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

Peter has 38 years experience in the IT industry, focused predominately on the finance and banking sector.  Peter’s experience in the implementation of retail payments systems dates back to 1982 when he was Tandem Computer’s project director for the Westpac Bank Handiway system, the first operational POS network in Australia.  Peter has recently joined Distra after twelve months with VocaLink where he was Regional Managing Director for the Asia Pacific division.

Prior to this Peter spent eight years with eFunds Corporation where he was the Regional Managing Director for the Asia Pacific region, VP Professional Services for Houston based Dynasty Technologies, Operations Manager for Agentis P/L, the commercial arm of the Australian Institute of Artificial Intelligence, and Regional General Manager, Pacific Region for Deluxe Data International, now eFunds.

During 1994-1995, Peter was Development Manager for the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, where he managed the implementation of off floor trading as part of a major upgrade to their Automated Trading System.  Peter also spent 15 years with Tandem Computers in various technical, sales, marketing and management positions, during which time he was heavily involved in the implementation of many ATM and EFTPOS systems for Australian and Asian banks and financial institutions. Before Tandem, Peter worked for Digital Equipment Corporation in various technical roles, including a 2 year assignment in Maynard, Massachusetts with the DEC software development organization researching transaction processing system technology.

General Manager, North America

David is a worldwide Executive leader and innovator for payment, banking, eCommerce and security solutions and services, bringing his 30 years of experience in Information Technology to Distra. 

David led the banking and payments global solutions for Fortune 500 companies; Unisys and Metavante, transforming their financial services businesses as clients transitioned to modern solutions. At Unisys David led the business transformation from payment solution silos to unified payment hubs and innovative real-time retail payment solutions, using service-oriented architectures. Prior to Unisys, David guided Metavante’s commercial and retail online banking and payment solutions to new modular service solutions for Metavante’s client banks.
 
David has pioneered and grown eCommerce and payment technology businesses in North America. At S1, he was a key member of the initial Executive team and EVP of the Security Division where he managed the solutions and staff that securely launched the world’s first internet banking and bill payment service. At Brokat; a global eCommerce provider with headquarters in Germany, David was a charter Executive in North America where he successfully initiated Brokat’s online commercial and retail payments, and internet banking solutions and services.  At both S1 and Brokat, David was a key leader for rapid revenue growth, enhanced reputations and successful IPOs.

General Manager, Technology

Rod is a merchant acquiring payments specialist with over 30 years experience in the finance industry. His experience lays within the credit card, EFTPoS and merchant acquiring payments business with successful roles in business ownership, sales, marketing, relationship management, project management, product development and team leadership.

Rod has most recently worked for Australia’s largest retailer Woolworths where he was the executive responsible for payments. At Woolworths he was the business lead for the installation of ATMs, for the introduction of new PIN pads, and the implementation of a financial switch to drive these terminals and switch the transactions directly to each of the major Australian banks. Prior to Woolworths, Rod worked in the merchant acquiring business for Westpac performing a multitude of roles prior to leaving as Senior Product Development Manager. Rod also worked at Cashcard responsible for their wholesale merchant acquiring business from 2001- 2004.

General Manager, Australia and New Zealand

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.