Changemakers: Dale Murray

Ask Dale Murray CBE JEMBA2000 what success means and she says it’s the ability to create a situation with the space to make your own choices. Recognised by Debrett’s as one of the UK’s 500 most influential people, a Brummell Inspirational Women Entrepreneur and one of The Maserati 100 Entrepreneurs who give back, Murray was made Commander of the British Empire for services to business by the Queen in 2013.

By any definition, hers is a life marked by success.

“It’s a very privileged position to be in,” she says.

“I feel a great sense of purpose and satisfaction at this stage in my career, being able to advise and influence the choices that both growing and more established companies make. When they go on to be successful, to me that is the definition of my own success. It’s about paying it forward.”

Business advisor, entrepreneur, non-executive director and angel investor, her CV reads like an exemplar of professional success at the vanguard of innovation and digital disruption. She began as an accountant with PwC in New Zealand before co-founding a digital telecoms software company, Omega Logic, in 1999.

A pioneer in the mobile space, Murray co-launched pre-pay ‘top-ups’ in the UK, quickly building her company to a multi-million dollar business, before merging it with Eposs Ltd, where she became CEO, and then selling it to First Data Corporation.

In the last two decades, she has held C-suite positions and a series of advisory board, trustee and directorship roles in the private sector and government, appearing on the BBC’s celebrated The Apprentice show and receiving the award British Angel Investor of the Year in 2011.

Murray is currently Non-Executive Director at global business and accounting software firm Xero – a company she describes as “terrifically pioneering” – and at London Business School’s Sussex Place Ventures, where she looks for businesses that address real market needs and have a “unique quality” that sets them apart. A great passion is advising a clutch of ambitious young companies in the tech sector on go-to-market strategies and leadership – and seeing them succeed.

So, did she have a roadmap for her own professional success, starting out in Auckland in the 1990s?

“Yes, I had a plan to begin with. I knew I wanted to cut my teeth in accounting and then move into business. The decision to take my Executive MBA at LBS [she graduated in 2000] was a function of that strategy; to build the broader skillset and make the transition into entrepreneurship. I started Omega in the first year with a clear vision of what I wanted to achieve, and within five years we were seeing a turnover of half a billion pounds.

“Success like that can be a cushion, actually. What I found once I’d sold my company was that my roadmap became less clear. My career choices thereafter became more opportunistic.”