![<b>Bruce Lakin</b> - This former general manager of Toshiba has had a long career in Australia’s IT vendor community. His resume also includes roles with Honeywell, Veritas, Symantec, Teleware and Unisys covering sales, channel and management tasks. [[artnid:326497|Lakin’s wide-sweeping ICT knowledge landed him the CEO’s position at the Australian Computer Society last November]].](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/740x500/dimg/m_img_28273.jpg)
<b>Bruce Lakin</b> - This former general manager of Toshiba has had a long career in Australia’s IT vendor community. His resume also includes roles with Honeywell, Veritas, Symantec, Teleware and Unisys covering sales, channel and management tasks. [[artnid:326497|Lakin’s wide-sweeping ICT knowledge landed him the CEO’s position at the Australian Computer Society last November]].
![<b>Bruce Lakin</b> - This former general manager of Toshiba has had a long career in Australia’s IT vendor community. His resume also includes roles with Honeywell, Veritas, Symantec, Teleware and Unisys covering sales, channel and management tasks. [[artnid:326497|Lakin’s wide-sweeping ICT knowledge landed him the CEO’s position at the Australian Computer Society last November]].](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28273.jpg)
![<b>David Sykes </b> – David Sykes is arguably best known for his seven-year stint with Symantec, initially as local sales director then managing director from 2005. Prior to that, he worked for CA and Digital Equipment Corporation. [[artnid:199268|Sykes left Symantec abruptly in November 2007]], at the same time as regional channel director, John Donovan, and after a difficult 12 months for the vendor. A one-year stint with Trustwave followed before [[artnid:308728|Sykes was recruited to McAfee as Asia-Pacific strategic accounts and alliances director in June 2009]], a role he retains today.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28265.jpg)
![<b>Kieran O'Shaughnessy </b>– O'Shaughnessy deserves a mention in this list for being the regional chief at [[artnid:102407|The SCO Group during its controversial lawsuit against IBM, and then Novell, around ownership of the Unix code in 2003]]. The SCO Group versus Novell case made regular appearances in global news headlines for several years, as the pair attempted to assert copyright ownership over Unix. It was not until 2007 that a [[artnid:190819|US court ruled Novell had copyright ownership of Unix]], a decision which eventually forced The SCO Group into bankruptcy and caused the ultimate [[artnid:322754|demise of president and CEO, Darl McBride]] in October 2009.
O'Shaughnessy bravely held the regional A/NZ position from 2003-2007, before [[artnid:185676|switching to Sage Business Solutions as partner sales manager]]. He lasted a year before moving to [[artnid:215185|Neverfail as Asia-Pacific sales director with channel responsibility]]. According to his LinkedIn profile, he is now working as country manager for Accellion, which produces enterprise secure file transfer solutions.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28277.jpg)
![<b> Brian Allsopp</b> - Allsopp is another industry notable with 25 years of IT experience under his belt. The former Linksys regional director has also undertaken positions with Cisco, Bay Networks, Merisel and BT Solutions.
After a [[artnid:8779|four-year stint with Juniper from 2004-2008 as director of channels]], [[artnid:263605|Allsopp resigned from Juniper to spend time with the family and take a break]]. As of this year, he is running his own channel development consulting business, Riverview.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28271.jpg)
![<b>Steve Rust </b>– Although he undertook a stint as managing director of Ingram Micro prior to its acquisition of Tech Pacific, Steve Rust has spent the majority of his IT career in vendor land. He initially started with IBM reseller, Parody, in the 1980s, before moving on to Toshiba, then Apple, Bay Networks and Nortel Networks. He took over as Ingram Micro Australian managing director in December 2000. Following its Tech Pac buyout, [[artnid:132437| Rust resigned in May 2005]] before joining Panasonic Australia in 2006 and [[artnid:175083|becoming its managing director on April 1, 2007]]. He continues in this post today.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28266.jpg)
![<b>Jim Hassall </b> - The Australian Sun Microsystems chief from 2000 until 2007, Hassall built up a 25-year career in the IT industry including eight years with Sun and 12 years with IBM. Most recently, he was COO of Broadcast Australia. This week, [[artnid:347597|Hassall was appointed head of product development and sales at the newly formed NBN Co]].](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28270.jpg)
