The First Step Team Gihan Perera, CEO Gihan founded First Step in 1997, when the Web was still young, spam was just a luncheon meat, and Google wasn't even a twinkle in its owners' eyes. Since that time, he has built it into an international business, with particularly strong links in Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast, Perth and Canada. He's passionate about clear communication. Although First Step is a technology company, Gihan's passion is not about the technology itself, but about using technology to get a message across more effectively. He has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Western Australia, an NLP practitioner certification from the Neuro-Linguistic Training Center of San Diego, and a Clean Teeth Award from Sacred Heart Primary School, Perth. In addition to being CEO, Gihan also takes on the roles of selling, marketing, project management, consulting, coaching, training and writing. Visit Gihan's Web site Read Gihan's personal blog Eva Bett and Trish Ryans-Taylor, development and support Eva and Trish are co-directors of Virtual Synchronicity, who we sub-contract to manage much of our development, support, Help Desk and client relationships. Eva is the cheerful voice at the end of our Help Desk line, and the professional presence in our support and development office. She works tirelessly to keep our clients happy. Trish ensures Eva doesn't overwork herself - so she can continue doing her job for you! In addition to their work supporting First Step, Virtual Synchronicity is a successful Web design business in its own right. We enthusiastically recommend them to clients whose requirements fall outside our scope of expertise. Visit their Web site at www.virtualsync.com.au. Natasha Low, graphic designer Natasha, who is based in Singapore, has been involved in corporate and small business graphic design since 1999. She first caught Gihan's eye because of her clean, attractive designs that are the hallmark of great Web sites. She lives in Singapore, and continues to provide high-quality graphic design for our clients around the world - proving the theory that the world is getting smaller every day! Tom Shiva, Internet researcher Tom adds even more of an international feel to our team. He's based in Bangalore, India, and is living proof of Tom Friedman's idea that "the world is flat". He has a Computer Science degree from Bangalore University, and practical experience in Internet marketing and Web 2.0 tools. With the Internet changing daily, it's a challenge to keep up to date with everything, so Tom's primary responsibility is to do research on behalf of First Step and our clients. Recommended Associates We do what we do very well (even though we do say so ourselves)! But we don't have expertise in everything. Over the years, we've surrounded ourselves with "associates" who offer reliable, professional and ethical services. See our list of associates here.