From data centres in Invercargill to IBM

Mr Mulholland’s previous job involved managing data centres doing banking processing in Dunedin and Invercargill.

It was in that job that he learned about planning for disruption.

‘‘You had hardware failures, all those sort of things. Snowstorms . . . we were servicing right up into Geraldine.

‘‘Couriers couldn’t get through, we had software failures, you name it, we had it.’’

A paper he wrote in the late 70s about business continuity planning also brought him to the attention of many businesses, and one of those was IBM.

The global IT company got Mr Mulholland to set up offices in the South Island, which then led to him becoming their consultant here.

‘‘I said ‘alright, I’ll have a go’. It hasn’t stopped since then.’’

After working as a consultant he got approached by a Bahrain business looking for a business continuity plan, and within 10 days Mr Mulholland was in the country.

Since that deal Mr Mulholland’s business has expanded to other countries such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

About five Standby consultants remain in the Middle East, continuing the business continuity planning.