The hot ticket for jobs may be an accountancy degree but ICT led the way by a country mile in October for jobs at the top end of market, according to the latest survey of executive placements.

Legacy systems access software provider, AttachmateWRQ, has appointed Bill Lucas as account manger for the southern region and Colin Barnetson as principal consultant. Prior to joining AttachmateWRQ, Lucas worked for SAS Institute, where he was the WA based sales manager for three years. Barnetson worked at Reuters as a senior software developer and project manager and spent a combined 10 years at Bridge Information Systems and Moneyline Telerate, in software development.

Chipmaker AMD has appointed Jenni Ilagan as marketing manager, Australia and New Zealand. Ilagan was formerly the marketing communications manager for Epson Australia, where she focused on volume business.  Prior to that, she was channel marketing manager for the computer components division at Ingram Micro Australia. AMD has also appointed Sonia Phillips as senior marketing executive for Australia and New Zealand. In this role, Phillips will support Ilagan in managing AMD’s marketing strategies.

Software delivery vendor, Borland, has appointed Richard Grant as southern region manager, Borland Australia, based in Melbourne. Grant has more than 22 years’ of sales and marketing experience in Australia and New Zealand, having worked for companies including SAS Institute, PeopleSoft, SSA Pacific and JD Edwards. Most recently he was sales director for DiscLinc Asia Pacific.

PC vendor Acer Computer Australia has appointed Mike Cefai to the company in the role of national government sales manager. Cefai previously spent four years as Acer's national education and government sales manager. He has spent a total of 14 years with Acer.

Web content management provider, Indigo Pacific, has appointed Simon Madsen as IT infrastructure manager, based in Sydney. Madsen joins Indigo Pacific from Novell where, as an IT Analyst, his role involved the management and support of the internet data centre and network infrastructure for the Asia Pacific region. He has also held IT support roles at Cambridge Technology Partners and the South West Sydney Institute of TAFE.

Software delivery vendor Borland Software Corporation has appointed Tod Nielsen as its new president and CEO, effective 9 November, 2005.  Nielsen has held executive level positions at Microsoft Corporation, BEA Systems, and Oracle Corporation. He most recently served as senior vice president, marketing and global sales support for Oracle.  His responsibilities included marketing support of the server technologies products including the Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware product lines.  Prior to Oracle, Nielsen was the chief marketing officer and executive vice president of Engineering of BEA Systems. Nielsen joined BEA after the acquisition of his private company, Crossgain Inc, where he served as its CEO. Nielsen also spent twelve years with Microsoft Corporation, including a stint as general manager of database and developer tools, vice president of developer tools, and at the time of his departure, vice president of Microsoft’s platform group.