Australia Judges

Kevin O'Kane

General Manager Small and Medium Business Dell Australia and New Zealand

Kevin O'Kane, General Manager, Dell Australia and New Zealand, manages the Small and Medium Business sectors. Kevin joined Dell in 1999 as a Strategy Consultant in the Office of the Chairman strategy group based in Austin, where he lead a variety of market opportunity and organizational assessments. Later he transitioned to Tokyo Japan and led the transition of the Home and Small Business Brand teams from country structure to regional structure, leading teams in 6 countries across APJ. Following that he took responsibility for advertising across APJ for the Home and Small business units. He then transitioned to Sydney as the General Manager for SMB and has led the team to greater than 30% year on year growth. Kevin has previous experience in Consulting with Accenture and Booz Allen Hamilton at a variety of client engagements focused in high tech and telecom. Kevin holds a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University.

Graeme Newey

With extensive experience over that past 20 years in the IT industry, Graeme Newey has a comprehensive range of both technical and business skills which have been accumulated in various roles and aspects of the IT technical certification & training sector.

He is also co-founder & director of EXCOM Education - the number 1 authorised technical training organisation in Australia, which has also recently expanded to become an international provider and compete on the world stage. EXCOM has established a record of excellence in its field over time, being recognized & accredited by all the major global technical software vendors, and winning many regional & global awards for innovation & best practice. EXCOM is also actively involved in influencing the direction of IT industry technical certification through participation in several high-level vendor & community advisory bodies, where the directors' experience in this sector from its very beginning has positioned them with world class knowledge, understanding & vision.

Brian Gibson

Professor of Accounting at The University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Australia.

He has extensive teaching experiences that include entrepreneurial and small business finance courses at the University of Newcastle and the University of New South Wales. Prior to, and for some time concurrently with, his University appointments, Brian operated an accounting and management consulting practice in the Newcastle area. Brian's major research interests are associated with the means by which owners of small enterprises gather and utilise information to aid in the management of their businesses. He has contributed to two books on finance related issues and has published in the Journal of Small Business Management, Small Business Economics, Small Enterprise Research, Australian Tax Forum, The Journal of Small Business Finance, Contemporary Accounting Research, and Accounting and Business Research as well as having an extensive conference and other publications list. Brian is the current editor of Small Enterprise Research, the Journal of the Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand and is a Past President and Wilford White Fellow of the International Council for Small Business.

Margaret Drever

President, Small Enterprise Association of Australia and New Zealand (SEAANZ) Associate Professor, Charles Sturt University

Dr Margaret Drever FCPA is the Director of Accounting & Business Programs Charles Sturt University Study Centres, Sydney and Melbourne (Study Group Australia). She is currently one of the 2008 Vice Presidents for CPA Australia NSW Divisional Council and Chair of the NSW CPA Australia Universities Liaison Officers' Committee. She is currently the President of SEAANZ and Senior Vice-President - Programs ICSB. For a couple of years Margaret was the liaison for the SME committee for CPA Australia NSW Divisional Council.

She has had extensive teaching experience at tertiary and postgraduate levels specialising in accounting theory, business finance and management accounting. Dr Drever has an undergraduate degree in accounting with a sub major in law from University of Western Sydney, postgraduate qualifications in education from University of Technology, masters in accounting and entrepreneurship and a PhD from the University of New England. Her doctorate provides an insight into small business liquidity over a number of industries. Therefore research interests focus on small business financial management issues, entrepreneurship and accounting education.

Prior to taking an academic position Margaret worked as an accountant for Boral Limited and was a Director of a small engineering company.