mapping regulatory obligations to technology and supplier controls, aligning contracts and service level agreements with resilience objectives, and establishing reporting mechanisms for regulatory scrutiny.

Gardiner said Logicalis Australia will host a series of industry-aligned roundtables in coming months to explore governance and compliance challenges and to refine the TORA methodology for organisations operating in highly regulated sectors.