Stephen is Good Reason’s principal. He has spent more than 35 years in the travel, software and non-profit sectors as a manager, developer, entrepreneur and pro-bono consultant to charities.
In 1991, after five years in operational and systems management roles with Qantas Holidays, Stephen jointly founded Tourism Technology, a software development company serving major airlines and travel wholesalers. Its Calypso Travel System became the dominant wholesale travel management system in Australia and New Zealand. Tourism Technology’s clients included Flight Centre, Qantas Holidays, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and The Travel Corporation. Calypso and its web interface CalypsoNet was used by thousands of travel agents each day transacting millions of holiday bookings each year with real-time links to airline, hotel, car rental and tour systems.
Since 2000, Stephen has been a consultant to Oxfam Australia, ANTaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation), the Diplomacy Training Program (UNSW), the Asylum Seekers Centre, and numerous other not-for-profit organisations.
At Oxfam he was instrumental in the early development of Oxfam Trailwalker, building in-house event management systems, on-line registration and donation interfaces, back-office and finance systems, and a separately branded Oxfam Trailwalker website. Trailwalker has raised almost $100 million for Oxfam Australia since 1999. While with Oxfam, he also built systems for the Oxfam International Youth Parliament and was a frequent adviser on a range of IT and data management issues.
After selling his interest in Tourism Technology, Stephen chose to focus his professional efforts entirely in the not-for-profit sector. Good Reason grew out of his desire to provide effective, low-cost system solutions and operational advice to charities and community-based organisations working for the common good.
Stephen also manages The Garrett Riggleman Trust, a private ancillary fund (PAF) supporting a wide range of charitable causes, and served as a Board Director of Good2Give between 2014 and 2019.