Macquarie Government, part of Macquarie Telecom Group, has signed an agreement with Fortem Australia to become an employment partner, committing the company to recruitment and career transfer opportunities for first responders throughout Australia.
Founded in 2019, Fortem Australia supports the mental health and well-being of Australian first responders and their families. The not-for-profit organization was co-founded by John Bale, also co-founder of Soldier On, a similar organization which supports career transition opportunities for Australia’s veterans.
The partnership will see Macquarie work closely with Fortem to reskill and recruit first responders into new careers, transitioning them into cybersecurity, cloud and data center security roles to support Macquarie’s federal government customers, with a specific focus on national security and defense ICT.
The agreement comes following the Federal Government underscoring in the budget the need for partnership with industry to tackle skills shortages in key industries. Cybersecurity needs a minimum of 17,000 new workers by 2026 according to AustCyber.
Macquarie Government Managing Director, Aidan Tudehope, said the partnership with Fortem will help to grow Australia’s sovereign cyber and defense talent to meet the Government’s cybersecurity agenda: “Australia needs to considerably increase its cyber posture right across the economy. To deliver this uplift we need, as a nation, to exponentially grow the available talent pool.”
