Board
Sir Stephen Tindall
Sir Stephen founded The Warehouse in 1982, holding the position of Managing Director until January 2001. In 2009 the Warehouse Group had 86 retail stores in New Zealand with sales of NZ $1.72 billion. The New Zealand Herald named him Business Person of the year in 1997 - the year in which he became an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit - and in 1998 he was named the Deloitte-New Zealand Management magazine Executive of the Year.
In 1995 Sir Stephen and his wife set up the Tindall Foundation, to provide a hand up to New Zealanders in need. He is also the founder and Chairman of Kea, the global talent network with over 25,000 members, that helps connect, and leverage the knowledge and contacts of, talented New Zealanders around the world.
In 2007, he was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of services to business and the community in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Sir Stephen has been closely involved with the NZ fibre infrastucture in his capacity as Chair of the Growth Innovation Advisory Board.
Rod Drury
A recipient of New Zealand’s most prestigious hi-tech award, the Tait Flying Kiwi in 2009, Rod is renowned for his entrepreneurial skills in the technology sector. He recently established Xero, a successful ‘cloud’ accounting system (www.xero.com). In early 2006, prior to setting up Xero, Rod sold his award-winning email archiving software company, Aftermail, to USA publicly-listed company, Quest Software.
Rod is a director of the New Zealand Stock Exchange and also sits on the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise Beachhead Advisory Board. He was an independent director of Trade Me at the time it was sold to Fairfax. In 2008 Rod was recognised as a KEA World Class New Zealander and was conferred an Honorary Fellow of the New Zealand Computer Society (HFNZCS), recognising his achievements, ongoing advocacy, and willingness to assist others in the industry.
Sam Morgan
Sam founded TradeMe, New Zealand’s most successful internet business that accounts for over half of all locally served traffic on the NZ internet. In 2006 TradeMe was sold to Australian media company, Fairfax, for $750m. Sam left his CEO role at TradeMe in 2008 and now serves as an advisor.
Sam is an active venture capitalist and philanthropist, investing in entrepreneurs building scalable social models in the Pacific, Asia and Africa. Sam is a director of Fairfax Media, Tourism NZ and Xero, a publicly-listed software company, and is variously involved as a shareholder, director or advisor to a number of high-growth software companies in New Zealand, including Visfleet and Sonar6.
David Kirk, MBE
David Kirk is Chairman of the board of directors of Hoyts Theatre Group, Australia’s oldest theater chain with over 400 screens in Australia and New Zealand.
He is former Chief Executive of Fairfax Media Limited, the newspaper, magazine and digital publisher in Australia and New Zealand. David led the purchase by Fairfax of Trade Me in 2006.
He was previously Chief Policy Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand and was captain of the All Blacks when they won the World Cup in 1987.
David was a Rhodes Scholar, is a citizen of both Australia and New Zealand and lives in Sydney with his family.
Team
CEO
Mark Rushworth
Mark is the former head of ihug, New Zealand’s 2nd largest ISP after Telecom New Zealand’s Xtra. He was bought into ihug by then owners iiNet, and led the eventual sale to Vodafone NZ for $41m in 2006.
Under Mark’s leadership ihug was the loudest voice in calling on the Government to allow ISPs access to Telecom’s network in a process known as local loop unbundling.
In 2008 Mark became Vodafone’s Chief Marketing Officer responsible for all commercial, strategy and marketing elements of the New Zealand.
Mark has a Masters of Engineering, and was part of Telecom NZ’s graduate program. He was head of interactive media for ITV in the UK, and returned to NZ to be head of consumer mobile marketing for Telecom NZ
Sales
Mark Kuper
Mark has been involved in wholesale telecommunications in Australia for 17 years following 8 years of technology and telecoms sales experience in New Zealand.
He has had senior sales/ sales management roles at Optus , Telecom NZ Australia , PowerTel and most recently was Director of Sales at Australia Japan Cable.
Mark has an extensive knowledge of the wholesale telecoms market both domestically and internationally.
He is leading our sales efforts with Australian and global customers. Mark is based in Sydney
Operations
John Humphrey
John was founder and CEO of the Nava Networks project established to build a 9,500 km multi-terabit capacity fibre optic submarine and terrestrial cable network from Singapore to Sydney.
Before Pacific Fibre John consulted in the wider industry, including satellite, undersea cables, broadband fixed wireless, wireless LANs, fibre and copper based fixed networks. He also assisted with planning and strategy development for telco service providers and a number of international airports. Most recently he helped companies answering the NZ Government tender process to build a fibre-to-the-home network. He has been involved with the IPSTAR satellite system for over six years - working with Thaicom Plc of Thailand to establish IPSTAR two-way broadband services in Australia and New Zealand.
Finance
Lance Wiggs
Lance is a consultant and entrepreneur. He is co-founder and director of PowerKiwi - an electricity retailer, Lingopal - a Perth based venture capital-backed iPhone application development company, and several other businesses. He is a director of Texmate NZ Limited, a designer, manufacturer and seller of electronic control equipment.. Lance works with Equip Design Integration as part of the Better By Design program to assist high-growth, export-led New Zealand companies.
Lance has over 20 years’ business experience, working with and consulting to a large variety of companies across the world. He was with McKinsey in Washington DC, the EBRD in London and co-led turnarounds at BHP Billiton plants in Australia and South Africa. Lance consulted to Trade Me, and advised on the eventual sale to Fairfax Media for NZ$750m
Advisor
Laurent Duplantie Eng.
As founder of TelOptix International Inc in 2000, a consulting company specializing in submarine fibre optic cables, Laurent has directed many important projects in the Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean oceans and the Gulf of Mexico for telecommunication operators and the oil and gas industry. Laurent has over 30 years’ experience in telecommunications and has overseen over $1.5 billion in submarine cable networks. These networks span 25,000 kilometers and link 14 countries. He has also contributed to the creation of an international telecommunications carrier based in Bermuda, TeleBermuda International, to compete with Cable & Wireless.
He is now president of TelOptix International, a company specializing in submarine fibre optic systems planning, design, implementation and operation. Laurent is member of the Board of Directors of several telecommunications companies.
His extensive experience in international communications and submarine systems includes 15 years at Teleglobe Canada as Director of Strategic Development and Director of Network Services promoting CANTAT–3 and CANUS 1, and as a Project Director for installation of the CANTAT–3 submarine cable system.