David Boyd

Dave Boyd is a strategist and a planner who has worked across multiple industries, on a vast array of projects that all had one thing in common – they had problems that needed to be solved.

The need to solve problems is what has always driven Dave – whether early in his career as a developer, or now, as a Chief Operating Officer (COO) who is strategically guiding expansion at Newcastle’s Mudbath.

His dedication to delivering the best solution to even the most complex of problems, throughout his career, has led him around the world, working on projects for globally-recognised brands.

Big project expertise

Beginning his career as a consultant, Dave started with big ideas, and as a result, found his way onto big projects.

As an ambitious and driven IT professional, he set his sights on a world-leading and innovative brand – IBM. Providing advice and services to large corporate businesses and government bodies for five years as part of the global giant, he was involved in some of the country’s most significant digital transformation projects of the time.

After working on projects for PWC, Dave joined a team of hundreds of developers embedded within the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, playing an integral role in completing the rebuild of the Department’s Visa Platform. The project was undertaken over multiple years, it was of a scale rarely seen, and resulted in the development of web frameworks that became new standards.

Dave went on to continue building his skills, and his understanding of the workings of large organisations, with notable Defence projects, in addition to a B2C implementation for Woolworths.

Like Mudbath’s Chief Commercial Officer, Claire Dawson, Dave moved onto industry innovator, Razorfish, and to a smaller, more intimate environment, with projects equally as intricate and transformational.

Supporting clients such as McDonalds as it built out internal systems, he experienced businesses of all sizes and at various stages of scaling, each with unique challenges, and developed a strong foundation for creating growth strategies in future roles.

Robust growth strategies

In 2018, Dave joined Mudbath’s executive team, as Chief Technology Officer, during a significant period of growth.

After several years working in start-ups and scale-ups across a variety of industries, he brought with him a passion for building out companies, and empowering brands and people to reach their full potential.

Dave’s role with Mudbath initially focused on solving one of the biggest challenges of the company at the time – getting involved in and growing a unique technology community away from the city, in one of Australia’s regional hubs.

Meeting that challenge head on, Dave drew on previous experience building relationships, creating alignment and championing collaboration. Mudbath became and remains a central part of the Newcastle tech community, fostering ideas, advancement, and paving the way for the area to become one of Australia’s technology and innovation centres.

Over the years since Dave’s move to Newcastle, the local scene has continued to evolve, as has Mudbath. With just 20 people when he joined the agency; by 2022, only four years later, it had expanded to 100 people, in three office locations throughout Australia.

Leading the Mudbath expansion

Promoted to the role of Chief Operating Officer in November 2021, Dave’s focus moved from nurturing the external community immediately around Mudbath, to building the internal capacity and output of the agency’s team.

After years spent working with large clients at IBM and building his own start-ups from the ground up, Dave came with unique experience in both scaling businesses, and working with some of the world’s most influential brands.

He introduced and shared a ‘nothing’s too big’ philosophy, and began to implement the structures and processes required to support the agency as it evolved from a small business, into a larger company with a national footprint, on a path to a global presence.

While, as CTO, Dave was involved in a number of Mudbath’s most significant digital transformations for clients, his most notable project has been identifying and defining a path for the growth of the agency and the success of its people.

He has worked to bring the right people into Mudbath, guiding them as they have found their place, set their goals, and achieved them. He previously fostered positive outcomes and enabled beyond-target results in the engineers who worked with him, and he has done the same right across the business, as Mudbath’s head of operations.

Driving a ‘be better together’ approach, he participates in and encourages consultative and respectful teamwork, knowing that if any member of his team makes another look good, everyone ends up looking great!

As a COO, Dave has supported the executive team in moving Mudbath closer to achieving its ambitious vision, at a rapid pace.

He has worked tirelessly to inspire the team to follow him and the other leaders on this path, and to encourage them – and Mudbath’s clients and partners – to genuinely want to be a part of every step the agency is taking as it builds its success.

“Fundamentally, at Mudbath, our people are very open to change – they embrace it and love it. They are excited about it – and that’s a good thing, because change and digital transformation is what we do, and we do it exceptionally well.”

His unique and diverse background in businesses and projects, big and small, has been an asset to Mudbath, and to clients, not only through direct involvement, but through the strategies and practices he has embedded internally, in collaboration with Claire Dawson and Josh Doolan, to drive better outcomes.

Mudbath is on a rapid path to a global stage, and Dave has empowered this by driving the concept that effective and sustainable growth starts from the inside out.