There are very few people in Western Australia who have built a business from nothing and taken it to a billion dollars. Michael Malone is one of them.
Michael co-founded iiNet in 1993 from his parents’ garage in Padbury because he didn’t want to lose his internet connection. In those early years he was sleeping in that garage, answering customer calls through the night, figuring it out as he went. What started as a scrappy workaround became Australia’s second largest listed internet service provider, with over one million customers, 2,000 staff, annual revenues exceeding $1 billion, and a sale price of $1.56 billion when TPG Telecom acquired the business in 2015.
Getting there wasn’t straightforward. Over more than two decades as CEO, Michael led over 50 acquisitions including iHug, OzEmail, and Westnet, built a customer culture so strong it became a competitive advantage, and fought and won a landmark copyright battle against major film studios in the High Court of Australia. Along the way, he picked up Ernst and Young Australian Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011, the Charles Todd Medal in 2013, and a 40under40 First Among Equals award in 2006.
Since stepping down from iiNet, Michael has brought that same experience to some of Australia’s most recognised boards including NBN Co, WiseTech, Seven West Media, HealthEngine, Jumbo Interactive, Superloop, and WA Leaders.
At this event, Venture UWA’s Entrepreneur in Residence Charlie Gunningham sits down with Michael for an honest conversation about what it actually takes to build a billion dollar business from a garage in Perth. The wins, the setbacks, the decisions that shaped iiNet, and what he knows now that he didn’t know then.
If you want to understand what it takes to build something genuinely great, this is the event to be at.
