Mr Yannopoulos commenced as the Associate Secretary of the Department of Defence on 5 October 2021. In this position he is responsible for leading Defence’s Transformation Program. His role encompasses the integration of the Defence enterprise, and leading the delivery of enterprise planning, performance and risk management functions, finance, facilities and estate security, information and communications technology, data and information management, human resources, legal, audit and security vetting services. Mr Yannopoulos first worked in Defence from 2008 to 2013 as the first Chief Technology Officer. Prior to his appointment as the Associate Secretary of Defence, Mr Yannopoulos was the Deputy Secretary Budget and Financial Reporting at the Department of Finance where he was responsible for providing policy and financial advice to Government on expenditure and non-taxation revenue policy issues. Mr Yannopoulos has held previous government positions including Chief Operating Officer in the Department of Health and Deputy Secretary, Senior Responsible Officer for the Child Care Reform Implementation at the Department of Education. Mr Yannopoulos was awarded a Public Service Medal in January 2019 for his substantial achievements in this role. Other positions include First Assistant Secretary, Portfolio Investment Division and Chief Information Officer at the Department of Health as well as other significant roles such as Portfolio CIO of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. Mr Yannopoulos has an accounting and information technology background and is an accredited FCPA.

Major General Pearse joined the Australian Army in 1990 and after completing training at the Australian Defence Force Academy and Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra, he graduated into the Corps of Royal Australian Engineers. He has commanded at each rank in the Army including most recently as the Commander of Forces Command (2020-2022) where he led the restructure of Army’s individual training system to be more agile and scalable. He has deployed on operational service to Iraq and Afghanistan, and served overseas as an instructor with the British and New Zealand Armies. He is currently part of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) implementation task force, which is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Governments response to DSR recommendations. The DSR implementation task force is also responsible for drafting the first National Defence Strategy for release in 2024, in collaboration with Groups and Services. Major General Pearse has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Politics, a Masters in Human Resource Management and is completing a Masters in Strategic Studies. He is married to Tina and they have two children. As a family, they enjoy playing most sports, travelling and attempting to train their dog.