Nathan Buzza

Media & Recognition

The public record.

A small archive of industry awards, press features and long-form articles — spanning the 1990s through to the present day. Most of the awards belong to CommtechWireless and to the teams that built it; a few are personal.

Awards

What each one was for, and why it mattered.

Selected awards from across the 1990s – 2010s. Most belong to CommtechWireless; one belongs to Q-Zar / Omnitronics. The Entrepreneur of the Year and the 40 Under 40 First Amongst Equals are personal.

2005 · National finalist

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year

Technology, Communications, E‑Commerce & Life Sciences

EY’s global Entrepreneur of the Year programme is the most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs in the world. Judging is independent, criteria are scaled and exportability of the business. I was named the Western Australian winner in the Technology category in 2005 and went on as a Western Region finalist for the national award. The 2010 EoY Connections newsletter featured a follow-up interview profiling the post-acquisition relocation of CommtechWireless to Florida.

Read the 2011 EoY Connections feature →

2003 · Overall winner

WA Business News 40 Under 40 · First Amongst Equals

Overall winner

The WA Business News 40 Under 40 programme recognises the forty most influential Western Australian business leaders aged under forty. The overall winner is selected by panel each year as First Amongst Equals. I was the third recipient of First Amongst Equals, in 2003 — the year CommtechWireless first broke into the BRW Fast 100. The award put the company onto national magazine covers and the front of WA business sections, and remains one of the formative moments of my career.

Read the 2010 40under40 follow-up →

2005

Telstra & Australian Governments’ Small Business Awards

Winner · Small Business of the Year

The Telstra Small Business Awards are Australia’s longest-running awards programme dedicated to small business. CommtechWireless won Small Business of the Year in 2005, judged across innovation, growth, financial performance and contribution to community — the year we were also in our fourth consecutive BRW Fast 100 cohort.

2002, 2003, 2004, 2005

BRW Fast 100

Four consecutive years

The BRW Fast 100 ranks Australia’s fastest-growing private companies by three-year revenue compound annual growth. CommtechWireless was in the cohort for four consecutive years — one of a small number of WA technology businesses to make the list in that period.

2002, 2003, 2004, 2005

Deloitte Technology Fast 50 (Australia) & Fast 500 Asia Pacific

Four consecutive years on both lists

Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 ranks the fifty fastest-growing technology companies in each country; the Fast 500 Asia Pacific aggregates the regional cohort. CommtechWireless made both lists in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Deloitte assesses on revenue growth alone — no equity raise gymnastics, no story; the number on the spreadsheet at year-end.

2002, 2004, 2005, 2006

C.Y. O’Connor Award for Excellence in Engineering & Technology

WA Department of Industry & Resources · four wins

Named for Charles Yelverton O’Connor — the engineer who built Fremantle Harbour and the Goldfields Water Supply pipeline — the C.Y. O’Connor Award is Western Australia’s premier recognition for engineering and technology excellence. CommtechWireless won the award in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006 across various product and export categories.

2002, 2003, 2006

DoIR Information & Communications Technology Export Award

WA Department of Industry & Resources

The State Government’s recognition of Western Australian companies driving the export of WA-developed ICT into international markets. CommtechWireless was a finalist or winner in 2002, 2003 and 2006, and a winner of the related Emerging Exporter Award in 2002 and 2003 — the years the business moved from selling regionally to operating in twenty-plus countries.

2001 · 2002 (twice) · 2005

WAITTA Awards

Lifetime Achievement (2005) · Best Product · Export of the Year · Best Telecommunications Project

The Western Australian Information Technology and Telecommunications Association awards (WAITTA) are the state’s peer-judged industry awards. CommtechWireless won Best Telecommunications Project in 2001, Best Product and Export of the Year in 2002, and the Lifetime Achievement Award — awarded to me personally — in 2005.

2003

ATUG Best Communications Solution

Australian Telecommunications Users Group

ATUG was Australia’s peak telecommunications industry user group, now folded into Communications Alliance. The Best Communications Solution award judged the deployed product against measurable customer impact. CommtechWireless won for its hospital-paging deployment work in 2003.

