Our Principals
TRA are a team of specialists based around the APAC region, our principals are shown below. We also maintain a virtual bench of experienced executive consultants and associates across the Asia Pacific region. We don't have salespeople or physical offices, our team is agile and works flexibly right across the Asia-Pacific region.
TIM DILLON
Founder. Director, Principal Analyst End User
A strong believer that technology solutions need to bring business value, Tim founded TRA in July 2012 to provide specialist research, analysis and consulting services to the IT&T sector in Asia Pacific.
As Director and Principal Analyst for End User research, Tim spends his time working with technology business users and vendor and channel organisations, sharing insights on market trends, technology strategies and other factors impacting technology adoption and innovation.
An articulate speaker and MC, Tim has presented to large and small audiences and to date has facilitated over 240 executive roundtables and workshops for clients.
Tim’s coverage areas include:
- IT spending and budget stakeholders.
- CxO and CIO technology and business strategy.
- Digital transformation and innovation.
- Cloud adoption.
- Cybersecurity.
- Data management and storage.
- Small and Medium business technology adoption and trends.
- Mobile devices and solutions for businesses.
Prior to founding TRA, Tim held senior roles at IDC and Current Analysis (now Global Data). Tim is a regular participant in industry judging panels including GMSA GLOMO Awards, AIIA iAwards and ITNews Benchmark IT awards.
He has also authored expert witness reports for cases relating to the Australian telecommunications industry. A Tasmanian by birth, Tim holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Tasmania.
TREVOR CLARKE
Co-Founder. Director, Principal Analyst
Trevor is a founding partner in TRA and is passionate about helping clients understand how to get the most out of emerging and core technologies across the diverse Asia Pacific region. As research director he has successfully helped establish and grow one of the most exciting IT advisory, research, and consulting firms in the industry.
Based in Japan for over 15 years and with extensive regional experience, Trevor provides design-thinking-based consulting, research, and advisory services to business, government, vendor, channel partner, and IT executives. Trevor’s coverage areas include:
- CxO and CIO technology and business strategy.
- Vendor and service provider strategy, go to market engagement and content.
- Vendor channel and partner ecosystem optimisation.
- Asia Pacific SMB technology.
- Software Markets - SaaS, ISVs, and Strategy.
- The Future of Work - Workspace Technologies and Strategies.
- Intelligent Foundations - Data centre Facilities, Cloud Computing, HPC, and Edge Computing.
- Emerging Technologies.
- Digital experience and transformation.
Trevor has a Masters of International Relations from Deakin University in Australia. His experiences further including roles as a research manager for IDC in Asia Pacific, and editor of Computerworld and ARN.
A Victorian by birth, also speaks Japanese and Bahasa Indonesia.
MARK ILES
Director, Principal Analyst, Channel Advisory, M+A
Mark is an Executive Consultant and Principal Analyst focussed on working with established and emerging technology providers across the Asia-Pacific region.
Prior to working as an analyst Mark spent over 25 years in the Software, IT and Telecommunications industry in Europe and Asia Pacific including Chief Commercial Officer and Director, SME & Channels at Microsoft, General Manager Business Markets at Vodafone, and Vice President ANZ at Juniper Networks.
Mark was also part of a private equity led buyout of a mid-cap software company where he served as CEO for 5 years through to the successful sale of that business.
Mark’s current work is focussed on emerging technology trends across Asia-Pacific and the impact this is having on the traditional vendor-partner-customer relationship and how partners need to adapt their business to the new world.
Mark's coverage areas include:
- Strategy Development (Growth & Transformation).
- Market & Competitive Analysis.
- Sales / Marketing and GTM Effectiveness.
- Channel Strategy and Development.
- Software Markets - SaaS, ISVs, and Strategy.
- Merger & Acquisition including buy and sell side mandates.
Mark holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Management Science (Operational Research) from Lancaster University, England and has attended MBA and Management courses at Columbia Business School and the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago.
MICHAEL BARNES
Director, Principal Analyst, CxO Advisory services
Michael helps senior decision-makers across Asia Pacific rethink their business and technology strategies to become more sustainable and compete more effectively in the digital age. He is a globally recognised speaker and author with over 25 years of research and consulting experience.
Prior to joining Tech Research Asia, Michael was a Vice President, Research Director at
Forrester Research for over 15 years, where he led Forrester's Asia Pacific Digital Business Strategy service and Customer Experience service. He also led Forrester's Sustainability research across Asia Pacific.Michael also led software infrastructure and application integration research in Asia Pacific for Gartner, advising large organizations on strategies for sourcing, implementing, and managing enterprise applications and software technologies. He’s also conducted software research, advisory and implementation at Meta Group and Hurwitz Group.
Michael’s coverage areas include:
- Digital transformation to drive business innovation.
- CxO and CIO technology and business strategy.
- Sustainability strategies, solutions and trends.
- Customer and Employee experience strategies and technologies.
- Vendor and service provider go-to-market strategy and approach.
An American by birth, Michael holds a Masters in Economics from Northeastern University in Boston and a Bachelor of Political Science and Economics from Ithaca College.
Our Extended Team
We maintain a virtual bench of experienced executive consultants and associates across the Asia Pacific region, some of our regular consultants are highlighted below.
EDWIN YAPP
Senior Analyst, ASEAN region
An engineer by training, Edwin first worked as a technical specialist in one of Malaysia's largest telcos in the 1990s but hung up his engineering boots to try his hand at technology reporting at the leading English daily, where he won several awards for Best Online Technology reporting.
Later, he left to start his own editorial consultancy and became a freelance journalist. For the past 14 years he has covered technology in the ASEAN region for many publications, including ZDNet Asia. In addition to now being a TRA analyst investigating opportunities and trends in the region, Edwin continues to write.
Edwin is particularly passionate about trends in enterprise IT, telco, cloud, big data, FinTech, and mobility.
BRUCE GOLDSMITH
Principal Advisor, Merger + Acquisition
Bruce has 30 years of industry experience and has held senior executive roles across technology, telecommunications and advanced engineering companies in New Zealand, Australia, UK, and USA.
His areas of deep insight and expertise include B2B channels, Go to Market, business development strategy and messaging.
Bruce has extensive experience in merger and acquisition and capital raising in the technology market across Australia and New Zealand and works with the TRA team on merger and acquisition and capital raises.
MARK LEVITT
Principal Advisor, Merger + Acquisition
Mark is a Chartered Accountant with over thirty years of financial and commercial experience. Starting in professional practice with Big Four experience, he
moved into commerce and has diverse experience across a number of industries. Having worked initially with large corporates, in the last fifteen years Mark has spent significant time providing transactional, consulting and business improvement services to Australian businesses. These services have incorporated business sales, business turnarounds, restructuring, capital and debt raisings,
business planning and forecasting.Mark leads the TRA financial and due diligence process management as part of the mergers and acquisition practice.
