Gas specialist who turned to IT

Having worked on both sides of the channel, Bronwyn Hastings, Oracle’s Asia-Pacific VP, knows all about channel and vendor pain points.

In fact, one side can often teach the other a few lessons, she says. “It’s interesting on both sides and having worked as a channel partner it gives you a good perspective on how things work.

“People in this industry should work in the channel because there’s value in knowing where the pain points are. As a vendor I can work with partners a lot better because of my previous experience,” she says.

Originally hailing from South Africa, Hastings graduated from Natel University in the early 80s with a science degree and also holds a holds a specialist post-graduate qualification in gas chromatography from Natal Technikon, which she completed in 1982.

She did things slightly differently by combining work and study, during these formative years.

During this time she was employed as an industrial chemist at Dunlop’s tyre manufacturing plant in South Africa. She had the job of researching and testing the chemical compound of tyre products.

“I had the job of researching the quality of car tyres and tyres for other vehicles, like aeroplanes. I also had to test products using gas chromatography, which is the separation of gases and compounds,” says Hastings.

“It was very difficult doing the testing and working with chemicals. However a lot of the research was run by computers. So this is where the link between computers and science began for me.”

According to Hastings, being born in bred in South Africa has given her an open perspective on different cultures and a distinct discipline when it comes to work ethics.

“The key take always from my birth country is the ability to be very open to different culture and environments. Also the way we went to school in South Africa gave me a very strict sense of discipline,” says Hastings.

“In South Africa 25 years ago you specifically needed very much to perform and work really hard to get results. This sets you up with a strict outlook on working life.”

Hastings says her education in science gave her a sense of analytics and the ability to work with different people and environments.

Having a different perspective on cultures, environments helped her when she moved to Australia, she says. “My husband had been to Brisbane for holidays and we wanted to move to a place where there were different opportunities for us,” she says.

“We came here in 1983 and I had the choice of staying in my chosen career or moving to an alternative one. That’s when I decided to change my science career for one in technology,” says Hastings.

After an opportunity meeting with a lady who mentioned the need for local training on computer products, Hastings and two partners decided to start Walrowe, an IT training company, based in Brisbane.

“Starting a business in an unfamiliar field was certainly something you could do at the time. We even had a contract with Rank Xerox to deliver training in word processing, Ethernet systems and office products,” she says.

According to Hastings, the company held training and demonstrations to clients and also ran a word processing bureau, with the people she had a contract with.

Then through that contract, other larger local companies began requesting their training services and slowly the company expanded. After a couple of years the company merged with a large IT company at the time called, Australian Consolidated Technologies.

“We grew the company from three people to 55 employees. Australian Consolidated Technologies really took it from a Brisbane based outfit to an Australian wide operation, with reseller channels nationwide,” she says.

Hastings was there for seven years and then she moved to a larger multinational which she feels is another “side of the IT equation”. She left that company in 1991 and decided to start business another business of her own.

An unnamed partner and Hasting started Uniplex Pacific in 1991, and grew it to an Asia-Pacific company within five-six years. Hastings says she enjoys, “taking something small and growing it into a larger organisation”, this is what she believes is her specialty.

Before joining Oracle in 1996 as a contractor, Hastings owned and operated Ogen Pacific, a software distribution company. She left the company after a year when it was merged with a larger distributor.

“When that purchase occurred, I felt it was a good time to go back to working with a larger, market segment and learn how the business was done on the vendor side,” she says.

After a year as a contractor, Hastings went onto become Oracle’s VP, alliances and channels APAC, she stayed in that position for five years and then went on to become the VP, worldwide alliances and channels, before moving into her current role.

“Currently I’m the VP for Asia Pacific, excluding Japan, which basically means working on anything to do with partnering. I just came back to the region after working as the VP of world alliances and channels for two years, working out of Australia spending time in US,” she says.

Through her illustrious IT career, Hastings has seen many changes in the industry and feels it is finally maturing.

“I think it has matured significantly. If you go back, some of the ways we use to class channel programs and how to sell IT have changed dramatically. The industry is taking the next step forward,” she says. “There’s a lot of consolidation going on because a company needs to be able to specialise in a breadth of products. Resellers and other companies need to be able to broaden out and sell various products, rather than continue with traditional point selling.”

Hastings claims consolidation offers smaller companies an opportunity to get that breadth of products. “I also believe customers want reliable and secure products as a way to get a clear return on their investment in technology. Clients rely on scalability in changing environment and expect to have all of their solutions integrated securely,” says Hastings.

She says the “principal you work by and how you deliver is key component” to creating a successful business, headed by a man or women. “In my perspective I have always focused on what I do and how I do it.”

However, Hastings claims the one thing the IT industry as a whole could learn from other industries is how a global company can operate as a local unit. “Rather than looking at the issue of globalising IT we should look at the specifics of how the IT industry can operate as a whole, locally,” she says.

With the constant demands of her job and the constant travelling overseas, Hastings finds simple joy in just going back to her home in Brisbane. “I go home to 77 acres of land on the weekend. I also own quite a few horses. Although my daughter was the one who rode in championships, I ride them to relax,” she says.

“There’s a lot of effort in training horses and it is so different from my day-to-day work. When you deal with horses, it gives you time with the natural order of things…its quiet different to come home to that.”