Zap Technology - Board and Management

Managing Director, Garth D. Laird

With more than 20 years experience in the information industry, Garth brings to Zap extensive experience working with enterprise software products in many segments and geographies. After working in Tier One consultancy firms for the first 5 years after graduating from university, he then moved to corporate information systems. Realising in the mid 90s the vast potential globally for a mid-market business management system, Garth began Navision Software in Australia in 1996, a company that later would be sold to Microsoft Corporation. Over this time Garth had grown the business to have 100 employees, 80 partners and some 800 clients in the Asia Pacific region. Overall 1,000 people were employed in selling, supporting and managing Navision clients in the region. As Regional Vice President for Navision, he made many international contacts around the globe and it is this, in addition to the vast number of years with many other organisations that he now brings to the management and expansion of Zap.

COO/Sales Director, Matthew Lingard

Founder of Zap, Matthew gained extensive business experience through a number of sales and marketing management roles at Unilever, Pepsi-Co and Lion Nathan. Matthew then created a marketing consultancy that eventually formed the basis for the renamed Zap to become one of the largest business intelligence software resellers in Australia and onward to becoming the first Microsoft Gold Certified partner for Business Intelligence in Australia. As a thought leader in the business intelligence space, Matthew has spearheaded the move into the emerging corporate performance management category which is aimed at achieving greater margins and long term profitability.

Non-Executive Director, Bill Jackson

Bill has 20 years experience in the IT industry, with 12 years in senior management roles with a leading global technology company in Sydney, Melbourne, Boston and New York. He has 15 years experience managing sales and consulting businesses, and is a recognised leader in the e-business arena. Over the past five years, Bill has acted as an investor, director, mentor and consultant to a number of early stage businesses. Bill brings significant business management experience as well as a strong knowledge of the e-business marketplace and bricks & mortar business models to the Zap team.

Managing Director (Asia), Joy Paul Tharakan

Joy Paul is responsible for Zap’s Asian operations based out of Singapore, and has global responsibility for OEM activities in the capacity of Director – Global OEM. Joy Paul is a seasoned professional in the enterprise application software industry. He began his software career in customer support and since then has successfully fulfilled roles such as sales, marketing, business development and general management within a number of market leading companies in the software industry. Until recently, Joy Paul was the Managing Director for Asia of Microsoft’s ERP and CRM Division. Prior to this, he was the Managing Director of the Asian Operations of Navision. Joy Paul has extensive experience across the Asia Pacific markets and has also held senior roles at Exact Software - a Dutch ERP software provider and Solomon Software's Asian operations.