TechnologyOne founder Adrian Di Marco to depart as chairman

Government software-as-a-service company TechnologyOne has announced that founder and chairman Adrian Di Marco will leave the company later this year.

Di Marco will finish up his role in TechOne’s board on 30 June 2022 and will be succeeded by current deputy chair Pat O’Sullivan as non-executive chair.

“Today’s announcement is the final step of a carefully planned transition, that started with the appointment of our long-serving chief operating officer Edward Chung to the role of CEO in
2017, the renewal of our board over the last five years, and the recruitment of a very experienced deputy chair, Pat O’Sullivan,” Di Marco said in the announcement.

Di Marco founded the ASX-listed, Brisbane-headquartered company in 1987 with the financial backing of the Mactaggart family, his long-time business partners at TechOne.

The company specialises in SaaS enterprise resource planning (ERP) for local governments, as well as education, health and community services and more.

“TechnologyOne was one of the first start-ups in Australia 35 years ago. We started at the front of a hides processing plant in an outer Brisbane industrial suburb and later became one of the first tech companies to list on the ASX in 1999 before the dotcom boom. The idea was to build “true software products” here in Australia that did not require the source code to be modified, but instead could be configured, with each customer’s unique configuration sitting outside the software. Today this is common practice but back then it was revolutionary,” Di Marco said.

“It has been an amazing journey as we have navigated successfully across four major technology paradigm shifts, starting first with the advent of Relational Database technology, then the PC, the internet and more recently the Cloud. At each stage we have had the conviction and courage to rebuild our products and our business to adapt to a new world.

“Today our global ERP SaaS offering is delivering significant benefits to our customers and fuelling our growth. I see strong growth continuing for many years to come, as we continue to invest strongly in R&D to maintain our market leading position.”

Incoming board chair Pat O’Sullivan is a seasoned executive with companies PwC, Goodman Fielder, Optus and Nine Entertainment, and also holds board seats at SiteMinder and Carsales.com, where he is also its chair.

“Pat’s extensive experience gives me the confidence he will do an outstanding job in leading the TechnologyOne Board to continue to create substantial wealth for our shareholders,” Di Marco added.

“There have been many challenges over the years at TechnologyOne, and there will be more ahead. I am confident that our DNA of adapting, changing and never giving in, will allow us to continue to be very successful under the strong leadership of our outstanding CEO, Edward Chung and his team.”