Executives

Chief Executive Officer

Mike Aston is a very experienced senior executive with an international career in building and leading technology businesses. His experience also includes the development, sale and implementation of “mission critical” applications, supplied to sophisticated government and blue chip corporate clients.

During his 31 year career, Mike has operated throughout Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific region and across a range of sectors including government, finance, IT&T and transport. Mike has held a number of executive and board positions with large global corporates including General Manager Support for GEC Marconi, a UK defence company; Marketing Director for Serco Systems Ltd, a global systems engineering group in aviation, transport, communications and control; and President Asia Pacific for CAE Inc, the leading world supplier of flight simulators.

An engineering and business graduate, Mike has been a member of the UK Institute of Directors and is a member of the Australian Institute of Directors.

Chief Financial Officer

Andrew Corner is a Chartered Accountant who qualified with Ernst & Young in 1998.

Whilst at Ernst & Young, Andrew championed the use of analytical technology as part of the audit and was nationally recognized in the UK for the work that he had done.

Since his move into commerce Andrew has focused on small, growing businesses with a view to ensuring that their operations are controlled and scalable in times of rapid expansion.

Andrew is a member of the ICAEW and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Founder, Chief Technology Officer

Kenneth Larsen has extensive IT experience gathered from almost two decades in the profession.

A graduate in Computer Science, Kenneth gained significant research and development experience within the European Space Agency and Olivetti Research, pioneering the application of object-oriented methodologies in distributed computing and communications.

Later, as Chief Software Architect at Nokia's research laboratory in Sydney, Kenneth continued this work with research into the development of advanced distributed solutions, with high availability, resilience and scalability, for use in next generation intelligent network switches. During this appointment, Research Centre awarded CEBIT "Most Innovative Product of the Year" for Nokia's wireless application server platform (a distributed system).

Chief Operating Officer

Martin Fogarty is a highly experienced senior executive with almost 20 years in the information technology industry.

Martin has held senior marketing, sales and general mangement roles at Hewlett Packard, Silicon Graphics, Sony and Telstra. Martin has run his own consulting partnership in Silicon Valley, advising technology start-ups on operational and execution strategies for products, marketing, sales and distribution.

Martin has operated in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America where he has many business contacts. Martin brings substantial operational experience and management strength to Distra.

Martin has a degree in Computer Science from the Royal Military College, Duntroon and an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management.

Professional Services Manager

Kate Neuss has more than 20 years experience in financial and equity markets in Australia and Europe. Kate was a former Senior Vice President in Market Services at Nasdaq Europe and a National Manager of operations at the Australian Stock Exchange Sydney. Kate has been involved in the development, deployment and operation of mission critical systems over a number of years and brings extensive project and managerial skills to Distra.

Kate has a science degree in computing from the University of Sydney.

Founder, Head of Payments Development

Craig Worrall has an extensive background as a senior IT consultant, having worked with large corporations in Australia and the United Kingdom since 1990.

Craig has extensive experience in all facets of the development of complex software systems. Craig has also specialised in the areas of system performance and system reliability, including system evaluation, design and implementation of highly available databases, platform stability mechanisms and software resilience through reliable distributed computing.

Craig spent 2 years in Sydney at MasterCard's Regional Processing Centre as a key consultant on the installation of MasterCard's new transaction processing platform.

He has published papers to the Australian Joint Artificial Intelligence Conference and his academic achievements include BSc Hons (UNSW) and an MSc (University of London).

Software Development Manager

Roger has 16 years experience in the cards and payments industry. Roger's roles have included working within and managing development, testing, documentation and implementations teams. His career has predominately focused on applications relating to the card payment and loyalty card market.

Roger attended the Dublin Institute of Technology, and since then has worked with various consulting assignments for banks, insurance companies and EuroTunnel. Roger helped establish the Carlson Marketing Group’s Sydney office. In this role he designed, implemented and operated some of the first card based loyalty systems in Australia which were generally run for airlines, banks and retail companies. Roger was a founder of Cards etc Pty Ltd, a software development and consulting firm specialising in card payments and personalisation systems. Roger was responsible for Development, Testing and Customer Support teams as they delivered product and services to companies such as First Data Resources, MasterCard, American Express and Telstra. His primary focus during this time was on process improvement to ensure the consistent delivery of quality applications and services. Roger was also involved with Smarts Group International Pty Ltd.

Head of Strategy

Mitch is a very experienced executive and has over thirty years of experience in the technology sector (with extensive experience relating to card and payment systems). Mitch’s roles have included management of pre- and post-sales organisations, regional sales management, head of research and development, and extensive experience consulting to telecommunications companies, leading retailers, major financial institutions and international card schemes on all aspects of technology related decision making.

Mitch has also worked for Citibank, Stratus Computer, Shared Financial Systems and Logica in senior roles relating to project management, system engineering, customer service and business/IT relationship management.

Mitch was a founder of Cards etc Pty Ltd, a card-industry specific software product development and consulting firm and amongst his many roles there, was responsible for the research and development function. Mitch is also co-author of a patent relating to technology developed by Cards etc.

Mitch most recently worked for Euronet in managing regional sales, business development and account management.

Mitch has worked in many countries throughout the region as well as working extensively in the United States.