WORK PORTFOLIO

Deep Blue Company Logo

Lifted project commercial competence across the business

Deep Blue Company (DBC) had rapidly expanded since 2012 to offer digital technologies and services covering the entire property sale-to-settlement journey in Australia. With more than 400 employees in Australia and the Philippines, DBC facilitated $9B in property transactions in the 2021 financial year.

The assignment involved improving the project delivery performance across the Technology Group.

Results
* Led the technical team that selected the cybersecurity services partner for DBC
* Developed a new approach to project approval, minimising corporate risk
* Developed and launched the internal Program Office

SAE-Australasia Logo

Led the project to lift employment opportunities for Australian engineers

This engagement involved advising the Board of the Society of Engineers – Australasia (SAE-A), and managing the delivery of its unique Emergency Vehicle Project involving many diverse participating organisations and forward-focused technology.

Results
* Developed the project strategy and implementation plan – accepted by the SAE-A Board
* Managed more than 130 individuals and 90 organisations participanting in the project
* Developed and released an app to participants, used as a communication platform

Murray Longe managing REA PMO
REA Group Logo

Set up and managed the REA Group Program Management Office

Established and managed the REA Group Product Council – the equivalent of an REA Program Management Office.

Across all REA business units, this meant 
* Projects were prioritised against the business strategy
* Resources were allocated to projects for maximum impact and efficiency
* Progress across all projects was communicated to the Executive Leadership Team
* Recommendations developed & implemented for projects to ensure on-time delivery

REA Group Logo

Integration of a major acquisition

I led the integration of an acquired company (AUD $25M purchase price) into REA Group, including the product delivery team, back-end infrastructure, and merging 2 customer databases totalling 1.2M users.

Areas impacted and improved:
* The product delivery team
* Back-end infrastructure
* Merging and cleaning two customer databases totalling 1.2M users

This enabled the redeployment of one development team onto other projects and delivered immediate infrastructure savings of $10k/month.

Vicinity Centres Logo

A production-ready CRM in 10 weeks

I led a two-person team that delivered a production-ready CRM in 10 weeks, built on the Salesforce platform, covering all past and present Vicinity Centres customers across its entire property portfolio.

This new CRM held data on
* 19,209 companies
* 8,168 contacts
* 23,987 property assets

Compared to the original estimates
* Yearly license costs were reduced by 66%
* At the same tim the number of licenses was increased by 280%

YourLocal Logo

Co-founded, built and sold a local search business in Europe

In 12 weeks, installed all the operational infrastructure for the Irish start-up business, including the call centre, office and IT infrastructure, and the back-end for the websites, CRM and call centre systems. This facilitated rapid market entry.

Once launched, YourLocal was Ireland’s fastest-growing directory and reached the No. 2 position in the market within four months of launch, achieving sales of more than €1.1M and 2,000 customers in 10 months during the global financial crisis.

YourLocal was acquired by the global media group, Independent News & Media.

Australian Local Search Logo

Co-founded Australian Local Search, later to become True Local

With my co-founder, we secured Yahoo! as the launch partner for my Australian start-up. This positioned Yahoo! as the first search engine in Australia to have its own Australian online business directory, complete with 1.4 million Australian business listings (100% of the Total Available Market).

Negotiated and secured a data deal with Google for the Australian start-up business – the first of its type by Google in Australia – providing the business with an unassailable value proposition to customers.

Australian Local Search was acquired by News Corp Australia and rebranded True Local. True Local is currently owned and operated by Sensis.

aXcessAustralia Logo

Transforming an idea into a drivable reality

As Project Director for the aXcess Australia Concept Car Project, I took the brief to build a car that would showcase Australian automotive technologies and turned that idea into a fully drivable advanced concept car. The car was shown in Australia and around the world to secure overseas orders for Australian automotive component manufacturers.

Financial commitments totalled $23 million from 143 component manufacturers, government agencies, and automotive associations. That was negotiated at the ministerial level for $9 million in government funding, and at the corporate CEO level for contributions of $14 million.

After I managed the project to deliver the car on time and under budget, the vehicle went on an overseas demonstration tour, which generated $1.25 billion in export orders within the first two years for the project participants.

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