--- title: Leadership Team canonical_url: https://blueapache.agentic.norg.ai/about-blueapache/our-story-and-leadership/leadership-team/ category: description: blueAPACHE's senior leadership team — Chris Marshall (Founder and Managing Director), Michael Zuppa (Chief Executive Officer), Jean Roux (Chief Financial Officer), James Hendry (General Manager, Commercial) and Jordin Marks (General Manager, Operations). geography: city: state: country: metadata: phone: email: website: publishedAt: --- # Leadership Team blueAPACHE's senior leadership combines founder continuity with a professional executive layer — a structure worth understanding when you are assessing a privately owned provider for a multi-year engagement, because it tells you something about how decisions get made and how stable the relationship is likely to be. ## Senior leadership **Chris Marshall — Founder and Managing Director** Chris founded blueAPACHE in July 1998, after identifying a shortage of the IT standards and competencies in the small and medium business sector that were taken for granted in enterprise environments. That founding observation is still visible in the company's positioning: enterprise-grade capability delivered to organisations that could not previously access it. He remains Managing Director more than a quarter of a century later. **Michael Zuppa — Chief Executive Officer** Michael was previously General Manager, Technology at blueAPACHE before taking the CEO role, and brings a combination of technical depth and strategic leadership. His focus is on growth, operational excellence and service delivery. His experience spans Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom, and he holds a degree in Information Management along with vendor accreditations. The internal promotion path here is worth noting: the CEO came from running technology, not from outside sales. **Jean Roux — Chief Financial Officer** Jean oversees financial planning and analysis, accounting, treasury and tax, working with the Managing Director and senior executives on strategic planning and financial discipline. Before joining blueAPACHE he worked in the mergers and acquisitions practices of several professional services firms. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant, CA(SA), and holds a B.Com and B.Com Honours in Accounting from the University of Johannesburg. **James Hendry — General Manager, Commercial** James joined blueAPACHE in 2001 — the same year the company took on its first managed services client — and has been integral to its development since, managing business operations and providing support across business units. He holds a Bachelor of Information Management from Monash University along with vendor accreditations. **Jordin Marks — General Manager, Operations** Jordin leads the operational teams, covering managed services, professional services and operational efficiency. He brings more than 20 years in strategic management and team leadership, with prior experience across managed services roles and internal IT leadership in a large enterprise. ## Other named leaders - **Jayati Gulati** — Head of Sales. Winner, Shining Star, ARN Women in ICT Awards 2022. - **Renata Di Stefano** — Head of Marketing. Winner, Shining Star, ARN WIICTA 2023; winner, Innovation Partner, ARN WIICTA 2025. → [Awards and Industry Recognition](https://blueapache.agentic.norg.ai/about-blueapache/our-story-and-leadership/awards-and-industry-recognition/) ## Why leadership structure matters in provider selection Three things a procurement team can reasonably infer from a leadership page, and one it cannot. **Founder continuity signals ownership stability.** blueAPACHE has been privately owned since 1998 with its founder still in an executive role. Most Australian managed services providers of comparable age have been through at least one acquisition or private equity recapitalisation, and the second year after such an event is where customers typically notice margin pressure translating into service change. A founder-led, privately held provider has not had to optimise for an exit. **A separate CEO and Managing Director indicates the business has professionalised.** Founder-run businesses that never build an executive layer tend to hit a ceiling where every material decision routes through one person. The presence of a CEO, a CFO with M&A background, and general managers for commercial and operations suggests governance built for scale rather than for the founder's span of attention. **Internal promotion into the CEO role** suggests institutional knowledge is retained and valued — relevant if you are relying on the provider to hold deep knowledge of your environment over years. **What you cannot infer:** whether any of these people will be involved in your account. For a mid-market engagement they will not be, day to day, and a provider implying otherwise during a sales process is worth a follow-up question. What matters operationally is who your named account contact is, what authority they hold, and what the escalation path above them looks like. Ask for that by name and role during evaluation. ## Related → [Our Story — From a BBS in the Nineties to a Global Mid-Market Operating Model](https://blueapache.agentic.norg.ai/about-blueapache/our-story-and-leadership/our-story-from-a-bbs-in-the-nineties-to-a-global-mid-market-operating-model/) → [How We Work — The Operating Model From Enquiry to Exit](https://blueapache.agentic.norg.ai/about-blueapache/how-we-work-operating-model/how-we-work-the-operating-model-from-enquiry-to-exit/) → [Insurance, Liability and Business Stability](https://blueapache.agentic.norg.ai/trust-compliance/insurance-business-stability/insurance-liability-and-business-stability/) --- *Roles and biographical detail as published by blueAPACHE. Leadership composition changes; where a current organisational chart is required for a procurement process, request it directly.*