Getting to know 'JD', Komosion's General Manager, Victoria

Getting to know 'JD', Komosion's General Manager, Victoria

Komosion has appointed its former head of technical solutions and product development, John Doyle, to the role of General Manager, Victoria, effective from November 1, 2012.

“This is an exciting development for our company and is recognition of John's hard work, commitment and great talent,” said Komosion’s Managing Director, John O’Neill. "He is a natural leader."

Said Mr Doyle: "I'm excited by this role which will allow me to be much more involved early in the creation of strategic solutions for our clients.”

"My love of all things digital began when I was first introduced to digital imaging while completing my Bachelor of Applied Science in Photography at RMIT,” says John Doyle, Komosion’s newly appointed Victorian General Manager.

“That was way back in the early 90s when the Internet was still not 'browsed' but you could get on to all sorts of bulletin boards if you knew how and no lecturers were nearby."

John, or “JD” as he is known, first job out of university was at another university - La Trobe – where he was appointed one of its official photographers. But then, he says, “I realised the transition to digital was pressing and I needed to get on board so over the following 18 months I taught myself how to use a PC properly”.

John says his “love of business and an entrepreneurial spirit” then saw him get involved in a series of internet start-ups using early 3D and internet technologies during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

This work included a stint as a technical writer for a robotics automation company and a long-term job as Internet Content Manager at one of Australia's largest building services consultancy firms, Norman Disney and Young. “Initially my love of imagery saw me work in 3D gaming but the Internet won out,” he explains.

In 2002, John struck out as freelance developer but moved back into "the salary game" in 2006 when he was appointed Senior Web Developer for Fairfax Digital (best known as publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers).

At Fairfax, he worked in the company's Emerging Business Unit which had just acquired the successful holidays letting website, Stayz.com.au.
"My role was to enhance the product offering of the Stayz site to include hire cars and hotels," he says. "We worked with large data sets and integrated 3rd party booking solutions to deliver a suite of sites for the Stayz brand."

John was then appointed SEO Manager for Stayz with a mission to help increase the Return on Investment of the existing SEO and SEM campaigns.
“My work in that role included coding a solution that injected over 150,000 contextual phrases across what by that stage had become a thousand-plus Stayz and Ozstays website domains.”

John joined Komosion in January 2008, just as the company was formed via a merger of Glass Onion and Komodo CMS. His first role with the company was as its Technical Services Manager.

“My first site roll out was www.bnext.com.au," he says. "Since then, I've been involved in the majority of technical solutions delivered by our company – there’ve been literally hundreds of projects - and I've helped steer the direction of the Komodo CMS product platform."

During his four and a half years with Komosion, John has also served as Komosion’s Head of Technical Solutions and Director of Product Development. As well as being custodian of the evolution of Komodo CMS, he has led the company into the mobile application development space.

John married Kirsty in 1998 and the couple now have two children, Connor, aged 7 and Ella, aged 20 months.

The family lives on a semi-rural retreat in Malmsbury, in central Victoria, affording JD plenty of 4G mobile-computing time during his daily train commute.