A love of figures is a strong grounding for technology career

Harman said one of his own key strengths lies in coming up with new marketing concepts. “I have had the advantage of being able to spend other people’s money to position product and influence end-user demand. And compared to other vendors, we do a lot more one-on-one marketing with our dealers – creating marketing concepts that can produce strategies that are real lead generators.”

Despite not having taken his entrepreneurial life just that little bit further, Harman does not have any major regrets over the way his professional life has turned out.

“I am very fortunate in that I have had some truly fantastic times travelling the world – staying in some hotels that I certainly wouldn’t have paid for myself if I hadn’t been there for work, and now I have even more opportunity to look forward to in expanding the
Oki business.”

Married to Leanne for 23 years and with two children, Samantha, 18 and Joel, 16, Harman admits that maybe family and friends fell by the wayside a little during the pursuit of work.
“The past 10 years have been incredibly focused for me. If you had caught me on a beach at any time, I would somehow have still managed to turn the conversation to business at some point!

“But I have no major regrets really. I am a futurist, not a historian and also like to think I am an optimist. My favourite quote is: ‘Success is not a measure of a man, but a triumph over those who hold him back.’

“I think it’s true that there will always be those people who rain on your parade. Going back to the times of working in a dealer group, which was incidentally a very ‘political’ environment, I always found that there would be certain people around who would be jealous of those who had the courage to stick their necks out to make great achievements. I think it is just the way of the world that there will always be people like this around. The trick is in being able to deal with it and not let them drag you down. You can never be all things to all people.
”
Away from the pressures of work, Harman said he is happy to while away the hours on his cruiser boat around the shores of Sydney, along with Leanne, the kids and his dog, a Tibetan spaniel called Toby. Always content to be the skipper, he is also happy at relinquishing the long-held role of his children’s taxi driver. “Thankfully, now that Samantha is 18 and can drive, I can ask her to drive herself to sports fixtures and even drop her younger brother off,” he laughs.

Aside from boating, Harman, a committed Christian, said he and his wife are active with their local church. “The kids are in and out of church life, which is fine by us,” he said. “It’s really a personal thing which is ultimately up to them. I was never pressured by my own family into doing anything I didn’t want to do, religious or otherwise, and that is the way we have chosen to bring up our own kids.

“Passion comes from within.”

a career figures for grounding is love of strong technology training & development