Adept Business Systems

Management Profile

Steve Clark (Chief Executive Officer)

With deep levels of experience in start-up, growth and turnaround situations, CEO Steve Clark is recognised as one of the software industry's highest achievers. Early in his career he saw the benefits of the emerging relational database model and ran a consultancy business in London advising commercial and government clients on the selection and use of relational database technology. He also co-authored the book Database Systems for Statistical Applications published by HMSO.

Steve is best known in Australia as the founding Managing Director of Oracle Australia. During his 5-year tenure, Oracle Corporation grew global revenue from USD $50 million to USD $1 billion and the Australian subsidiary grew from an initial team of four people to over two hundred across Australia. Under his leadership, Oracle Australia consistently rated at or near the top of the profitability performance of all the international subsidiaries. Oracle Corporation named Steve as its most valuable player in the International Division and he was subsequently promoted to the position of founding Vice President of Asia-Pacific. In this role, he and colleague Mike Bermeister built out the corporation across the world's fastest-growing economic region.

Subsequent to Oracle, Steve Clark co-founded a software business in Australia to distribute Sybase's range of database software. Taking over Sybase's former Australian subsidiary, he and Mike grew revenue significantly and subsequently sold the thriving business back to the US vendor.

Steve has bachelor's and master's degrees in economics and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Michael Bermeister (Chief Operating Officer)

In the role of Finance Director, Mike Bermeister was a key member of the management team that built Oracle Australia. With revenue and headcount at least doubling every year, successful management of financial, real estate and other operational requirements was critical if growth momentum was to be consistently achieved. Under his tutelage, the Australian subsidiary developed the highest reputation for its astute cash management and other practices necessary to fuel growth. Mike successfully built a strong finance team in Australia and then replicated this success across the Asian subsidiaries.

With Steve Clark, he co-founded Open Vision Systems to take over the distribution of Sybase software in Australia. There, he again implemented strong financial controls that were instrumental in turning around the former business and led to a buyout by Sybase.

Most recently Mike was Company Secretary at Talent2 International Limited (ASX:TWO). He joined Talent2 (then called Concept) as CFO in 2001 when it was a struggling payroll software vendor with a capitalised value of $4 million. He quickly helped to transform the business by divesting non-profitable divisions and seeking new investments to repay debts and transform the business into an HR services business. He departed Talent2 in 2008 when the business employed over 800 people in 12 countries and was valued at over $350 million on the ASX.

Mike has bachelor's degrees in commerce and in accounting and is a member of both the South African and Australian Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Andrew Killen (Director of Sales)

Andrew Killen has a long and distinguished career in the software industry. Andrew's career began as the Oracle Product Manager at Techway, then acting as Oracle's distributor in the Australian market. Andrew co-founded Oracle's Australian subsidiary with Steve Clark and Mike Bermeister and was instrumental in driving spectacular growth thereafter. During a long career he held various senior management positions with Oracle Corporation. As Vice President of Oracle University Asia Pacific, he was responsible for a team of over 400 people developing service offerings to accelerate the successful adoption of Oracle's software technology across the Asia Pacific region.

Andrew graduated from University of Sydney with degrees in mechanical engineering, computer science and pure mathematics.