![<b>Chris Poulos </b> – One of Australia’s well-recognised IT personalities, Chris Poulos earned his industry stripes across a range of vendor organisations. His resume includes early stints with Microsoft, Lotus Developments and Akimbi Systems as well as a six-year tenure as managing director of Trend Micro. After [[artnid:150243|leaving Trend as part of a management reshuffle in 2006]], Poulos became managing director of F5 later that year until his abrupt departure in early 2009. [[artnid:335432|After a short disappearance, Poulos re-emerged at network security vendor, Arcsight, in February 2010]].](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28268.jpg)
![<b>Charles Heunemann</b> - An IT veteran with a substantial career in vendor land, Heunemann worked his way up from channel account management roles in Brother and Epson before spending 10 years with Lanvision, which specialised in establishing emerging vendor technologies in Australia. He was co-founded and became general manager and then senior vice-president of Asia-Pacific for SurfControl, before switching to Encassa. For the last three years, Heunemann has been working at Webroot Software looking after Asia-Pacific. He also joined the [[artnid:336856|Australian Information Industry Association as a director and corporate secretary earlier this year]].](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28274.jpg)
![<b>Archie Wilson</b> - Archie Wilson began his Australian IT career at Intel as national sales manager in 1996, but was famously [[artnid:110386|shown the door in 1999 after switching to competitor, 3Com]]. Wilson followed a stint as managing director of FrontRange Solutions from 2000-2004 with [[artnid:9755|a regional channel and alliances director’s position at Veritas]] prior to Symantec’s acquisition of the company in 2005. He reported directly to Bruce Lakin. In late 2005, he switched over to Cisco, and is today a director within its service provider business.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28276.jpg)
![<b>Steve Vamos </b> – A 30-year IT veteran, Steve Vamos worked his way up through various roles at Apple, IBM Australia and ninemsn before his high-profile position as Microsoft Australia managing director from 2003-2007. [[artnid:169501|He relocated to Seattle to head up the software giant’s online efforts as vice-president of its international online services group in 2007]]. He was also a founding president of the Australia Society for Knowledge Economics
[[artnid:317064|Vamos re-appeared in Australian headlines by signing on as non-executive Telstra board director in September 2009]].](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28272.jpg)
![<b>Ian McLean</b> – the former vice-president Asia-Pacific for Netgear is a familiar face in the Australian IT industry and played a significant role in building its business during his decade-long tenure with the vendor. Prior to that, he spent 10 years with NetComm. [[artnid:183988|McLean resigned from Netgear in May 2007]] and followed it up with a stint at third-party channel advisory firm, Channel Dynamics. [[artnid:280295|McLean took up a position with Seagate as country manager]] in March 2009.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28269.jpg)
![<b>Tony Armfield</b> - Armfield was initially brought on by CA to run its New Zealand business but gained a prominent role at the helm of its Australian organisation from 2002. He had formerly worked for several other vendors including SAP, IBM and Oracle. [[artnid:262555|Armfield resigned from CA in October 2008]]. Shortly afterwards, he re-emerged as managing director for enterprise software provider, QAD, where he still is today.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28278.jpg)
![<b>David Bolt</b> - These days, it’s hard to imagine Intel Australia without its managing director and ARN Hall of Fame inductee, Phil Cronin. But before Cronin’s tenure was long-serving general manager, David Bolt, who ran the chipmaker’s Australian and New Zealand business from 1996 to 2003. [[artnid:114340|Bolt resigned from Intel in December 2003]], but not before ushering in the vendor’s revolutionary Centrino mobile chip family locally. Bolt was also a non-executive director on the board of now defunct reseller, Volante. <i>ARN</i> is now working on finding out his latest ventures. According to former colleagues, Bolt retired about five years ago in Perth and now has his own farm a few hours south.](https://d2bs8hqp6qvsw6.cloudfront.net/article/images/125x94/dimg/m_img_28275.jpg)
Like their counterparts in IT distribution and reseller land, individuals within the IT vendor community have witnessed and executed significant changes within our industry over the past decade. Some of these have been the result of consolidation, acquisitions and technology or market maturation, while others involved court cases and bankruptcy. This special report delves into the history of several of Australia’s leading vendor personalities in the noughties, the companies they served and where they are now. Click on the images above to revisit these leading vendor figures and their companies over the past decade.
Our top picks:
- David Sykes
- Steve Rust
- Gary Jackson
- Chris Poulos
- Ian McLean
- Jim Hassall
- Brian Allsopp
- Steve Vamos
- Bruce Lakin
- Charles Heunemann
- David Bolt
- Archie Wilson
- Kieran O'Shaughnessy
- Tony Armfield
