Meet Mike Kirkby, founder and CEO of EzeScan.

Mike has a strong belief that no job is more important than the other which is why you’ll find him balancing his own responsibilities with making cups of tea, packing the dishwasher, restocking the toilet paper, working in the warehouse and the list goes on.

He has a strong reputation of being a genuine and caring peer amongst industry partners and is known for always finding ways to stand out from the crowd.

We asked Mike 10 questions to get to know him and his answers are below.

1. Describe your job in 3 words 

Mr Fix It

2. What’s your role at EzeScan? What does a typical day for you involve?

My role is to ensure that the company continues to make great software that is closely aligned to what our customers want to buy to help them solve their critical business problems. I control our operations in Australia, USA, and the UK. Our profitability is directly tied to how well we service our customer’s needs.

On a daily basis, I review our financials to see recent AP and AR payments. Review critical customer support cases and redirect resources to fix them quickly. Paying employees, paying ATO, paying suppliers, managing debtors. Meeting with R&D to discuss new product design ideas, picking out the good ideas and adding them to the development roadmap. Meeting with marketing to work on developing collateral for newly released product features or modules. Meet with sales teams to discuss prospective customer specific requirements and allocation of support resources for new installations… Spend considerable time on internet research for latest news, trends, technology advances and looking back though history to get a perspective on how technology advances have changed the world we live in. Keep an eye on who’s working, who is on leave, assisting staff with problems (work related or personal) they are experiencing.

3. What led you to this career?

I started this role in 2002. Prior to that I held a large variety of jobs in the computer industry starting from when I left High School in 1978 and went straight into working as an electronics repair technician. Over many years I had the opportunity to grow into other roles with the same employer. The diversity of those roles became a huge advantage to me when I started this company. I had to do everything on my own to start with. All my past roles put together made it much easier for me to do that.

4. Who has influenced you most when it comes to how you approach your work?

My Dad. He had a strong work ethic. He believed in doing a fair day’s work for a fair days pay.

5. What did you want to grow up to be when you were a kid? Why?

When I left school at 17, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was pretty good at Mathematics, Economics and Science. I applied for a job in Sydney working at John Fairfax and Sons. They had 2 jobs on offer, electrician, or electronics technician. They asked me what I wanted. Electronics Technician sounded exciting; it was the dawn of the age of computers. So that’s what I applied for. Myself and 2 other blokes were hired from 300 applicants.

6. What is your favourite way to spend your time outside of work?

Relaxing. Work is demanding, so I like to chill out when not working in/on the business. I like Master Athletics, throwing javelin and discus especially. My other passions are model trains and slot car racing.

7. What was your first job?

My very first job was working in a squash centre behind the front counter. Also used to coach ‘juniors’ squash.

8. What’s a mistake you made early on in your career, and what did you learn from it?

Didn’t like my first boss. When I left, he pulled me aside and told me to never hold a grudge against people. He said that over your life you’ll change jobs a number of times, and your old boss or work colleagues may pop up in your life again. He was of course 100% correct. I’ve learned to try and treat everyone with respect. Everyone is different and there lives are shaped different to mine.

9. What’s the coolest thing you’re working on right now? Explain.

The company is working on uplifting all of our technology solutions into the cloud. When we started it was what seemed to be an impossible task. Working with AWS and our AWS technology Partner iToc has allowed us to fast track our Cloud goals to the point where we now offer many of our technology solutions in our own EzeScan Cloud platform provisioned on AWS in Australia, UK, and USA. It’s exciting to see how this has come to life.

10. Which employee would you most like to swap places with for the day? Why?

Rhys. Because in his role he gets to develop really cool things that make our lives easier, more productive. That appeals to me because I like making things, always have.