Staff!
Phil Baddock B.IT.
Managing Director
They say a picture's worth a thousand words - but Salsa's Managing Director, Phil Baddock, will always suggest that eight or nine highly ranked Google keywords are usually more than adequate. An extremely talented search engine optimisation expert by day and covert KGB secret agent by night, Phil, or "Bad Boy Baddock" as he's known in his World of Warcraft guild, gained national acclaim before working with Salsa as CTO of The Anstat Group, one of Australia's leading regulatory publishers, his time during which he built up one of the world's largest document imaging systems and also helped build Australia's largest ASP hosted Risk & Compliance management system. Prior to that, Phil worked at Sensis (Yellow Pages), Telstra's wholly owned Directory Services subsidiary where he led some of Australia's largest search engine, content management, personalisation and eCommerce projects including managing the IT function for online sites such as White Pages, Yellow Pages, Whereis and Altavista. He is currently, and quite busily, working on his Ph.D thesis regarding the theoretical length of dinosaur tails.
Adam DeGiorgio B.Sc.(CompSc) B.E.(CompSys)
Director - Business Development
In the heady days of the late '90s, Adam DeGiorgio, was considered something of a key player in Melbourne's high profile Oakleigh 4's indoor soccer league. Since then he has shifted his focus slightly and instead chosen to sharpen his expertise in software design and development, client consulting, workshop facilitation and project management in the fields of Web and IT systems development. Known simply as "Ads" by his peers, Adam is the father of three beautiful children and the husband of one smoking hot wife - and has, on a number of occasions, played the role of lead consultant on a huge range of large scale Web development and internet banking consulting projects for large Australian Banking and Finance companies. His leadership qualities are second to none, his friendly and outgoing attitude has made him a hit with Salsa's many clients and in the next five to ten years, he hopes to buy a pony.
Paul Morriss B. Surv(CompSci).
Delivery Manager
Despite sounding the most like a truck driver of all of the Salsa staff, Paul's role as delivery manager means that he's heavily involved with team resource scheduling, high level project management and in-depth stakeholder management, as well as a number of other, smaller, sales roles - not quite the same as handling a 16-wheeler. Having worked at a large number of successful firms on a large number of projects and in a large number of exotic locations before joining Salsa, Paul brings with him a level of experience and know-how that's veritably unparalleled within the team. His attention to detail, focus on seeing a successful outcome and unrelenting work ethic will most assuredly help define Salsa over the coming years. Paul spends the bulk of his private life attempting to arrive at locations on time, since his pushbike isn't the most reliable of vehicles, and licking his wounds after the latest loss by his beloved RFC.
Kyle Black BSc (Human Kinetics, Ergonomics)
Business Development Manager
Despite sounding like the alter-ego of a particularly evil Spiderman super-villain, Kyle is actually a really really really nice guy - really. Hailing from the lush green fields of South Africa, his love of sport (particularly golf, hockey and cricket) has brought him down under, where sport is lore. Described as "brilliant" by "National Salesman", a publication I just made up, Kyle's man-on-man style sales/hockey technique has seen him win us many clients in as quickly as his first week! Known for his signature catchphrase "if a duck with one leg can swim in circles then I can do anything", Kyle has been welcomed warmly into the Salsa family and we look forward to big things from him in the future! Also, his name rhymes with "Miles Davis", but only if you don't know what "rhymes" means.
Chris Duell B.CS. B.SEng.
Technical Team Lead
In a word: "excellence". That is how many describe Michael Jordan after his amazing 11th hour game-winning basket in the fifth game of the 1989 NBA playoffs. Chris Duell, the Salsa Project Manager and self professed "God of CSS" always keeps this incredible moment of bravery and virtue close to his heart in all work that is laid before his award winning fingertips. With an outstanding and in-depth knowledge of all things web design, particularly PHP and various open source platforms, and a double degree background in both Computer Science and Software Engineering, Chris is the sleek oil that keeps the gears of Salsa Internet churning. His award winning smile and good graces have also seen him become a cult hit at the local pubs of East Brunswick.
