Mike Gurry - Chairman
A respected Company Director who has been at the forefront of IT Professional Services for more than 40 years
Michael Gurry was Managing Director of HBF from 1995 to 2007 and prior to that he was President Asia Pacific of the DMR Group Ltd, an international IT consulting firm, and an executive and consultant at IBM. From 1996 to 1999 he was Vice President of the Asian Association of Management Organisations, from 1997 to 1999 National President of the Australian Institute of Management and from 1999 to 2007 Chairman of United Way WA Inc. Michael was a member of Ajilon Australia’s Advisory Board and also a Trustee and Vice Patron of the Activ Foundation.
Currently Michael is Chairman of Reignite (Australia) Pty Ltd, Chairman of Foundation Housing Limited, Deputy Chair of the Forrest Products Commission, Non executive director of Joyce Corporation Limited, a member of the HBF Council and Executive Director of The Helping Foundation.
Michael has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Western Australia and is a Senior Fellow of the Finance Institute of Australia, a Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management.
Russell Francis - Managing Director
A successful entrepreneur and technical architect with more than 20 years IT consulting experience
Russell is an computer programmer whose career quickly progressed from Programmer, to Analyst Programmer, to Technical Architect and Team Leader. In 1995 Russell left Perth, Western Australia to start his own IT consulting business called EXIX in London, UK. This business grew rapidly and after 3 very successful years with international clients including Citibank, ABM AMRO and P&O, EXIX was acquired by Infogain, a Californian IT consulting business based in Silicon Valley. Russell remained at Infogain as their European CTO and lead the business into the Internet revolution where Russell was responsible for architecting corporate Internet strategies for companies like Lloyds TSB, Dixons Retail and At The Races.
Russell returned to Australia in 2003 and worked as a freelance CTO for companies in Hong Kong, Malaysia and the UK before founding Reignite in 2005.
Russell has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Western Australia with majors in Information Technology, Computer Science and Human Biology.
