Our Story
Steady Hand Partners was founded on a belief shaped by firsthand experience: that deep expertise should be valued, not sidelined.
The idea began more than a decade ago, when a close friend, let’s call him Sam, lost his senior technology role shortly after turning 50. With his skills and reputation, I assumed he’d be back in work quickly. Instead, he spent two and a half years struggling to get a response to his applications. Here was someone at the peak of his career, overlooked purely because of his age.
Eventually, Sam found a role. But the experience stayed with me. Over the years, more friends and colleagues went through the same cycle: redundancy, months of silence, dismissed despite decades of expertise. It became clear this wasn’t bad luck, it was a pattern.
I built Steady Hand Partners to prove a point the market continues to miss: that experienced professionals aren’t winding down. They’re still building, adapting, and delivering- often better than anyone else in the room.
Our Model
We operate across three service lines, each designed to bring experienced capability into your organisation in the way that fits:
Talent - Access to a network of experienced professionals committed to continuous learning and modern practice. Permanent, contract, or interim- matched to your needs.
Consulting - Hands-on delivery across cloud, data, platforms, and transformation. Experienced operators who get in, do the work, and transfer knowledge.
Advisory (Fractional Leadership)- Embedded leadership for organisations that need experienced guidance without permanent headcount. Your steady hand at the table.
What We Believe
Experience, when applied correctly, enables organisations to move faster with less risk.
But experience alone isn’t enough. The professionals in our network combine deep expertise with a commitment to staying current- in AI, in modern delivery practices, and in the evolving demands of their disciplines. We call this continuous capability, and it’s what separates an experienced professional from a dated one.
We also believe the market has a blind spot. Research consistently shows that organisations undervalue experienced professionals, even when those professionals outperform in AI-enabled roles and complex environments:
• HR professionals are classifying workers as “older” earlier than ever, often from age 50, despite a majority of organisations facing hard-to-fill vacancies. [1]
• Employers admit to preferring younger hires, even when experienced candidates perform equally or better. [2]
• Experienced workers who adopt AI tools often become the strongest performers in their teams. [2]
We exist to close that gap- by connecting organisations with professionals who prove, through their work, that depth of experience and modern thinking aren’t opposites- they’re partners.
[1] The Older and Younger Workers report, jointly produced by the Australian HR Institute and the Australian Human Rights Commission (Older-Younger-Workers-Report-2025-FINAL.pdf)
[2] The Generation Report (AgeProofingAI_Generation_FINAL.pdf) surveyed 2,610 employees and 1,488 employers in France, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States during May and June 2024
About the Founder
Steady Hand Partners is led by David Wall, an Enterprise Architect with over 25 years of experience in senior technology roles across Australia’s major financial institutions and telecommunications providers.
David spent more than a decade at Westpac, where he led data platform architecture, shaped the Group Data Platform Roadmap, and drove enterprise-scale modernisation programs including ADAPT (Westpac’s cloud-native, AI-ready data platform) and UNITE (the multi-year program to simplify and converge legacy data environments). Before Westpac, he held architecture and technical leadership roles at CBA, AAPT, Telstra, and IBM.
That practitioner background is what makes Steady Hand different from a traditional recruitment or consulting firm. When David assesses a client’s needs, it’s through the lens of someone who has sat in those seats: leading architecture teams, navigating regulatory complexity, aligning technology investment with business outcomes, and delivering under the governance and scrutiny that comes with enterprise-scale environments.
When Steady Hand recommends a professional, it’s someone David has worked with directly, or someone vouched for by trusted colleagues from over two decades in the industry. That network was built at the coalface, not from a candidate database. It’s how we reduce the risk of every engagement, whether it’s a permanent hire, a consulting delivery, or an embedded advisory role.
This isn’t a recruitment firm that moved into advisory. It’s an advisory firm built by a practitioner who understands both the work and the people who do it.
Our Mission
At Steady Hand, we believe experience and continuous learning are not opposites, they’re partners. By connecting seasoned ICT professionals with organisations that value depth, adaptability, and outcomes, we’re not just filling roles. We’re proving that age diversity is business strength.