Who is Tim Norton?

A man with a mission

Tim Norton is a man with a mission. Incensed by the inferior and unusable advise available to long-suffering Australian IT companies and their owners, Tim decided to do something about the problem. He founded Omniton with a clear mandate: to help Australian IT companies with the business and strategy issues that impact their entire organisation.

Tim's pioneering strategy consulting company quickly attracted IT business owner clients that shared his vision. But then the word spread to others.

Venture capitalists and investment fund managers struggling to fully understand and leverage their IT company investments. The board members and executive management of non-IT companies seeking to better understand and govern their use of IT. All of them could see how they could benefit from the experience and wisdom Omniton brings to the business of fully leveraging IT investments.

Indeed, Omniton's clients are often so pleased with the business outcomes, they invite Tim Norton to take up a position on their board of directors, so as to ensure his personal ongoing involvement with their company.

 
Tim Norton, Founder & CEO

One of the great virtues of having been an information technology consultant for so many years, is that it has exposed me to a great range of organisations and industry verticals. I have seen what makes lots of good business tick. When you consider that information management is increasingly one of the differentiating factors in business, I believe that my diverse industry skills plus a core competency in IT means that I can make a contribution to the strategy formulation and direction of many businesses. I have a proven ability to establish and grow a business in a tough business environment. The machinations of corporate finance hold no fears for me, and I have a strong appreciation of investment market expectations for listed corporations.

Tim's Achievements at Work

• Established Omniton and have grown it into a successful strategy consulting and investing company with a healthy portfolio of clients.
• Grew Oakton from a two man operation into a listed company with 300 plus employees
• Assisted in Oakton winning a contract with the NSW Police to develop an investigation management system, then worked with colleagues to take this unique system to the world market
• Recruited lots of staff and looked after their professional welfare (many people got married and mortgaged whilst working for Oakton)
• Introduced the global positioning system into the Victorian surveying industry
• Essentially wrote the prospectus for the launch of Oakton on the Australian Stock Exchange
• Got Oakton ISO 9001 quality certified back in the days when it was hard to do (and considered important)
• Consulted in information technology and business management to a range of major commercial and government clients taking pride in mastering the nuances of various of industry verticals
• Introduced the first election night management computer software in Victoria
• I was never really a career computer programmer, but some of my stuff is still used today.

Tim's Career in a Nutshell…

Lets start where I am today… at Omniton. I established Omniton as a result of being inspired by a range of small and emerging companies that either have some IT product offering or they have a service methodology that is differentiated by the application of technology of some nature. Much of this consulting is in terms of sweat equity as if I am sufficiently motivated by their offering, I am happy to make the investment of time. You might consider my role as that of a hands-on angel partner.

In addition, I aspire to build a portfolio of interests where I can act as an independent director. To this end, I am currently a Non-Executive Director of ASX listed company IWL Limited (see www.iwl.com.au), who are active in on-line broking and financial services. I am also a Non-Executive Director of the unlisted company Facilitate Digital Pty Ltd (see www.facilitatedigital.com), who provide intelligent marketing technology to some of the worlds leading media and advertising agencies, their clients and publishers of online content, across key Asian markets.

Prior to Omniton, I spent 13 years with Oakton. Oakton is a listed company [ASX: OKN] specialising in well positioned information technology services. It has a market capitalisation of about AUD$80m and is distinguished by being one of the few consistently profitable IT companies on the ASX. Paul Holyoake and I started the company essentially as a partnership back in 1989. Over more than a decade I filled every possible role in the company. Whilst being a highly regarded IT consultant specialising in software engineering project management, I also took my turn at recruitment, HR management and changing the light bulbs. I also allowed myself to be subverted into the nefarious world of “sales”, and I was a very competent account and campaign manager. When we listed, I played the role as “joint managing director” to give AGM presentations, investment briefings and the like, but there is really only one position for an MD. I subsequently took on the role to market Oakton’s investigation management software in the international domain. The challenge here was to diversify the organisation by building a product based revenue stream that was not subject to the nuances of the Australian IT sector.

Prior to Oakton, I spent two years at Minenco, which was the engineering consulting arm of CRA. They did a deal of work for Bougainville Copper, and never believed that this was a business risk. I used to provide the technical computing support for the extensive network of computer aided drafting personnel. One of biggest thrills I had was to reinstate a weeks work of data that a designer lost. To do this I had to get into the system through the back door. I liked Minenco as a company, and my experiences there were of great assistance to the completion of my MBA; at that time Roderick Carnegie had made a massive impact on CRA.

What exactly is Geodesy? There is a book called "The Great Arc" which tells the story of how, over two generations, George Everest (and others) measured the land mass of India, ultimately enabling them to determine the highest point of the planet. Although there had been great advances in calculators and distance measuring equipment, when I studied Geodesy, the elegance of the mathematics and the precision of purpose had not greatly changed from that time. The issue is that not only is the earth far from flat, it is not particularly round either. In my Masters, I foresaw the impact of satellite navigation. (I still can’t quite believe that today my car has it as standard equipment.) It took a fair bit of (old fashioned) computing to marry satellite positions with the traditional measurement techniques known to George Everest. Geodesy, whilst a fascinating science in its own right, taught me computing.

Geodesy, surveying and mapping were real issues after the Second World War when Australia realised that it was essentially indefensible because it was not mapped. I was educated by a generation of post WW2 surveyors, and it took us all until about 1990 to feel comfortable that the task was under control. Government organisations fuelled their need for bright young surveyors through cadetships, and that was how I started with the Victorian Government, where I spent 8 years. They put me through the ringer to qualify in property law and in legal boundary definition, but please don’t ask me to subdivide your block now.