About
About Graham
Twenty-five years making other people's software work, which is exactly why I now build software that fits in the first place.
My Story
For twenty-five years I was the person who had to make bad software work. Finance and business systems across civil construction, earthworks and mining services — four entities and sixty million in turnover at the last one. Procore, InEight, MYOB, Xero, ApprovalMax, Definitiv. I ran the implementations, and I lived with what came after.
What I saw, over and over, was the same thing: the software did most of the job, and the business quietly bent itself around the rest. A spreadsheet on the side. A report nobody could get out. Double entry that everyone had stopped questioning because it had always been that way. It never showed up as a line item, but it was costing real money in every business I worked in.
One stint stands out. As CFO of a regional airline, I steered the business through the 9/11 aftermath and the Ansett collapse landing at the same time — renegotiating with bankers, holding the cash position, keeping 200+ staff paid while the industry was in freefall. You learn a lot about what matters when everything's on the line at once.
The reason everyone put up with it was straightforward enough. Building software that fit properly meant six figures, a year, and a development team. Settling was the rational choice. Then, at my kitchen table in Perth in 2025, I watched an AI coding tool work through a problem I had budgeted a fortnight for — my own messy problem, my own messy data — and finish it in under an hour, better than I would have. The feeling was not excitement. It was closer to vertigo, because I could see immediately that the reason for settling had just gone.
So I taught myself to build. Not from a computer science degree — from needing things to work. Since then I have shipped a warehouse system replacing a twenty-year-old Access database, an offline sample scanner for exploration geologists, a paediatric drug calculator now used by emergency nurses, a spreadsheet-correction tool that removed a weekly manual job, and a handful of others. They are all listed, with the honest status of each, on the proof page.
I am currently embedded on a Procore implementation for a Western Australian civil contractor, and the thing I did not anticipate is that the systems work and the AI work have stopped being two different jobs. They have fused. I can no longer describe a day in a way that separates them.
That is what I now do for other Australian businesses. The finance career is not a previous chapter — it is the reason you can hand me your operations. I know what a stock ledger, a progress claim and a payroll cycle actually have to do, because I have been accountable for them.
Beyond Work
Based in Perth, Western Australia. When I'm not building AI solutions, you'll find me out on the road bike — usually with a group called the Fat Bastards — or involved with the local Men's Shed.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is Graham Blackwell?
- Graham Blackwell is an Australian AI consultant and software builder based in Perth, Western Australia. He spent 25 years in finance and business systems leadership at WA civil and mining-services firms, most recently Halo Civil Engineering, before moving full-time into building custom software and practical AI systems for small-to-mid businesses. He is currently working on a Procore implementation for a Western Australian civil contractor.
- What does Graham Blackwell do?
- Graham builds custom software and AI systems for Australian SMEs. The flagship engagement is Built For You — a system built around how a business actually operates, replacing an off-the-shelf tool that only half fits, with the source code handed over at the end so there are no per-user fees and no lock-in. Supporting offers are a fixed-price AI Readiness Review (from AUD $2,500), a 4-week AI Implementation Sprint (from AUD $12,000), and an ongoing AI Advisor Retainer (from AUD $1,500 per month). Focus areas include accounts payable automation, document processing, and AI assistants for finance and operations workflows. Graham knows the construction-stack systems most WA SMEs run — Procore, Jobpac, MYOB, Xero — from years implementing them firsthand.
- Where is Graham Blackwell based?
- Perth, Western Australia. Graham serves clients across Australia and has deep on-the-ground knowledge of the Western Australian civil construction and mining services sector.
- What industries does Graham work with?
- Graham works with Australian small and mid-sized businesses — from sole traders through to civil engineering, earthworks, mining services, drilling, and specialty subcontractor SMEs. He has hands-on experience implementing Procore, Xero, MYOB, ApprovalMax, Definitiv payroll, Calxa, and AssetAccountant across civil construction and mining-services businesses, including a full MYOB-to-Xero migration across multiple entities.
- What is Graham's professional background?
- Graham was Finance and Business Systems Manager at Halo Civil Engineering through to October 2025, where he helped lead the successful rescue of another civil contractor out of voluntary administration via a Deed of Company Arrangement, integrating and building it up as part of the Halo group, and managed finance across multiple entities at $60 million turnover. Prior to that he held a Business Systems Specialist role at a WA mining-services firm, implementing Procore, MYOB, Xero, ApprovalMax, and Definitiv across the operation.