Paul Blakey – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Paul has been active in the IT industry for 33 years. Upon graduating from the Natal Technicon in 1972 Paul joined Sage Computing as a programmer developing systems in Assembler for mainframes. Paul progressed through the ranks and was responsible for around 1000 technicians prior to making the transition into General Management at Sage. In 1985 he was appointed to the position of General Manager.

Paul then joined M&PD, the largest Distributor in the Southern Hemisphere. He grew revenues from ZAR 100 million to ZAR 474 million in two years.

Among the many companies that Paul has nurtured to success, Infinity is perhaps the most notable. Infinity was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1998 with a market value of ZAR 1.2 billion and was the most successful listing of an IT, Black Empowered Company in South Africa.

Paul has received many accolades and is recognised as a primary driving force in South Africa’s IT industry. Paul is the co-founder of Opteq International.

David Blakey – Chief Technology Officer

Dave has been involved in the IT industry for 15 years. He has been formally recognized by the industry since childhood and was asked to speak at a Microsoft forum at the age of 11. Dave achieved his A+ certificate in Grade 5 and was a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) by 13.

Dave has built several web 2.0 websites receiving over 15 million page views a month and is recognised in the community for various projects. Dave is co-founder of Opteq International and the brain behind the architecture of the Opteq Solution.

Peter Flanagan – Senior V.P. Global Sales & Marketing

Peter has been involved in the IT industry for 25 years. Peter started his career as a Cobol Programmer but quickly followed his natural talents which lay in the areas of Sales and General Management.

Peter has built many IT companies from scratch and several of these have been listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, while others were acquired by large IT industry firms. In 2001, Peter joined Dimension Data, a South African based global IT service provider, as Managing Director of the CIS Division, one of the firm’s 5 core areas. Peter was responsible for turning the Division around and growing revenues by 200% in two years. He left Dimension Data to join Opteq International bringing Sales & Marketing expertise as well as a wide range of general management skills to the company.