The Tax office has plucked its new customer service chief from the wreckage of one Australia's highest profile corporate train crashes of recent years - the Masters Home Improvement hardware chain.
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Former Masters Director Melinda Smith has been appointed to a Senior Executive Service job with the ATO on a pay deal worth up to $470,000-a-year, despite having no previous public sector experience.
But the Tax Office says its new executive has a "strong business and customer service background" and will help the ATO transform its service delivery effort.
The news comes as the dying hardware chain, which has clocked-up losses of of more than $600 million by November, cuts telephone lines to its shops and cancels orders from suppliers.
Ms Smith, who departed Masters at the end of December, was chief operating officer of the doomed hardware chain from 2009 to 2012 and was promoted to director in July 2013.
She made headlines that month when she fronted a meeting of investors and admitted that Woolworths, the chain's owners, had made a bewildering range of mistakes including getting sales and margins, labour costs, product range and the seasonal nature of the home hardware business all wrong.
A Tax Office spokeswoman confirmed Ms Smith would start her new job in mid-October.
"Melinda Smith will commence as Chief Service Delivery Officer on 17 October 2016," she said.
"She has a strong business and customer service background in the private sector.
"Having held senior roles at Woolworths Limited for over 20 years, Melinda has led large-scale customer service and product transformation programs to reflect the needs of Australian consumers.
"We welcome the extensive experience and expertise that Melinda will bring to the ATO as we continue to transform the services we offer to the community.
"The Chief Service Delivery Officer role takes on the functions previously held by the Second Commissioner Service Delivery."
Before joining Masters, Ms Smith worked for Woolworths for more than 24 years in a variety of roles at Safeway in Victoria and at general merchandise chain Big W.
