About

Jamie Harrison

Technology Executive & Advisor

I've spent 20+ years building a combination of skills that most people have in parts but not together - business owner, MSP operator, strategy consultant, technical architect, and internal support engineer. Now I put them to work directly, without a vendor's product catalogue sitting behind me.

I work through my advisory practice, Second Vantage, with mid-market businesses that need real technology expertise in their corner - not just someone to manage what they've already bought.

Jamie Harrison, Principal Consultant at Second Vantage
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Background

I've done it from every angle.

2019 – 2026

Idea 11

CEO / COO / Commercial Manager

Idea 11 is a national technology consultancy and managed services business - an AWS Advanced Partner and Microsoft Partner with five solutions designations including Azure and Modern Work - operating across Australia with offshore delivery capability. Services spanned cloud infrastructure, DevOps, software development, data and analytics, AI, cyber security, and managed services across government, mining, construction, professional services, defence, SaaS, and technology sectors.

I joined as a Principal Consultant and progressed through Commercial Manager and COO before taking on the CEO role as part of a planned founder succession. As CEO I held full executive accountability for strategy, technology direction, vendor and partner governance, enterprise risk, and organisational change. I owned the board and investor relationship with a PE backer, navigating growth and investment decisions under real commercial pressure - not just reporting on them.

Operationally, this included working with an EOS implementor to bring the Entrepreneurial Operating System into the business, partnering with a specialist to achieve ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certification, and leading the company's relocation from outer Brisbane to the CBD - alongside the broader business transformation work that came with the founder succession.

2015 – 2019

Telstra

Managing Consultant & Territory Lead (QLD)

Took over and led Telstra's technology strategy consulting practice in Queensland - responsible for running the team, training and developing consultants and graduates, and maintaining delivery standards across the practice. Alongside that, I was also the senior practitioner doing the work - leading and conducting consulting engagements directly with clients rather than managing from a distance.

Engagements involved getting into real business challenges at executive depth - workshops, structured interviews, and working alongside customer teams to understand how their businesses actually operated before defining a technology strategy or focus. This included engagements at Queensland government agency level, with work that involved direct interviews with a Deputy Director General to align technology direction with agency strategy. Work spanned IT strategy, multi-year roadmapping, digital transformation, enterprise mobility, and unified communications.

2011 – 2015

Dimension Data / NTT

Solutions Architect / Technical Consultant

Trusted technical advisor to enterprise, government, and mid-market clients across Queensland. The core of the role was solutioning and designing technical architecture that actually fit the client's business - not just what the product catalogue offered. Worked across Microsoft, Citrix, VMware, and end-user compute platforms, covering everything from initial advisory through to delivery of large-scale infrastructure and transformation programs.

The client-facing nature of the role meant building genuine trusted advisor relationships over time - understanding the business first, then designing solutions around it. This is where the consulting foundations were built, and where the habit of questioning the brief before answering it started.

2005 – 2011

Anglican Diocese of Brisbane / Anglicare

Senior Systems Engineering & Service Delivery

Managed enterprise infrastructure supporting over a thousand users across 70+ sites and multiple data centres - including leading the technical consolidation and standardisation of multiple large NFP businesses as they merged, which meant bringing together disparate systems, infrastructure, and ways of working into a single coherent technology environment.

This gave me direct, ground-level experience inside a large and complex NFP - the governance constraints, funding cycles, and stakeholder dynamics that make technology decisions in that sector genuinely different from commercial business. It's experience that sits behind how I advise NFP clients today.

Why it's different

Most advisors have been on one side of the table.

The typical fractional CIO or technology consultant has spent their career as a buyer - evaluating vendors, running IT functions, choosing platforms. They know what good looks like from the client side.

I've also spent years on the other side. Running a technology consultancy and MSP, I wrote the proposals, built the pricing models, structured the managed service agreements, delivered the work, and managed the escalations and contract disputes when things didn't go to plan. I know the commercial model, where the margin sits, what the gap usually looks like between what's pitched and what's delivered - and what happens when that gap becomes a problem.

"I've no interest in using someone's P&L for the wrong thing."

That combination - 20+ years across CEO, operator, consultant, architect, and support engineer - is what makes my advice different. It's not a claim. It's the career.

I've run a business, not just a technology function

Full P&L ownership, enterprise risk management, board reporting, PE engagement. I understand what it means to make technology decisions under real commercial pressure.

I know where technology risk becomes business risk

I understand what technology exposure means for operations, reputation, and value - and how to present it to a board that doesn't speak IT.

I know how proposals are built

Years running a consultancy and MSP means I know how managed service agreements are structured, where scope gaps get hidden, and how pricing is constructed. That's what makes vendor evaluation credible.

AWS Advanced and Microsoft Partner depth

Running an AWS Advanced Partner and Microsoft Partner with five solutions designations gives real-world knowledge of how those ecosystems work commercially - partner incentives, channel dynamics, and the gap between certification and capability.

NFP experience from the inside

Direct experience working inside a large NFP, not just consulting to them. I understand the procurement constraints, governance requirements, and stakeholder dynamics that make technology decisions in that sector different.

Past engagements

Across my career in consulting and advisory roles, I've led or solely delivered engagements including:

Strategy & roadmap

Engineering

IT strategy

Agriculture & distribution

IT strategy and customer journey mapping

Healthcare & social assistance (NFP)

IT strategy

Hospitality & franchising

ICT roadmap

Workplace & mobility

Transport & logistics

Employee experience assessment

Government

Mobility strategy

Oil & gas

Field optimisation and workplace mobility assessment

Construction

Staff personas for mobility enablement

Utilities

People and culture process optimisation

Communications & collaboration

Financial services

AV and UC&C strategy

Healthcare & social assistance (NFP)

Unified communications and collaboration strategy

Client names withheld. Engagements delivered across prior consulting and advisory roles.

Education

  • Mini MBA – Australian Institute of Management (2023)
  • Diploma of IT – Southbank Institute of TAFE

Sector experience

  • Professional services
  • Construction
  • Mining & resources
  • Oil & gas
  • Defence
  • Government & councils
  • Healthcare & social assistance
  • Transport & logistics
  • Agriculture & distribution
  • Hospitality & franchising
  • Utilities
  • Financial services
  • SaaS & technology
  • Not-for-profit

Capabilities & credentials

  • AWS Advanced Partner (4 years)
  • Microsoft Partner – Azure, Modern Work + 3 further designations
  • ISO 27001 & ISO 9001
  • EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System)
  • Cloud infrastructure
  • Enterprise infrastructure
  • Modern workplace & mobility
  • Cybersecurity & risk
  • AI & automation
  • Vendor & contract management
  • ITIL

Get in touch

Enough about me.
Let's talk about your situation.

I'd be glad to have a conversation. No sales process.

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