Hone Watson
Lead Web Developer
The proud owner of over seven hundred hectares of uninhabitable desert, Hone joins us from the land of the long white cloud as lead developer. His skills in Flash under ActionScript 3 are unmatched not only at Salsa, but in the greater Fitzroy area and before joining the company, Hone was the principal developer in a number of Open Source projects including the now famous APICart Drupal shopping cart solution. In his spare time, Hone spends most waking hours surfing the tall waves of Victoria's luscious coastline, fishing in Melbourne's beautiful bays and sampling the finest wines from our renowned Yarra Valley. And when you're not finding him lazing 'round a beach, cutting off fish-heads or getting sloshed, he's usually at the tennis or watching his beloved Auckland Blues lose what can only be described as "yet another" match. His eyes are the colour of diamonds.
Faith Toy B.Marketing, M.Bus.Sys.
Marketing Manager
Following in the footsteps of her childhood heroes Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale and Adam DeGiorgio, Faith Toy is the caring matriarch of the Salsa Internet family. Coming from an extremely well educated background, including a Masters of Business Systems, the dissertation of which we are told was entitled "Messaging the Client: How to win a multi million dollar deal - all via SMS", and a very impressive list of professional experience that reads like a phone book of Melbourne's finest IT sales firms, Faith has the kind of extremely valuable "go-get-'em" attitude that's very rare in 21st century professionals. When not at work she spends most of her time cleaning, feeding and entertaining her 18 month old son - a hobby she's kept from the time she, herself, was only 18 months old. A "non-stop-talking-machine", or so her husband tells us, Faith is the strongest woman on the planet - and constantly reminds everyone of her history of world record attempts for "longest distance run backwards whilst holding a weekend edition of the Financial Review."
Renee Grbavac Dip. VisArts, Adv.Dip. MMedia
Web Designer
Having grown up in the mean streets of country Victoria, Renee joined Salsa with three years of professional experience and an enormous portfolio of amazing past work under her arm. A vegetarian and lover of animals - particularly bugs and spiders for some ungodly reason - Renee's specialties lie in the Adobe Creative Suite: from Photoshop to Illustrator and beyond, Renee has not only a knack for designing breath-taking websites, she has a full-blown gift. With past experience in both PHP and HTML with CSS, Renee has settled well into the Salsa team and has brought with her a wealth of knowledge and a strong desire to succeed. Also considered a world renowned tofu chef and the only living human to have wrestled a Kodiak bear and won by technical knock out, Renee spends her spare time cooking, reading and perfecting her craft: antique van restoration.
Drew Khoury Dip. VisArts, Adv.Dip. MMedia
Web Developer
Born in the Spring of 1927 (not really though), Drew has emerged as one of the most eager and excited young developers Salsa has ever had under its employ. Having recently completed work on a large scale web application, Drew joined the team hoping to complement the knowledge he took from his Multimedia degree at Swinburne with the kind of on-the-job practical training you can only get from a medium sized firm. The recipient of a Customer Service Award from Citibank and a renowned Kung Fu Piano master, Drew's proficiencies lie with all things technical and he's always prepared to help out around the office and never afraid of getting his hands dirty. His appointment marks a new era for Salsa Internet as we move forward in the 21st century, always aiming for the coveted "blue ribbon" at the Annual Fitzroy Pie Eating Championships - the AFPECs.
Nigel Dunn Dip. VisArts, Adv.Dip. MMedia
Support Manager
Nigel joins us from across the Tasman, where he was, for a long time, employed as an apprentice barber, before making the logical jump into computational mathematics and expressive logarithms. As Salsa's Support Manager, his main job is interfacing with clients and telling them how pretty they are - a job he takes very seriously. Besides this, he also spends a lot of time managing our fledgling support team which he rules with an iron fist. A keen rally driver and avid motoring enthusiast, Nigel's technical knowledge and interest knows no bounds and he always seems to carry a cheeky smile when he solves a problem for one of Salsa's many clients. Look: he may not smell the best, but I'll be damned if he isn't one of the nicest guys I've ever met.
