Ian Clarke's lifelong committment to education

For Fronde's CEO, education is paramount to broadening horizons, personally and professionally

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Friday, 20 May 2011
Ian Clarke has not taken your usual IT professional path. A couple of decades ago, he couldn’t imagine his life would take such a sharp turn into the corporate world and end up as the CEO of Fronde Systems. Back then, he was perfectly happy living his life as a farmer in South Otago.

But as pleasurable as the experience was, after eight years on the farm Clarke felt the need for a change.

“I was lacking the mental stimulation,” he recalls. With a tertiary degree in agricultural science from Lincoln University under his belt, Clarke enrolled in Otago University’s MBA programme.

There he excelled as a member of the winning team in a competition at Concordia University in Montreal (these days known as the John Molson MBA International Case Competition) where graduate students vie to present the best solutions to particular business problems. The win gave him a high profile that opened the doors of the corporate world.

“I had a short spell in the energy sector, which was fascinating,” he says. “The guy who hired me moved on to TVNZ, to the Avalon Studios, and I went too.”

Clarke says the “plan was to make [Avalon Studios] profitable so [TVNZ] could sell them, but they forgot to sell them”.

The well-known studios in Wellington are still used today and have been home to Dancing with the Stars, Good Morning and other programmes.

Clarke was general manager when he left Avalon in 1999 after five years. He did a short stint as a consultant before deciding to “get a real job”, and took a role with Synergy International, which later became Fronde.

Clarke believes the challenges to a CEO in IT are no different from those facing CEOs in other industries.

A lot of companies don’t thrive when business become volatile no matter what the industry. He says Fronde thrives in IT because it balances customer needs against maintaining its brand and picking the right strategy.

“Differentiating ourselves is key,” he says. “We differentiate ourselves in a number of ways: focus on cloud and Google. We also differentiate ourselves through the way in which our people cooperate with customers.”

The Wellington-based company currently employs 170 permanent staff along with about 40 contractors at their headquarters, and in their Auckland, Sydney and Canberra locations.

Aside from his duties heading Fronde operations, Clarke serves on the board of the NZICT Group and the advisory board for the applied science programme at the University of Otago. “I have no typical days in my job, which is one of the great things about it,” he says. “When in Wellington, my morning routine involves getting the boys off to school [referring to the two young children he has with his wife, Helen] and then trying to fit in some exercise before work.”

Clarke finds it a challenge sometimes balancing the different parts of his life.

“Sometimes I manage well, sometimes I don’t,” he says. “You need to be disciplined and you need to take opportunities. If the kids’ sports are on and you can go to them. Take your opportunities and get plenty of exercise. I personally find that works for avoiding stress.”

His experience in the IT industry has taught him that, although New Zealand breeds a lot of innovation, “we could be doing better”.

“We have good educational standards, but ICT is not well supported in secondary schools,” he says. “We’re finding a real skills shortage. It’s regarded as a blue collar occupation despite being very well paid. More training is needed for teachers in ICT.”

Investment in education is something that Clarke applies to his personal choices as well. For him, education is not a set period of time, but a lifelong pursuit.

In 2005, he took a short course at the London Business School and he is now preparing to head to Harvard University for a week-long leadership course in June.