Management team

Stephen MacDonald – President and CEO
Stephen has been involved in the education space since the early 90s. His first exposure to the education market was through his involvement as VP Marketing for a publicly traded Post Graduate IT Training Institution in Canada and the USA. Stephen was instrumental in positioning this post-graduate program as the standard in North America and created a number of strategic partnerships with employers who sought the program’s graduates.

Recognising the role of the web in higher education, Stephen has consulted with several large organizations that use it to deliver content in ways never done before. He has had the privilege of working together with Canadian universities and one of the top financial accreditations in the country assisting them in the development of their overall web presence. Prior to his direct involvement within the education and software areas, Stephen’s career began in Toronto where he held a senior brand management role with one of the world’s pre-eminent consumer packaged goods companies.

As President and CEO of Azorus, Stephen oversees the strategic direction of the company and manages all facets of business development and marketing efforts. He has been an active presenter at CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Europe, AACRAO Strategic Enrollment Management, NACAC, and has also had the honor of speaking several times at Entrepreneurship & Leadership classes for business schools.  His goal is to ensure that the Azorus suite of products is always relevant to the company’s clients, and also to their clients – the students.

Phil Miles, CTO
Phil brings over 14 years' experience in full lifecycle software development, technical team leadership, and project management experience to Azorus. Starting his career as a software developer, and gradually moving to delivery and management level responsibilities, he has developed key leadership and management skills, and is a former VP of Solutions Delivery for a Canadian-based software development and consulting firm.

As CTO, Phil is responsible for developing IT related plans, policies and objectives to promote growth within the organisation. He leads the planning, development and implementation of IT systems and related technology-based product offerings. Phil also provides input and advice on the evaluation, selection, and implementation of information systems, ensuring appropriate investment in strategic and operational systems. Along with these tasks, he communicates strategic IT plans, policies and technology trends to management and professional staff.

Shawn Greene – Director of Technology
Since 2002, Shawn has been a technology leader in the design, development and implementation of CRM solutions.

As the director of Azorus’ software engineering team Shawn is focused on the design, creation and maintenance of our suite of software. As the senior leader of the software engineering team, Shawn interacts with our clients actively and assists in the translation between technical and business requirements.

As our key technology advisor and visionary, Shawn dedicates time to each implementation, ensuring the best technological approach is followed. During the entire lifecycle of the implementation, Shawn reviews and approves implementations, and is a key contributor to the quality control process.

Catheryn Hodgson - Marketing and Sales Manager
Catheryn brings 15 years of experience in account management, client relationship management, communications, advertising, website project management and software sales. Since joining the company from Calgary, Alberta in 2009, she has been instrumental in shaping the company's sales and marketing functions into the Azorus CRM team. Together with our Market Researchers, Catheryn oversees all marketing, advertising and promotional staff and activities and establishes marketing strategies to meet organizational objectives. Catheryn is responsible for ensuring the Azorus message as well as our CRM suite are introduced to institutional leaders around the world.

Inez Uerz – Head of Strategic Market Research
Inez brings over 17 years of experience, all in a higher education context, joining Azorus from the Netherlands where her last position was as Executive Director of the University Fund at Radboud University Nijmegen.

During the last seven years with the university, Inez was active in a senior management role guiding fund raising and development endeavours for the university. As part of the senior management team of the university, Inez worked closely with the departments of student affairs, marketing and communication, alumni and international affairs. Inez has also been an active volunteer with CASE Europe (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) over the last six years and has been part of the expansion of CASE on the continent. In her role at Azorus, Inez will lead strategic market research ensuring the company’s current clients have access to the latest trends while also helping the company to expand in key international markets.