Amber Gregory MYOB Certified, AOP
Web Developer
Since both Amber's first name and last name are possible candidates for a given name, I straight away didn't trust her. I was too quick to judge though, it seems, as Amber has completely defied expectation with both her quality of work and rate of production. Her 12+ years of experience have seen hundreds of websites, built from such exotic locations as the United States, Canada, Japan and Warrnambool. Her main proficiencies are with XHTML and CSS as well as PHP and MySQL - just what the Salsa doctors ordered! An avid traveler who has seen the hard side of over fifty countries, Amber was the first person ever to kayak a 100km stretch of the Nam Ou in Northern Laos and she hopes one day to ride a yak. Oh wait, she's already done that. Jealous, much?
Emily Kratzmann B.FA. (Painting)
Office Manager
Llama enthusiast and craft extraordinaire, Emily runs the day to day operations of the Salsa office. Her passion for cooking and hosting dinner parties is matched only by her passion for an organised office and happy team. She's an avid list writer, keeping shopping lists and invoicing schedules in order - or sometimes just spending hours sitting in an old rocking chair, writing out lists of numbers that she enjoys. "1", she'd write. Then "2". "3" would usually follow. "It's a quaint life", she told Australia's Women's Day in June of 2003, "but it's a life I've chosen". Besides her copious list taking, Emily also enjoys bike riding and kayaking - often at the same time, with disastrous consequences.
Tim Augst B.CS. (App. Dev.), CII & CIII Multimedia
Junior Web Developer
The pup of the Salsa litter, Tim is an up and coming junior developer that will one day, surely, overthrow us all to become king of the hill. For now, though, he is the extremely dedicated and hard-working "private" to the development and support team's "sergeants". His skills are increasing with every day and his rate of production is getting better and better with every project that is passed to him. In his spare time, Tim spends most of his time gardening and playing video games. Wait, what am I saying? He spends most of his work time gardening and playing video games too. He's a 34 long.
Nicole DeGiorgio
Personal Assistant
Voted most likely to qualify for a boat loan by her high school graduating class, Nicole is the PA-turned-supermum-turned-PA-again that Salsa's administrative staff were crying out for. With duties based primarily around the collection of dry cleaning and brunching (although she tells us she's extending our market awareness and repositioning the brand), Nicole is heavily involved with the day to day operations of our omnipotent overlords - ensuring they eat a balanced diet and the like. Her hobbies include photography and home decorating and she told me the funniest story about a poodle once, but you'd have to be there to find it funny too, so don't worry about it.
Cicih Setiawati
Finance Officer
Joining the team in 2009 is Cicih! An absolute whizz in the kitchen for all things Chinese and Indo (specifically her spring rolls, for which oceanic wars have been fought over), Cicih is Salsa's finance officer, handling a significant share of the company's book keeping and accounts. An awesome mum by night and number-nerd by day, Cicih hails from a remote village in the volcanic mountains of central Java - a location internationally known for the development of world class financiers - and spends much of her time, now that she resides in windy Melbourne, playing cards and hosting dinner parties. Fluent in over 75 languages including her tenure text, ancient Estonian, Cicih is a welcomed addition to a talented team!
Lazarus 11/02/1337 - 10/02/2010
Plant
It is with much sadness and disappointmen that we report the untimely demise of Salsa's number one muse-cum-plant, Lazarus.
Just a day shy of his 673rd birthday, Lazarus was cruelly taken from this world in the prime of his life leaving us only with memories of better times and a gross, white, ceramic pot that nothing else will now grow in.
We'll always have the good times, Lazarus - and your passing will not be forgotten when we get our new plant: Lazarus II: Electric Boogaloo.
Dulce et Decorum est. Pro patria mori.
