David Keane and the business of being ready

David Keane began a sales interview by asking whether they should talk about surfing. It was February 2020, he was running Bigtincan from the Boston area, and the conversation was supposed to concern artificial intelligence. The detour lasted a moment. His explanation of the business went straight to an awkward encounter: a buyer, thoroughly briefed, sitting opposite a seller who had run out of useful things to say.

Anyone who has endured a product demonstration that becomes a hunt through somebody else's folders will recognise the scene. Keane saw a software business in the gap between what a company knows and what its representative can produce when it matters. Preparation was the product. The meeting was the test.

That question has followed him through mobile applications, a Sydney startup, an Australian stock-market listing and a long stretch in the United States. By October 2026, he was back in Sydney, leading the AI infrastructure company SCX.ai. The subject had widened from getting information into a salesperson's hands to giving Australian organisations more control over the computing behind it.

An economist among the applications

Keane's education was in economics at the Australian National University, followed by a Master of Arts in Management at Macquarie University. His working life took him through networking and communications: Novell, Asian marketing for Wellfleet Communications, and the expansion of Xylan's business in Australia and New Zealand. Those roles put him close to the practical business of getting technology into another market.

He also built businesses of his own. Quadtel Asia operated in Singapore; Veritel Wireless operated in Australia. He sold both. Veritel's buyer was BigAir Australia, later part of Superloop. The sequence matters because Bigtincan was the work of someone already acquainted with customers, distribution and the business end of a technical idea.

Then came the mobile application market. Beginning in 2008, as Apple's first iPhone software development kit opened new possibilities for developers, Keane oversaw applications including BuzzMe and AdFree. A small screen had become a place to build a business. His next company would ask what that screen could do for someone at work.

Upstairs from the coffee

Bigtincan began in 2011 above a Sydney coffee shop. The founding location supplies a pleasingly literal picture of a business getting off the ground. Its first work was utility software for mobile platforms. In 2012 it released Bigtincan Dashboard on the iPad; in 2014 came Bigtincan Hub and a new US headquarters.

Read those steps together and the movement becomes clear. Mobile tools were becoming a way to organise corporate knowledge around the person who needed it. Salespeople could carry a company's material into a conversation, rather than hoping the right document would turn up in time. The tablet was portable; the more interesting ambition was to make preparation portable too.

Moving toward Boston gave the Australian business a base in the American enterprise market. Keane would eventually spend twelve years in the US. The company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2017, keeping its Australian public-market connection while building an international operation. For its CEO, the geography meant living with two business clocks.

The sidekick has work to do

Keane's early account of AI was strikingly domestic. He compared assistance for salespeople with the systems that help a driver: navigation, lane guidance, the warning that arrives before a mistake. In his telling, software should help a representative arrive prepared and leave room for the judgement involved in an actual conversation.

There is a useful restraint in that analogy. A navigation system earns its place by making a journey easier. It does not need an audience for its cleverness. Applied to selling, the test becomes whether the person can find the right material, understand the customer and have something worth contributing.

He had a similarly practical explanation for the name Bigtincan. He wanted something people could remember, with the suggestion of a container for their material. The naming discussion included the difficulty of finding an available dot-com address. Even an AI company must first survive the domain-name search, a modest corrective to technological grandeur.

“Should we talk about surfing first?”

David Keane, opening a 2020 sales-technology interview

Buying the missing pieces

The business grew partly by bringing other teams and technologies inside it. Zunos and Fatstax arrived in 2018. Veelo, Asdeq and XINN followed in 2019. ClearSlide came in 2020; VoiceVibes, Vidinoti and Brainshark followed in 2021. This was an expanding collection of capabilities around content, learning and customer engagement.

Keane's explanation of XINN was specific. Its appeal included document automation and experience in financial services. The team had begun integration work before the acquisition, and the commercial team would learn the technology using Bigtincan's own training software. Selling tools for preparation came with an obvious obligation to prepare your own sellers.

The acquisition also moved beyond simply locating a file. Keane described a relationship manager assembling a pitch book or report with help from automation. That is a more demanding task: bringing material together for a particular customer and purpose. The business was following the work around the document, as well as the document itself.

Six patents, and a less glamorous clock

By its 2024 annual report, Bigtincan credited Keane with six granted patents covering technologies used in its system. That is a useful detail in a career often presented through executive titles. His connection to the product extended into the intellectual property behind it.

He also had the ordinary complications of running an international company. Asked in December 2024 about his toughest challenge, he singled out leading an ASX-listed business while based in the US. Time differences made communication across the team difficult. His answer emphasised collaboration tools and a working culture that kept information moving.

The grand noun was globalisation; the daily problem was finding a workable hour. His description brings the story back to an operator's concerns. Software companies sell smooth experiences, but their own coordination still depends on people in different places understanding what happens next.

In April 2024, The Software Report named him among its Top Executives in Artificial Intelligence. Bigtincan's announcement pointed to GenieAI, with functions including summarising content, drafting copy and answering questions. Recognition and product detail sat together: the award concerned AI; the work concerned the next useful action.

A May 2025 release put that preference for practical work into product language. Bigtincan introduced capabilities and integrations intended to reduce repetitive tasks and help teams personalise tools and content. Keane described the purpose as giving teams time back. After years of adding technology, the promise still depended on what a user could accomplish during a working day. A feature list had to become a usable minute.

A company changes hands; a founder changes countries

On April 23, 2025, Vector Capital announced the completion of its acquisition of Bigtincan. The cash price was A$0.22 per share, with an approximate transaction value of A$183 million. The public-company chapter had ended.

In July, Keane told his network he would spend more time in Australia and move away from the full-time CEO role. He said he would remain a strategic adviser to Vector. His message thanked the people who had worked alongside him at Bigtincan and left room for the interests he intended to pursue next.

The business continued on its own course. On October 30, 2025, Vector completed its Showpad acquisition and brought the two companies together under the Showpad brand, with Apratim Purakayastha appointed CEO. Keane's place in that story is co-founder and former chief executive.

By the following October, the homecoming had become definite. Keane wrote that he had closed his family's US home base and returned to Sydney for good. He described landing on Sunday and entering the Kent Street office on Monday. The change of continent came with a remarkably short interval before work.

Canberra, Clive James and the next question

Keane was born and grew up in Canberra. In a September 2026 conversation, he reflected on the support surrounding life in a government city and how leaving it, first for Sydney and then for America, had broadened his understanding of other people's circumstances. He connected that experience to his interest in making technology's benefits available more widely.

SCX.ai is his current vehicle. He is its founder and CEO, working on Australian AI infrastructure. Its leadership includes chief engineer Rob Amos and CFO Rahul Vaidya, with Tom Amos as a co-founder and non-executive director. Keane's new job brings him back to the infrastructure questions that preceded his years in mobile software.

His current writing argues that businesses should be able to change AI models without rebuilding everything around them. He wants attention paid to the platform underneath: its cost, location and control. It is an argument from a founder selling that platform, and a clear statement of where he has placed his next business bet.

For a more personal clue, there is his enthusiasm for Clive James. Keane has described being an avid reader, drawn to James's irreverent treatment of life's oddities. On a business trip to Egypt, he found common ground with a prospective partner over James's 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe appearance.

The anecdote gives this career its human scale. A conversation about bringing technology into Africa found a connection through an Australian writer. Keane has spent years building ways to help people turn up better informed. Once, at least, the useful thing to bring was an appreciation of Clive James.