Stephen Withall has been working as a software professional since 1979, in a range of roles from programmer to chief technical officer. Along the way he has accumulated many years experiencing both the satisfactions and the frustrations of business analysis, systems analysis and specifying requirements, which has led him to develop a software application to make it easier and to write a book on the subject. He has worked in diverse environments in companies big and small, in seventeen countries across four continents. He actively maintains his hands-on software development skills.

Since the early 1990s Stephen has worked on specifying, architecting and developing systems for diverse kinds of e‑commerce, beginning in pre-Internet days over proprietary networks, then interactive television and latterly Web-based services. Business areas have included Web retailing, Internet gaming, smartcard applications, Internet services on airliners, Internet dating, and home banking. For the whole of the 1980s and up until 1992 Stephen worked on the development of systems for a number of banks and other financial institutions, including American Express Bank, BIS Banking Systems, Tullett and Tokyo Forex, Banco de Sabadell, Toronto Dominion Bank and State Bank of NSW. These systems spanned a broad range of subject areas: retail banking, teller services, financial accounting, lending, money broking, and foreign exchange being the main ones.

Stephen holds a BSc in Mathematical Sciences from Bristol University, U.K. He lives in Manly, a carefree suburb of Sydney, Australia.