2004 · Las Vegas

NSCA Expo Innovations in Technology Awards

Best Product

The National Systems Contractors Association Expo is North America’s largest systems-integrator trade show. The Innovations in Technology Best Product award recognised CommtechWireless’s nurse-call and clinical-paging integration platform in 2004 — the year we opened the Jacksonville office.

2004

My Business Awards Hall of Fame

Inductee

The My Business magazine awards programme recognised Australian small-to-medium enterprises across a range of categories. After multiple years on the finalist lists, CommtechWireless was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004 — a category reserved for businesses with sustained recognition across multiple years.

2002

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Young)

Western Australia

The Young Entrepreneur category of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme recognises business founders under thirty-five. I was the WA Young winner in 2002, three years before the full Technology category win — a useful early signal that the CommtechWireless story was scaling on the metrics that the EY judges look at.

A small selection. The full list of CommtechWireless-era awards runs to roughly twenty separate citations between 2001 and 2006 — mostly variations on the export, technology and innovation categories listed above.

In the press

A small archive of the coverage.

Selected press coverage from 2003 through 2012. Each tile links to the PDF scan or full article where available.

Cover of Commercialisation Australia's Value Proposition magazine, December 2012, featuring 'Man on a Mission' on Nathan Buzza.
Dec 2012

Man on a Mission

Value Proposition · Commercialisation Australia
The West Australian westweekend 'Yin & Yang' feature with Nathan and his brother Michael Buzza, 8 December 2012.
Dec 2012

Yin & Yang — with Michael Buzza

The West Australian · westweekend
Business News
Fact File
May 2012

Perth investors back Azure Healthcare

Business News · on the Azure rights-issue underwrite
Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur Of The Year®
Connections · Where Are They Now
Jan 2011

Reconnecting with EoY alumni

EY Entrepreneur of the Year Connections
“Buzza looks for a
fresh challenge”
40under40 follow-up
Oct 2010

Buzza looks for a fresh challenge

Business News · 21 months after the Amcom sale
commtalk
QUARTER 3 · 2006
Q3 & Q4 2006

Commtalk — the customer newsletter

CommtechWireless · in-house newsletter archive
Business News (WA) 2003 cover featuring Nathan Buzza as 40under40 First Amongst Equals winner.
2003

40under40 First Amongst Equals — cover feature

Business News (WA)
Scoop magazine 2003 cover featuring Nathan Buzza.
2003

Scoop — cover feature

Scoop magazine
LotteryWest feature on Nathan Buzza.
Mid-2000s

LotteryWest feature

LotteryWest · community profile

Long-form features

The articles, in full.

Three deep-feature articles archived as scanned PDFs — the EoY Connections alumni piece (2011), the Business News “fresh challenge” follow-up (2010), and the Business News Fact File on the Azure Healthcare rights issue (2012).

January 2011

Where are they now? — Reconnecting with EoY alumni

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Connections newsletter

A monthly feature reconnecting with past EoY participants, asking them about life after the programme and their views on entrepreneurship. The interview profiles the post-Amcom transition, the Florida-to-Perth relocation, and the early thinking that would become Allure Capital. Quoted: “Always hire on intellect and enthusiasm. Everything else can be learnt” — my father’s advice, the only piece of business advice I ever actually kept.

Read the full feature (PDF) →

October 2010

Buzza looks for a fresh challenge

Business News · by Dan Wilkie

Twenty-one months after selling CommtechWireless to Amcom Software, Business News profiled the post-sale period and the early signs of a return to building. “Everyone tells you that you won’t be able to retire, but I was convinced that I’d be able to and would go out and play golf, exercise, and drink coffees,” ran one quote. The article documents the search for the next venture and the criteria that would shape Allure Capital.

Read the full article (PDF) →

May 2012

Perth investors back Azure Healthcare

Business News Fact File

Coverage of the Azure Healthcare rights issue — the deal in which Allure Capital underwrote the cap raise, took up a substantial cornerstone position, and rejoined Austco alongside founder Bob Grey. The share price moved from 3.3 cents to ~34 cents over the next two and a half years — a 12× return on the underwriting. The article captures the thesis at the moment of entry.

Read the full Fact File (PDF) →