Richard Firth is the Chairman and CEO of MIP Holdings, a South African Fintech that supplies administration systems to the financial services industry. MIP’s "Progress first" systems cover the lives of some 24 million beneficiaries in South Africa and MIP has a staff compliment of more than 600 technology experts with 75% or 450 of the Peopleware at MIP being Progress Software engineers.

A stalwart of the South African technology industry, Firth’s successful software engineering career has spanned many roles. He has held numerous board positions, chaired the Board of Governors at a private local school for girls pioneering the use of technology in the learning process, he provides mentorship for technology start-ups, for example Matric Live a multifunctional education app that is reinventing the way pupils learn that currently has more than 400,000 South African learners using the platform, and he has acted as an advisor to a USA NASDAQ-listed multinational software and database company.

Firth recently won a “365 Men of the year” award from the Gauteng Government for being a positive role model and asset to the country, stemming from the work he does using technology to combat gender-based violence.

MIP have built an internship where they train Progress software engineers how to design, build and support world class solutions. MIP's strength in the Progress international community has culminated in MIP building a strong relationship with Progress worldwide to supply and manage large Progress outsourced projects. These projects include managing, building, supporting, maintaining and consulting on 3rd party Progress applications around the world. MIP have had amazing feedback in terms of the outsourced agile methodology that they deploy to remotely manage these projects.