Dealmaking, high pressure and ‘angst’ at TechOne

A high pressure workplace fuelled by dealmaking and ‘angst’ amid a rapidly expanding technology business was playing out at software company TechnologyOne during the year a staff member was sacked.

TechnologyOne CEO Ed Chung.

A high pressure workplace fuelled by deal-making and “angst” amid a rapidly expanding technology business was playing out at TechnologyOne during the year a staff member was sacked.

TechnologyOne founder and industry veteran Adrian Di Marco described the culture while under cross-examination at the Federal Court, in a near 10-year-old unfair dismissal case brought against him and the company by ex-staff member Behnam Roohizadegan. 

A retrial was ordered after Mr Roohizadegan first won $5.2m in damages in October 2020, after he alleged the listed company’s executives bullied him before he was dismissed in May 2016.

Technology One founder Adrian Di Marco. Picture: Supplied

Mr Di Marco said on his second day in the court’s witness box that regional area managers were held accountable for generating deals to sell TechnologyOne licenses, including to universities, forming key performance indicators.

But Mr Di Marco said he had “two sets of numbers” for licence fee forecasts, which in 2016 was about $13.5m for the Victorian regional team, but the leadership team expected an actual result of about $11m.

“What I used to run the business was different to that (forecast). We used that to hold the regions to account,” he said.

“We went through a very rigorous process. After eyeballing each of the deals in each region, we had two numbers, a number region gave us … we would then discount deals that weren’t going to happen.

“That’s how we informed the board and the market.”

Technology One staff. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Mr Di Marco said he operated at a high level, and TechnologyOne was a “big business” and “growing very fast”.

He said he called forecasts for regional areas “my stick” and while he initially said he micromanaged the teams, he withdrew that and said he held “a region accountable to its (forecasts)”.

Mr Di Marco denied firing Mr Roohizadegan due to knowledge that he was considering taking legal action over bullying claims.

The court heard Mr Roohizadegan called Mr Di Marco days before he was sacked to say he felt “traumatised” and “belittled” following a confrontation with the company’s current chief operating officer Stuart MacDonald. Mr Di Marco said he did not recall.

He also said he did not recall strategising with current TechnologyOne chief executive Ed Chung about Mr Roohizadegan’s termination.

On Monday, the court heard Mr Roohizadegan was overseeing a new deal with LaTrobe University in 2016 that Mr Di Marco considered was important to the future of the business because it meant the company could continue to expand into other universities.

Mr Roohizadegan was sacked in 2016 due to performance issues and bullying allegations against the man who had worked at the company for 10 years, Mr Di Marco insisted.

Before he received an email detailing claims against Mr Roohizadegan, he already “had compelling reasons to terminate him”.

“Whether the bullying allegations were correct was irrelevant because I had all the evidence I needed to terminate him,” he said.

“There was no way I could not proceed. I had a team in crisis. I had a team member saying ‘how can TechnologyOne allow this to happen’. I didn’t want to put the team through any more angst.

“(They were under) enormous pressure.”

Mr Di Marco conceded no investigation was conducted into the bullying allegations raised against Mr Roohizadegan in an email authored by a human resources staff member.

Later, the court was shown a 2015 document titled “regional manager exits for discussion”, but Mr Di Marco denied he knew he planned to sack Mr Roohizadegan at that point.

As well, an email Mr Roohizadegan sent to Mr Di Marco was shown to the court in which he alleged members of the executive team were pursuing an agenda to get him to leave and that they were being “toxic”.

Mr Roohizadegan alleged he was threatened by his then boss Martin Harwood, and in a lengthy email to Mr Di Marco said he required medical attention due to his alleged treatment at the company.

“I have completely fallen apart. last year and early this year it was Martin (Harwood) who was continuously humiliating, bullying me. marginalising me and making decisions for my business unit and now Stuart (MacDonald) in a much bigger and unbearable intensity,” the email read.

Mr Di Marco will appear for further cross examination on Wednesday.