Alex Lawn
Chief Executive Officer
Alex Lawn brings over 20 years of experience at Catalyst IT and was appointed CEO and Managing Director of Catalyst IT Australia in February 2026.
With a deep understanding of the demands of higher education providers and enterprise level companies, Alex specialises in infrastructure automation, performance tuning and resilient cloud-native deployments.
As the leader of Catalyst’s Operations and Infrastructure Team for many years, he played a key role in scaling some of the largest Moodle environments in the southern hemisphere, and growing Catalyst IT Australia’s team capabilities.
Ghada El-Zoghbi
Chief Operating Officer
Ghada has spent over three decades in the IT industry, starting from the ground up in programming and engineering.
She has experience spanning the education, financial, banking, not-for-profit, and airline sectors. Many of the systems Ghada has built for the above-mentioned industries, are still actively in use today.
She believes great work starts with a great company culture. One where people are happy to collaborate, grow their careers and genuinely look forward to their work every day.
Andrew Boag
Founder | Board Member
Andrew has over 20 years experience in OS development and EdTech. He has worked on a range of project and mobile applications at Catalyst IT since 2005 and have spearheaded the global Catalyst expansion by launching the Australia division in 2008 and then Catalyst IT Canada in 2020.
As Managing Director of Catalyst IT Australia and Canada for over five years, Andrew led his team to deliver bespoke, multi-region online learning and CMS solutions for enterprise level organisations.
In early 2026, Andrew had relocated himself and his family to the other side of the world, to focus full time on leading Catalyst IT Canada into its next phase of growth.
Michelle McKey
HR & Admin Manager
Having been with Catalyst for over six years, Michelle has played an important role in supporting our company’s growth, culture and operational development. Her experience across a broad range of HR functions, combined with her collaborative and people-focused approach, drives an inclusive and high performing workplace environment.
Passionate about improving employee engagement and well-being, Michelle is a valued member of our senior leadership team, working on creating systems and processes that help our people and our business to thrive.
Michelle plays a key role in supporting Catalyst’s people-first culture and helping our teams stay connected in a hybrid working environment.
James Williams
General Manager, Client Services
James is a senior business technology and solutions consultant. He has 25+ years of experience as an IT and management professional across a broad range of sectors.
With a passion for problem solving, James is always up for a challenge. He enjoys innovating, collaborating with others, building consensus to succeed, and driving momentum towards positive change.
Believing wholeheartedly that education in all its forms is the solution to everything in life, James takes pride in bringing client needs and technical solutions together in partnership, while keeping the focus on teaching, learning and the future.
Michael Palimaka
Chief Technology Officer
Michael has over 20 years of experience in open source and technology, having worked with organisations across healthcare, education, and government — from small teams through to large enterprises.
Michael had recently returned to Catalyst IT Australia as CTO, bringing deep expertise in Cloud architecture and a proven ability to deliver at scale.
He specialises in cutting through complexity to understand what clients truly need – and building the technical solutions to match.
Brendan Heywood
Staff Engineer | Solutions Architect
Brendan Heywood is the Staff Engineer at Catalyst IT Australia. He has over 25 years of experience working within, for and around higher education. He has a multifaceted role as a Senior developer with a focus on Site Reliability Engineering, as well as leading the Project Management Office and the Support team.
Living and working remotely from rural Armidale in NSW Australia, Brendan is also pretty psyched about any sort of outdoor adventure. In particular rock climbing, bouldering, canyoning and caving.
Justin Beall
Business Development Manager
Justin is an experienced business, technology and online learning consultant. Having worked across Retail, Hospitality, Government, Education and Not-for-profit sectors he has a broad knowledge base to work from and experience fitting Open Source projects to fixed L&D budgets.
Justin enjoys understanding a client’s challenges, introducing suggestions and recommendations and ultimately seeing clients develop their own capability and knowledge.
Maria Volobueva
Marketing Manager
Maria is a marketing professional with 20+ years of experience spanning a variety of industries. She has worked alongside senior leaders in complex, multi-disciplinary and multi-region environments, helping develop effective business strategies. Maria enjoys connecting the dots between brand strategy, culture and processes to ensure client-centric mindset is applied across the business. She has led cross-functional project teams, delivered integrated campaigns, established and improved marketing and business development processes, and mentored young talent. She’s an avid learner, always working on self improvement.