Ian Irving is a well known and high profile Defence & Aerospace Industry senior executive from Canberra Australia.
Ian was appointed Chief Executive for Northrop Grumman Australia in July 2013, with responsibility for leading the development of Northrop Grumman within Australia/New Zealand, supporting the company’s current programmes, developing strategies for growth, and identifying new business opportunities for the company’s activities in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.
Ian has more than 25 years’ experience at senior executive levels within the Australian defence and aerospace industry, and joined Northrop Grumman from ALTILUS, a management and professional services consultancy that he established in 2011 serving the government and the defence sector, where he was managing director.
Prior to that he was vice president, Land Systems and deputy chief executive officer at Thales Australia, where he held various leadership positions over a period spanning twelve years. This was preceded by eleven years with Rockwell and Boeing Australia.
Starting his career in the naval domain Ian held technical and leadership responsibilities for projects and product development in naval combat systems, naval and airborne sonar, aerospace systems, helicopter avionics, mission system and platform simulation, training services, military protected vehicles, land communications and C4I, armaments, explosive ordnance systems and logistics support services.
Over the last two decades Ian has held senior positions within industry across a number of Australia’s major defence procurement and sustainment programmes. This has included responsibility for the delivery of major defence systems, the conduct of leading edge research and development, and the establishment of industrial capabilities delivering key defence exports for Australia.
Most recently, Ian has held responsibility as an external member of the Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO) Gate Review organisation, responsible for the conduct of life-cycle governance gate reviews on Australia’s major defence acquisition programmes. Under Ian’s defence consultancy organisation, Ian was also assigned responsibility as the Commonwealth’s Lead Technical Negotiator for the recent acquisition of Australia’s future military logistics vehicles.
Ian is an Honours graduate in Electrical Engineering from Sydney University. He holds a number of professional memberships with organisations including the Australian Institute of Project Management, the Submarine Institute of Australia, and the Sydney Aerospace & Defence Interest Group.
Ian is married with two school age children, lives in Sydney and his personal interests include art and oil painting, camping and bushwalking, and he is a keen amateur photographer.