dunphy.com.au
08-02-2012
Since settling in Australia Damian has established his own trading business specialising in providing an array of Information Technology services to the public. He is currently contracted to provide software development services to Qtax (a tax agent operating in Queensland) as well as the support and planning of their growing infrastructure. Damian is actively recruiting new clients with requirements ranging from website development to small /medium scale software development projects, special assignments relating to IT infrastructure and IT related project management.
Damian is in charge of all technical aspects of the company’s service delivery. Cariblist.com is geared towards being the premium Internet based real estate listing site for the Caribbean region. It was developed and launched in Barbados in December 2001 and has continued to gain momentum, with subsequent launches in the island states of Grenada and St. Lucia. Cariblist provides a service to the real estate industry in these countries allowing for a centralised listing of properties for sale, rent and short-term lease for each supported country as a whole. In Barbados 90% of agents use Cariblist as part of their sales effort. Cariblist anticipates similar take-up in Grenada and St. Lucia.
Sunbeach Communications Inc. started business by assuming the trading assets of BIOS Inc. (See Below). Working as a member of the new executive management team Damian was integrally involved in taking Sunbeach public on two stock exchanges simultaneously: the Barbados Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange (AIM). Sunbeach subsequently applied for and won a cellular telephone providers license for Barbados. Sunbeach continues to be one of the largest Internet service providers in Barbados and Damian was responsible for all technical aspects of the response to the Government’s Request for Proposal issued in November 2001 as well as the continued development of the Internet service side of the business. Damian resigned his position at Sunbeach in November 2004 to focus on new projects and to formalise his plans to move to Australia with his Australian wife.
Damian co-founded BIOS Inc. in November 1995; BIOS was at that point the only viable independent non-multinational controlled Internet service provider in the Eastern Caribbean. The company developed slowly whilst the marketplace in Barbados became accustomed to the promise of the Internet. In 1997 Damian recruited alternate management resources and led a management takeover of BIOS Inc. introducing CDA Inc. as the new majority shareholder. From this period on BIOS began to grow by leaps and bounds and Damian assumed exclusive technical responsibility for the company. Internet revenues doubled year on year from 1997 to 2001 with gross revenues in 2002 reaching in excess of US$ 4,000,000. This was due to careful management, resourceful marketing and branding on an island with a population of only 250,000. BIOS provided Internet access, web development, security consulting and related product lines to its customer base. BIOS also worked to develop export markets for services based in Barbados.
Development of the initial UNITC (United Nations International Trade Centre) Allaire cold fusion website in 1998, including two trips to Geneva (Switzerland) for Damian to manage the final onsite installation in the United Nations secure data centre. BIOS launched its Sunbeach branded Instanet pre-paid Internet access concept in the United Kingdom in October 2000, this launch included designing and installing the backend server technology required to facilitate authentication and access timing in a prepaid environment into a UK ISP. Damian was responsible for the installation and part of the presentation at the launch. Implementation of the server support mechanism for the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Mechanism (CRNM), the body that manages the WTO negotiations for the CARICOM region.
BIOS became the largest provider of Internet service in the Eastern Caribbean (OECS) region. This company transferred all of its trading assets to Sunbeach Communications Inc. in 2002 as part of Sunbeach’s IPO on the Barbados Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market. Damian continued as a director of BIOS Inc. until just prior to his departure for Australia in December 2005.
This is an ongoing company, which was founded in order to satisfactorily divest CDA Inc. of its client support responsibilities. CDA Consulting Inc. was incorporated and after a period of operating it was sold to its primary employees. These employees underwent significant on-the-job training under Damian's direction, which provided them with the managerial and technical skills allowing them to take over all aspects of running the business on a day-to-day basis as well as the technical proficiency allowing them to support the existing client base. This company has continued to run viably since the hand-over to its employees.
CDA Inc started as a software support and development firm that built and inherited from Professional Software Services (See Below) a client list of respectable corporate clients in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean (OECS). CDA developed a commercial insurance management solution used by the Royal Sun Alliance agent in Barbados. Damian continued as a director of CDA Inc. until just prior to his departure for Australia.
