Position: General Manager, Technology Solutions
Location: Sydney, New South Wales

Ian Smith has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, with over 15 years experience in a variety of senior management roles, and joined Alphawest in early 2006.

Ian cut his teeth in the IT industry developing business applications and managing IT operations. In 1981, Ian joined Prime Computer, a leading mini computer manufacturer and served in a variety of roles over the next 10 years in Sales, Product & Industry Marketing, Customer Service and general management.

In 1992, Prime Computer merged with Computervision (CV) and Ian was appointed Managing Director of the merged entity and managed the business for the next four years.

In 1993, CV Australia gained international recognition within the CV Group as the top performing subsidiary. During the four years that Ian was at the helm, CV established a strong market reputation as a systems integrator specialising in Information Management solutions.

In 1996, Ian joined Canon Australia as General Manager, Integrated Solutions and was responsible for developing new services businesses for Canon around document management, imaging and networking.

In 2000, Ian joined Optus Business to lead the sales and delivery team responsible for the strategic partnership with CSC. Over the next three years the CSC partnership generated revenues in excess of $100m.

In 2003, Ian joined the newly established Integrated Business Solutions (IBS) division within Optus Business, initially to set up the sales engagement with OB sales and subsequently to set up the centralised e2e design delivery for managed information and communication technology (ICT) services.  In October 2004, Ian was selected to lead the Optus team responsible for acquiring and integrating Alphawest.

In April 2006, Ian was appointed General Manager, Technology Solutions at Alphawest. The Technology Solutions line of business has approximately 200 staff and provides customer solutions and services across five key areas:

1. Connectivity Solutions (includes Routing and Switching, Wireless and Network/Application Acceleration tools)
2. Unified Communications (includes IP Telephony, Dual Mode, Digital Signage, Telepresence etc.)
3. Contact Centres (includes Network Integrated and Enterprise solutions)
4. Servers and Storage (includes Data Centre design, server and storage infrastructure, virtualisation etc.)
5. Security Solutions (includes risk and vulnerability assessments, security software, services and infrastructure)

Ian also has prime responsibility within Alphawest for vendor governance and management.