Tony McManus was born in Springs on the Far East Rand. He matriculated in 1980 and undertook compulsory National Service as a combat medic, completing his tour of duty in the orthopaedic theatre at Number One Military Hospital in 1982. Initially studying to be a lawyer at Wits, McManus decided that law was not where he wanted to be and that computers were far more interesting. Starting at the South African Railways as a trainee programmer, McManus soon left the railways, and over the following 10 years worked at Lifegro, Toyota, Comcon Consulting (which became a part of QData, which in turn became BCX), Ernst & Young and KPMG. Some of the highlights of his project management career were the implementation of voicemail and SMS for MTN when cellular telephony started in South Africa. The management of the itemised billing application development for Telkom, and the IT infrastructure at the Results Centre for the Independent Electoral Commission, on behalf of Hewlett-Packard, in 1999 and 2000 were another two notable projects. In 1994, McManus decided to start his own business and formed McManus Consulting, to provide IT project management services to his clients. McManus Consulting is a niche player in the project management space, managing projects for clients as well as setting up or improving project management offices and training others on how to be "Plan-Centric". McManus is happily married to Leonie and enjoys technology, motorcycling, photography and spending as much time in nature as possible.
Articles