On leaving Price Waterhouse Damian started his own information technology consulting practice; many of his clients from Price Waterhouse decided to retain his services based on past track record. Professional Software Services focus was to design and support corporate computer networks and to advise on in-house accounting solutions. Damian also investigated the opportunities for software development in the Caribbean market, with many of these turning into viable projects resulting in small to medium scale software development assignments. Most of the clients serviced by PSS were taken over by CDA Inc. and then later CDA Consulting Inc., providing the clients with the comfort of continued service at levels to which they had grown accustomed. PSS achieved the following landmarks:
PSS provided computer support services and network engineering services to many of the large companies in Barbados including large internationals, e.g.:
A few milestones for PSS:
After Damian's promotion to Manager of the Information Technology department of Price Waterhouse Barbados his responsibilities included:
Whilst with Price Waterhouse Damian was introduced to the world of commercial software, applications and business requirements. This varied greatly from the theoretical university exposure he had received up to that point. Damian gained his first experience of information technology applications in a commercial atmosphere, supporting Price Waterhouse’s clients in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean in the areas listed below:
Damian's formal training included specialisation in software design and formal software specification methodologies including the Vienna Development Method (VDM), Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP), and he is fully practiced with the entire programming and software development cycle. He is familiar with and has full working knowledge of:
Business skills:
Damian's tenure as one of the executive directors of Sunbeach Communications Inc. was during a period when the company was undergoing its most dramatic transformation. Damian had to adjust to working with new fellow directors and a substantial change in his equity share in the company after its public listing. Damian retained full autonomy for all existing and developmental technical aspects of the company. Initially the board’s responsibility was to achieve a dual listing on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market and Barbados Stock exchange, this pursuit was successful and was followed by preparing a RFP submission in an attempt to acquire a cellular telephone license from the government of Barbados, which was also successful. The final mandate was to raise a second round of funding in order to develop the cellular market opportunity utilising the newly awarded license. During the final phase Damian gained the experience of dealing with a company in distress due to lack of additional funding, however the range of experience garnered was very wide and included ongoing negotiation with creditors, potential financiers and regulators to ensure the company’s continued survival and recovery of its value for shareholders, whilst not sacrificing the market opportunity presented by the cellular license.
Damian has a good understanding of public markets and their regulatory structure including initial fundraising, full long form due diligence, pathfinder and prospectus preparation and final regulatory approval for the public float of a private company under the rules of the London Stock Exchange as well as the Barbadian regulatory environment. Damian also has experience of preparing and vetting business plans to be presented to financial institutions. Prior to Damian's tenure as a director of a public company, he gained a lot of experience with managing cash flow and producing projections for cash flow requirements at both departmental and organizational levels. Damian has developed marketing plans including in-depth market analysis, looking towards developing a clear understanding of target markets including customer demographics, psychographics and non-quantifiable elements of a marketing strategy. In all of the organizations that Damian has been involved with he has been responsible for assisting with the development of rational business organisational structures, inclusive of developing clearly defined position contracts for each essential role in an organization, with quantifiable performance evaluation criteria.
Damian is a well rounded businessman specifically focused on technology with over 15 years experience managing and establishing business and he is now applying all of his experience to building a new enterprise in Australia.
Ongoing Education
Scuba Diving - Damian first certified with the British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) in 1992 and even though this was only ever a hobby he pursued the additional qualifications below:
During 1993/94 Damian was training officer for the Barbados branch of BSAC and in this role oversaw the initial certification of all new club members as well as skills development of existing members. He also obtained his PADI Open Water Diver / Advanced Diver and Rescue Diver certifications.
Damian Dunphy – Professional bio.
Damian graduated from the university of Leicester (UK) in 1991 with a Batchelor of Science (Hon) in Combined Science majoring in Computer Science. He returned to the Caribbean (Barbados) and started work as an information Technology Specialist with Price Waterhouse Eastern Caribbean who had their head office in Barbados and branch offices in St. Lucia and Grenada. In 1992 Damian was promoted to the position of supervisor of his department reporting directly to the partner in charge of IT consulting. Whilst at Price Waterhouse Damian worked with internal and external clients who had a wide variety of needs including network set-up/support, hotel front office system selection/installation/support and enterprise accounting systems set-up. All of these typically included both hardware and software selection and ongoing support.
In 1993 Damian left Price Waterhouse and started his own consulting firm “Professional Software Services” which catered to the same base of client requirements he serviced in his role at Price Waterhouse. His career lead him develop a couple of large software applications for the insurance industry as well as day to day support and software maintenance for many of the multi-nationals who based their headquarters in Barbados as International Business Companies (IBCs) or as Captive Reinsurance management companies. Professional Software services continued to support select clients until Damian migrated to Australia with his wife in 2006.
Damian’s association with one of his insurance clients lead to the start-up of Sunbeach, which became the largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Barbados. Damian remained a majority shareholder in Sunbeach until it went public on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market and also on the Barbados Stock exchange. Damian maintained all technical responsibility for Sunbeach from 1997 through 2004 when he resigned his position to prepare for his move to Australia.
In 2001 Damian co-launched Cariblist.com the Caribbean real-estate equivalent of realestate.com.com.au his involvement with this company continues and he is still the main technical resource for Cariblist.
Since moving to Australia Damian has assumed full Technical responsibility for QTax’s Software Development and internal Software at all nineteen (19) of its permanent/seasonal locations. Damian developed a full online testing/enrolment and examination system for QTax’s tax training school in 2007 and also maintains and improves their CRM/Billing system. He is also redesigning their website.
Damian is in the process of building a portfolio of high quality clients who value one on one personalised service relating to their computer systems and Internet presence. Damian does not maintain any industry affiliations or binding certifications and as a consultant makes his recommendations based on merit and free of industry ties. He bases his business on reputation and quality of service delivered and 17 years of industry experience.