The 42-year-old Tasmanian has spent two years as assistant coach and lead batting coach for Cricket Australia.
Di Venuto was with Sussex and Derbyshire before moving to Durham, where he twice won the county title.
But he is scheduled to return to England in time for the new season in April on an initial three-year deal.
Surrey director of cricket Alec Stewart said: "Following the departure of Graham Ford it was vitally important that we found another high quality coach with a great work ethic and excellent knowledge of the English county game.
"Michael is a good people person. His 12 years of county experience will be invaluable. He is highly regarded within the Australian set-up for his ability to work with and get the best out of players.
"Being able to appoint a coach from a top quality international team can only serve to benefit the club and I would like to thank Cricket Australia for their professional dealings."

In the past year more than 90% of girls aged between 12 and 13 have had the treatment, an NHS spokeswoman said.
The vaccine, which consists of three injections over a six-month period, is given in secondary schools and at community clinics.
HPV causes most types of cervical cancer.
Dr Lincoln Sargeant, consultant in public health medicine at NHS Cambridgeshire said: "We are very pleased with the response to the HPV vaccination programme across the county.
"In the UK cervical cancer is the twelfth most common women's cancer."

The news comes on the day that the ASA upheld a complaint by Morrisons that three Aldi adverts were misleading.
But Morrisons said that despite Wednesday's ruling, Aldi had launched another similar price comparison advert which was just as unfair.
Aldi said in response to the new complaint that it believes its new advert fully complies with ASA rules.
Morrisons latest complaint is about a price comparison TV advert tied to the Euro 2016 football competition. "It's clear they haven't changed their ways," a Morrisons spokesman said.
On Wednesday, the ASA ruled that two Aldi TV adverts and one press ad that claimed consumers could make significant savings were misleading.
One TV ad claimed a Â£70 Aldi shop would cost Â£98 at the "big four" supermarkets.
Morrisons and two members of the public complained the adverts did not make it clear Aldi's own-brand products were being compared with branded products.
However Aldi, said comparative advertising was a "well-established principle".
The German discount supermarket chain said consumers were likely to interpret the comparison as intended - the branded and fresh products from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons shown versus the Aldi products shown.
The ASA said: "We acknowledged that Aldi stated they had not intended the comparisons to represent a 'typical' weekly shop, but to be a comparison between the pictured products only.
"Nonetheless, we considered that was how consumers would interpret the adverts rather than as a representation of the savings which could be made by switching from a largely branded shop to shopping in Aldi, and therefore assessed them on that basis."
Aldi's UK and Ireland chief executive Matthew Barnes said it was "extremely disappointed" with the "ambiguous and inconsistent" decision.
"The use of comparative advertising is a well-established principle and is firmly in the interests of consumers and encourages competition between retailers," he said.
Surrey have appointed former Australia one-day international batsman Michael di Venuto as their new head coach to replace Graham Ford.
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NHS Cambridgeshire has said it is "very pleased" with the number of girls having the vaccination against human papilloma virus (HPV).
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Supermarket Morrisons is to make a new complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about discount chain Aldi.