In 2004 Blair Stewart, Stuart Cowdell and Glen Larsen saw an excellent opportunity in the NZ telecommunications industry, and together founded Digital Island. The three directors continually lead the company forward, each responsible for an integral role within the business.
Blair Stewart – General Manager (BCom)
Blair has over fifteen years experience in Information Technology and Management resulting from an IT career based within the retail, airline and telecommunications industry, with for the last five of those years spent as the General Manager of Digital Island.
Blair says he finds the telecommunications field stimulating because of "the amazing developments in technology, and the dramatic improvements they bring to people and business." Not one to just accept that 'this is just the way things are' Blair says he always enjoys "finding an opportunity to come up with a new and better way of solving a problem".
However during the summer months Blair spends whatever time he can boating, and on a sunny weekend can be usually found wake boarding, fishing or enjoying the beaches around the back of Waiheke!
Great moments in life
Flying on the Concord from London to New York for the weekend, just prior to the service being permanently withdrawn! Living in London and working for a low cost airline was the perfect combination for numerous short trips around Europe. Being back in New Zealand has made the trips less frequent, but Blair still loves to travel when he can.
Blair enjoys the outdoors, especially hiking, and is currently working his way through NZ's great walks including the Routeburn and Lake Waikaremoana.
Past career achievements
Having completed his BCom in IT at Auckland University, Blair started working in Information Technology within the retail clothing industry, this experience soon led to a move to Freedom Air, Air New Zealand’s low cost airline.
In pursuit of his OE Blair then moved to the UK and started work for Go-Fly, the low cost start-up of British Airways as the Head of IT with responsibility for all aspects of IT&T.
Go-Fly was subsequently purchased by easyJet (one of the worlds best known low cost airlines) at which point Blair was again selected to head up the mission critical IT function. As part of his role at easyJet Blair was involved with Telecommunications on multiple levels from negotiating global supply agreements, implementing European wide data networks, to overseeing the selection of large scale call centre phone systems.
Stuart Cowdell – Commercial Manager (BCom)
Stu has over a decade's Sales & Marketing experience in the technology, banking and telecommunication sectors. A keen sportsman, Stu windsurfs and mountain bikes, and regularly races in both sports at club level.
Since Digital Island began Stu has managed the sales function and over the last three years has focussed on securing key clients, recruiting and retaining sales staff, leading from the front and continually exceeding targets.
Well known for walking the walk, Stu enjoys working with clients to provide simple, cost effective voice and data solutions to solve complex business challenges, and says, "We do what we say we will, and always apply common sense!"
He takes pride in the fact that at Digital Island "we get to prove our service levels every day by responding quickly to requests for quotes, helping businesses move their offices or deal with a fault promptly – all of which I believe we do very well."
Great moments in life
Getting married, the birth of his kids, then in no particular order, helibiking in Queenstown, windsurfing in Hawaii, Greece, Barbados, swimming with the turtles in the Caribbean, competing in the xterra off road tri, winning the Deloitte Fast 50 'Fastest Growing ISP & Telco' and 'Fastest Growing Technology Business'… and many more to come!
Past career achievements
On graduating from Auckland University Stu successfully entered the world of technology sales, starting in the Oil Industry. Compac Industries is one of New Zealand’s leading manufacturers and exporters of Service Station Pumping and Point of Sale Technologies.
Stu’s corporate sales and account management skills were further enhanced when he moved to the UK and worked for a company selling Card Management Software to major financial institutions across Europe and the Middle East.
With a family on the way, Stu returned to NZ and began work as a Senior Account Manager at Infinity Solutions. Tasked with key account management, Stu successfully managed the full outsourcing of Bendon’s IT function for two years. The experience gained and network established during this time has proven extremely valuable in establishing and growing Digital Island.
Glen Larsen - Operations Manager (Bsc/MCom (Hons))
As one of the founders of Digital Island, Glen initially applied his knowledge to create a fully integrated billing system to support Digital Island. With this work complete Glen is now engaged in moving the company into new product areas while refining and updating the system as the market changes.
Prior to starting Digital Island, Glen had 12 years experience in the system design field across Health Care, Education and Telecommunications.
Glen is a all round sportsman, and enjoys skiing, tennis, swimming, running, cycling, yoga, and in summer he does the weekly Stroke and Stride run at Mission Bay beach.
Glen competes in various multi-sport events, including biking the 42 Traverse, completing the annual Rotorua Xterra triathlon for past four years, and completing the the 1998 Ironman in just over thirteen hours.
Great moments in life
Living and snowboarding in Whistler Canada for a year, and completion of the Bikram Yoga 'Thirty Day Challenge', which was no laughing matter!
Past career achievements
Glen's recent history includes managing the billing system for Eircom UK (Irish Telecom UK branch, subsidiary of Eircom Ireland).
He was then approached by the billing system vendor Intec Telecom Systems for a product manager role, first in the UK and Malaysia and then in South Africa.
Upon his return to New Zealand in 2002, Glen Lectured at AUT in the Business Computing Department for a semester before taking a role at TelstraClear in billing mediation.
