David Dicker steps down as CEO

David Dicker has decided to step down as CEO, chairman and director of the company to pursue other interests, while co-founder Fiona Brown takes up an executive chair role. 

Since co-founding Dicker Data in 1978, Dicker has played a significant role in shaping the company’s vision and driving its success.

During this time, Dicker Data has grown into a leading player in the distribution market innovating in key areas and winning numerous industry awards. Dicker is also a valued member of the ARN Hall of Fame along with Fiona Brown.

In a recent interview with ARN, Dicker shared some of his pivotal moments in business, including sealing its Compaq distribution deal in 1993, listing on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2011 and the acquisition of Express Data in 2014. 

In a statement to the ASX, the Board expressed its sincere gratitude to Dicker for his vision and contribution in shaping Dicker Data into a strong and innovative organisation.

Although Dicker will no longer be an executive within Dicker Data, at the request of the Board, Dicker has agreed to enter into a six-month consultancy agreement to provide strategic advice on market terms.

While his departure marks the end of an era, it also signals a confident transition. Dicker Data is in experienced and strategic hands with its executive leadership team, which includes Vlad Mitnovetski, Mary Stojcevski and Ian Welch. 

The team brings extensive experience and a shared commitment to advancing the company’s mission while continuing to deliver exceptional value to customers, vendors and shareholders.

The team will report directly to the company’s other co-founder, Fiona Brown, who will move into an executive chair role.

Brown told ARN it was business as usual as the management team can now focus on what they do best.

She highlighted between the three executives; each have been with the distributor for 20 years plus.

“My immediate goal is to support the executive team and help advise them,” Brown said.

The transition marks an exciting new chapter, with the long-standing executive team poised to continue to lead the company into its next phase of success.

“Co-founding and leading Dicker Data has been an extraordinary journey and I am incredibly proud of what we’ve built together,” Dicker said. “As I embark on new ventures, I have full confidence that the leadership team that we put together some years ago will continue to drive the company forward with the same passion and dedication. 

“It is actually business as usual with this leadership team who’ve been a strong executive unit for many years, continuing to ensure our success.”

Dicker’s journey

Dicker was working in his father’s business, which made material and equipment for building timber roof trusses. It was there that he saw consulting engineers using HP-97 programmable calculators, but he wasn’t very good at mathematics, so he dug out his old high school textbooks to relearn it all.

Dicker then flew to the US about a week before he was to marry Fiona, and bought some microcomputers from Vector Graphic. A year later, that relationship led to exclusive distribution status in Australia.

During the 1980s, Dicker spent years trying to build his own computer, which he may well have succeeded in doing had he listened to his wife’s advice to take it the US. But Dicker was bent on making it work in Australia. During his interview with ARN, he admitted he didn’t manage the project as well as he should have.

Fast forward to today and the ASX-listed distributor is one of the major players in the market.

Dicker believed that 20 years will be enough for the business during a 2013 interview, saying he never had any long-range plan.

“The closest we came to any kind of plan or target was that we wanted to sell about 10 microcomputers a month. That was it. The rest of it was just like going into work and trying to get the best outcome that you could,” Dicker said.

As Brown recounted in an interview with ARN in 2023, she walked into a meeting, suited up and holding onto her Toshiba laptop, contemplating whether she should have bought a Compaq one for the boardroom meeting she was about to enter into with a few of the vendor’s key executives.

“They rang the next day and said they were giving us the distribution deal for New South Wales and Victoria,” Brown recalled. 

“It was a game changer! It was the biggest event in our early history.

“Being appointed as the exclusive distributor was a personal highlight and an exciting opportunity for Dicker Data, that on reflection, cemented our long-term future as a major distributor in Australia and New Zealand.”

The Compaq deal gave Dicker Data an increased product range to grow the business and its customer base, marking it as one of its largest vendor partners in its portfolio still to this day. The number of small- to medium-sized business (SMB) resellers has also spread from 3,000 to more than 10,000 across Australia and New Zealand.

“Compaq was a major brand in the PC market with both desktops and laptops and later networking products. A complete solutions provider, filling a significant gap in our product range,” she said. “We had over 3,000 resellers, some that we’ve dealt with for 15 years. So, we had all these little tentacles out into the marketplace that could get the reach that Compaq was looking for.”

Throughout the years, the market shifted with Compaq buying Digital Equipment Corporation in what was described as a mega deal in 1998 for US$9.6 billion. Three years later in 2001, HP made the move to purchase Compaq for US$25 billion, changing the competitive PC landscape ever since.

Many sleepless nights were had as it was determined who would survive the distribution rationalisation that transpired as a result of each acquisition. 

When Compaq bought Digital, there were 16 distributors at that time and that was brought down to three or four, which Brown described as “really harrowing.”

“For the people who didn’t make it through, that was the end of their businesses,” Brown said. “So I wore my lucky suit on that occasion for the HP rationalisation when they bought Compaq. That was rationalised from six down to two or three. We were just so fortunate that we were selected to go through but I think it was the fact that we specialised in that SMB space, that’s what got us through and is still our strength today.”

Over the years, Dicker Data’s own business has evolved into a large ASX-listed company, making many key acquisitions throughout the years in Express Data, Hills, Exeed and CSP, and continuously building its Kurnell-based facility. Hiring more than 650 locals has also turned the distributor into the largest employer in the Sutherland Shire. 

“Our fundamentals are the same and we are here to represent our vendors and support our customers. We have a good blend of size and speed,” she said.

“The executive team – Vlad Mitnovetski, Mary Stojcevski and Ian Welch – are the best performers in the industry, all long-term, committed and extremely skilled in executing the strategy of the business,” Brown said.

“David and I have been very lucky to be in the right place at the right time and take our opportunities when they come along, and to have the privilege to work with such a brilliant team and vendors.”