Adrian Di Marco

Di Marco was born in Brisbane in 1958, the child of Italian immigrants.[4] He attended St James College in Brisbane.[5]

He became interested in IT after helping his brother, who was studying engineering at university, to program one of the first digital computers. After high school, Di Marco completed a science degree at the University of Queensland,[6] majoring in computer science.[4] Early in his career, he worked at Arthur Andersen (now Accenture).[4]

Di Marco founded TechnologyOne from inside a demountable office in the car park at JL Mactaggart Industries' hide processing plant in Hemmant, Brisbane, in 1987.[7][8][9] The company initially received with a small amount of capital[10] from JL Mactaggart Industries.[11]

The company began providing financial software,[12] building its products around relational databases.[13] It has since developed enterprise resource planning software[14] for sectors including local government, universities,[4][15] and hospitals.[16]

In 1998, when Oracle launched a competitor product and revoked TechnologyOne’s licenses, Di Marco made the company’s products database independent, building its own sales, marketing, and implementation divisions.[17][10][18] In December 1999, Di Marco led the company into its listing on the ASX making it one of the most successful floats of the DotCom era.[19] In 2001, he was appointed chairman of TechnologyOne.[20]

Di Marco was member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and was Deputy Chair of the Australian Information Industry Association from 2002 to 2004.[21] He was the Director of the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation Board from 2004 to 2012.[22]

In 2004 Di Marco won the Pearcey Award for innovative and pioneering achievement and contribution to research and development in IT.[23] He was awarded Fellow of the Australian Computer Society in 2010.[24] When he stepped down as CEO in May 2017, Di Marco was one of the longest-serving chief executives of an ASX-listed company.[25][26]

As CEO, Di Marco established the philanthropic TechnologyOne Foundation,[27] which has made donations to Opportunity International Australia,[28] the School of St Jude in Tanzania, The Fred Hollows Foundation, and others.[29] He also advocated against a business model run by professional managers, which caused the company difficulties in the early 2000s.[5][25] He has argued that a focus on corporate governance weakens companies and that subject matter experts are more important to have on a board than independent directors.[25][30]

In May 2017, Di Marco stepped down as CEO from the company but remained its Executive Chairman and Chief Innovation Officer.[31][17][32] As of 2019, Di Marco’s 8.6 per cent stake in the company was worth more than $240m, and with his other investments in property, his net worth is reportedly more than $300m.[33][34]

In 2017, Di Marco invested in accounting software start-up Practice Ignition.[31] In 2018, Di Marco made a $3.2 million investment in sports tech firm Fusion Sport.[35] In 2019, Di Marco made a $500,000 investment with Snackwise.[36]

Di Marco is a founding member of Software Queensland, a group promoting the Queensland software industry.[37][38] In February 2022, he announced he would be stepping down as TechnologyOne's executive chairman after 35 years with the company,[39] with his resignation effective on 30 June.[40]