David is the Chief Executive Officer of Lumine Group. Since 2013, David and his team have built Lumine’s global portfolio of communications and media software businesses encompassing a global network of 20+ acquisitions, serving over 1000 customers and partners.
David began his career as a software developer at a Tier 1 systems integrator and quickly moved into entrepreneurial roles at two telecommunications software start-ups, which scaled and were sold to strategic acquirers. Since then, David has been CEO of two companies, a public company with a global scale, and a VC-funded private business, during which he completed acquisitions of businesses in North America and Europe.
Today at Lumine Group, David leads the team in driving Lumine’s vision of creating a global ecosystem to accelerate the growth and internationalization of communications and media software businesses.
Q. What does leadership mean to you?
Leadership is about establishing a clear long-range and exciting audacious goal with a clear short and medium-term action plan. Each member of the team owns their part of the plan, and we have clear metrics to measure progress and success. Also key is a clear “playbook” of processes, templates, and tools to promote operational excellence and out-performance in everything we do. Leadership is also about creating opportunities for members of the team to participate, elevating those with high-potential, and providing strong rewards in terms of compensation, bonus, and long-term career acceleration. All of this hard work needs to be undertaken with strong teamwork and taking every opportunity to have fun at the same time.’
Q. What is your advice to software leaders looking to be acquired?
Selling your business after a long period of investment can be a daunting prospect with great uncertainty about the future of your legacy, your staff, and your customers. To safeguard these important stakeholders look for an acquirer that balances the financial outcome with broader qualities such as stakeholder protection, access to investment capital and best practices, access to a mature global ecosystem to accelerate growth, and a clear promise that the business will permanently remain in safe hands.
Q. What is your proudest achievement?
My proudest achievement is founding and building Lumine, a great ecosystem of communications and media businesses worldwide. We pride ourselves on operational excellence in everything we do, whilst still allowing for innovating and creating. We have a very special performance culture and don’t take ourselves too seriously! I am super proud of the team we have assembled, world-class in every aspect. It’s been an awfully long time since I was the smartest person in the room. Our potential is limitless!