BUTTERFLY. DIGITAL AGENCY MELBOURNE - Key Persons


Bassam Othman

Job Titles:
  • Senior Software Engineer
As one of our experienced software engineers, Bassam excels at creating innovative programs that maximise efficiency and effectiveness. Bassam joined Butterfly in 2007 as a front-end developer for the then team of three. Almost immediately, he discovered his passion for back-end development. His experience in technology and writing code means that he can create user-friendly and reliable systems. Bassam relishes a challenge, the more complex, the more determined he is to find a clean and robust solution, which has always been the cornerstone of our business. Bassam is typically involved in building the structure of software applications as well as implementing business logic, server scripts, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that will eventually be utilised by front-end engineers and designers, and more importantly the intended users. In addition to being a strategic thinker, Bassam is also an innovative creator who ensures that we engineer a solution that is tailored to our clients' organisational needs and furthers their success.

Caitlin Smooker

Job Titles:
  • Design Lead
Caitlin is responsible for the quality and output of both the user experience and visual design at Butterfly. Her mission is to elevate the experience of clients and their users through functional and beautiful design. Her goal is to provide a human-centered experience through creative and innovative solutions. Caitlin believes delivering great design is about more than creative ability; it is about creating a design that is relevant in its context.

Carol Galila

Job Titles:
  • Software Engineering Lead
Carol's role as Leader of Software Engineering is to support and mentor our engineering and quality assurance teams. Along with standards, code frameworks, and R&D, she is also responsible for delivery operations across our company. Carol has a well-honed ability to analyse a client's business goals and challenges, and then translate them into innovative and practical technical solutions. Her typical day involves working on multiple projects, helping to resolve blocks, and ensuring we always deliver the best solution for our clients. She has led the development of a number of award-winning websites such as National Disability Services, Australia and Mission Australia. Carol is an accomplished full stack engineer in her own right and uses this knowledge to support her team to support client projects with complex integrations and platforms using multiple technologies, combining them seamlessly to provide the most user-friendly solution. She enjoys the variety of technologies we use at Butterfly because we use what will work best for our clients, even if that means upskilling some of our developers.

Da Ming Cook-Lee

Job Titles:
  • Digital Producer / Business Analyst
Da Ming brings a wealth of experience that ranges from software support and database programming to digital production, and business analysis. He began his career at the dawn of the dot-com boom in Silicon Valley in 2000. At that time, he was fascinated by the emerging tech pioneers in the area because of their innovation, passion, and ability to adapt and connect technology to create something new. Da Ming's role at Butterfly is multi-faceted. As a Business Analyst, Da Ming works closely with users to identify how data-driven changes to processes, products, services, software and hardware can increase efficiency and value. It is not only a challenge to articulate these ideas but also to balance them with what is technically, financially, and functionally feasible. Achieving this is an art form, something Da Ming excels at.

Daniel Woodhouse - CTO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Technology Officer
As CTO, Daniel is responsible for defining Butterfly's technology standards and strategy along with overseeing the delivery team.An experienced problem solver, Daniel aims to utilize data to clarify assumptions and uncover the best solution to any problem, whether it's solving a complex integration challenge or working with a team to determine which solution will deliver the best results. His business and IT systems expertise allows him to identify business and staff accountability opportunities that are beneficial for both internal and external stakeholders. With his in-depth understanding of technology trends and vast business knowledge, he is able to align technology-related decisions with a company's vision and goals. Daniel is an integral part of our alignment to Transformation as a company. He contributes significantly to the development and enhancement of Butterfly's products and services to ensure they are highly innovative as well as competitive. As a leader and coach he encourages his team to continually grow and his knowledge to develop solutions based on facts.

John Anderton - CEO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Executive Officer
John has experience handling rapid growth, managing people and culture, as well as implementing digital transformation strategies and models across a variety of organisations and businesses. Under John's leadership, Butterfly has grown with the adoption of the internet across Australia, evolving over time from a full-service agency to one that specialises in designing, building and supporting complex online systems and platforms. The former board member of the Australian Web Industry Association continually champions the digital transformation of society as a whole.

Liam Mehl

Job Titles:
  • Technician
Liam's background in software engineering is essential to all aspects of our support framework. Liam's end-to-end development experience encompasses identifying solutions, provisioning and configuring server and cloud infrastructure, monitoring and maintaining websites and infrastructure, as well as reporting on software and service performance. One of his key accomplishments was the development and implementation of a reusable configuration deployment script for our client that addressed 259 reported security concerns identified in the CIS - Operating System Security Configuration Benchmarks.

Nathan Jones

Job Titles:
  • Customer Solutions Technician
Nathan has worked in the Internet and web industry for 20+ years, and has journeyed through various roles, but thrives best when supporting clients. Past experience supporting and provisioning Internet services, combined with a passion for web-based technologies, means he feels at home working with the websites and applications developed by Butterfly. Nathan's passion is helping people with their tech problems. Our clients love his educational style of training and view him as a steady hand when it comes to providing CMS support, domain and DNS management, hosting, server configuration, security advice and planning for smooth migrations. Nathan likes to get to know clients' businesses, and draws on some business analysis skills and theatre experience to tailor tech support and training to each client's skill level and business objectives. It's no wonder that our clients ask for him by name when they need assistance.

Sarah Bruere

Job Titles:
  • Customer Solutions Team Lead
With a background in customer experience and user experience design, Sarah brings a lens of customer-first thinking to a highly technical team of experts. She plays a key role in ensuring we're looking ahead and evolving our service provisions efficiently and soundly. Sarah thrives when the people around her thrive. She believes that play is always possible and you should enjoy what you do!

Shauni Kessler

Job Titles:
  • Principle Software Engineer
As Butterfly's principal software engineer and Subject Matter Expert on Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning, Shauni is a key figure within not only the engineering team, but the company as a whole. Shauni's passion for identifying issues and finding solutions has earned her the name of ‘tech detective' at Butterfly - such as utilising her knowledge and understanding of machine learning in order to identify how AI can have a positive impact on your business. Shauni is a natural leader bringing with her a wealth of support and expertise to the engineering team and her projects. As a full-stack engineer, Shauni has worked on some of Butterfly's most complex projects, delivering award winning work for clients such as Monash University and iPantry. When Shauni isn't working on complex projects, she is responsible for maintaining and improving Butterfly's technical processes - a role that ensures the team is always delivering high quality work to the best practice standards.

Somayyeh Taherinejad

Job Titles:
  • Software Engineer
Somayyeh (Somy) is a highly regarded front-end developer who brings a diverse set of skills to her role at Butterfly. She has a passion for optimising end-user experience and turning user interface designs into reality. She thrives in an environment where she is challenged and has the freedom to make informed decisions that meet the desired outcomes. Somy has a well-honed ability to analyse a client's business goals and challenges, and then translate them into innovative and practical technical solutions. Somy has over a decade of experience, and even hand-codes the front-end of websites for faster speeds on mobile whilst also contributing to the ease of long-term maintenance. Further to this, Somy has a strong understanding of web usability, web accessibility standards, mobile first and responsive implementation, UI/UX concepts and web design principles. Somy believes that all users should see websites the way they are intended to be seen and therefore places significant importance on cross-browser and cross-device testing to ensure challenges are solved maximising the brand integrity of unique designs.