It’s a measure of not just the size of Telstra but its sheer market dominance that it has two representatives on this year’s list. In his five years as chief executive, David Thodey has done a remarkable job in turning around Telstra’s internal culture to make it more agile and innovative, including launching a major offensive to improve customer service. He has also succeeded in taking Telstra’s greatest ever potential threat – the National Broadband Network – and using it to secure an $11 billion windfall in exchange for its aging network. And he has also driven an aggressive investment strategy that recently saw Telstra acquire the US-based video technology company Ooyala. Thodey is also co-chair of the Infrastructure and Investment Taskforce of the B20 leadership group, which is an advisory group to the G20.
No one embodies the hopes and fears of Australia’s technology sector as much as Malcolm Turnbull. As federal Minister for Communications, Turnbull has presided over the restructuring of the National Broadband Network, garnering both praise and criticism as he has sought a faster and cheaper compromise. He has also won praise for his willingness to engage with the local technology industry, championing the use of cloud computing within the federal government and speaking passionately of the need for greater emphasis and support for the local start-up community.
A key figure behind the scenes in the Australian IT industry, Yardley got his start in 1978 with IBM, staying until 1985 when he left to found one of Australia’s first multimedia companies, Decision Engineers, which became Acumentum and was sold to JadeLynx in December 2007. Yardley has numerous connections to the Victorian government, including membership of the Victorian Government Purchasing Board. He is a director of NICTA, non-executive chairman at the key Microsoft partner Readify and health informatics company Alcidion, and is on the board of the peak IT industry body, the AIIA. Yardley is a mentor to many in the industry, and an active investor in numerous start-ups through Algonquin Investments.
*This story was amended on October 15, 2014 to show Atlassian’s revenue for FY14 was $215m, rather than $242m.
