Movers and shakers: Mark Denvir, Russell Ambrose and Jeff Rodman

A roundup of events and ICT executive appointments across NZ

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Mark Denvir is now the director of ICT at Auckland Council, following seven months as acting head of IS.

Denvir’s previous roles include operations director at Redbox Digital, and group supply chain - process standards manager at Fonterra.

Our CEO Stephen Town has made a commitment that we will be bringing more of the Auckland Council Services into the digital space, says Denvir on key ICT programmes of the council in upcoming months.

Russell Ambrose has moved to to Airways New Zealand as Chief Technology Officer after more than five years at Vector where he has held the roles of Group General Manager Development (acting) and GM information technology. Before that, he was CIO at Genesis Energy. His previous roles included program manager at Land Transport Safety Authority and information technology manager at NZ Police.

Ingrid Cronin-Knight has joined MYOB to lead up its fast-growing New Zealand SME division.

Cronin-Knight was most recently head of change and business technology for Chorus where she managed the technology and business transformation programme following its demerger from Telecom (now Spark). Prior to that, she held various roles in Telecom’s enterprise division.

Cronin-Knight was recognised as a Global Woman Breakthrough Leader in 2015 and holds an MBA from Henley Business School in the UK. She is a Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award Winner in 2014 and 2015 and was the inaugural winner of Computerworld New Zealand IT manager of the Year in 2010. She also represented New Zealand in cricket as a White Fern and was captain of the Auckland Hearts.

David Reiss joins Equinox IT in Auckland as principal consultant, digital transformation.

“Digital technology is forcing businesses to change at a faster pace than ever before,” says Reiss, who came from Spark Digital, where his most recent position was digital transformation consultant. “It opens up new opportunities to innovate, but also the risk of being disrupted. New approaches to business and technology transformation are vital to be successful.”

Takashi Tada as is the new managing director for NEC in New Zealand. Tada has close to 20 years of experience with NEC’s global business, where he has held several senior roles with management and strategic planning responsibilities in the company’s IT and telecommunications businesses. Since starting out in sales at NEC Corporation’s 1st Asia Division, he has developed operational skills and honed management competence working primarily in the Greater China and Asia Pacific region with three global postings in the Philippines, Singapore, and most recently Australia.

Sabre Corporation and Serko have announced an agreement to develop the next generation of Sabre Online. Sabre Online is Sabre’s corporate online booking tool for small and mid-sized businesses in Australia and New Zealand. The new version of Sabre Online, under the same name, will combine Sabre’s end-to-end offering with Serko’s established cloud-based booking platform.

Richard Morgan, regional director, Sabre Travel Network South Pacific and Darrin Grafton, CEO, Serko

Jeff Rodman, Polycom co-founder, delivered a masterclass on creativity and innovation to students at Auckland's ICT Graduate School.

Rodman joined students live from Silicon Valley using Polycom video collaboration technology in conjunction with New Zealand partner, Asnet Technologies. Auckland ICT Graduate School Masters students from both the Universities of Auckland and Waikato participated in the Masterclass and the open forum.

It has never been a more exciting time to be joining the ICT industry as the impact of digital transformation and ideas like the workplace of the future continue to reshape the way we work, regardless of industry.

Jeff Rodman, Polycom

Auckland’s ICT Graduate School started in November 2015 and is a collaboration between the universities of Auckland and Waikato. It is one of three Graduate Schools the New Zealand Government has committed more than $28 million over four years to develop. In its first academic intake year, students are studying towards the Masters in Information Technology and the Post Graduate Certificate in Information Technology.

Auckland ICT Graduate School aims to give students industry experience while they study, providing them with the opportunity to make and build connections with the ICT industry, says University of Auckland Computer Science Professor (and Director of Auckland ICT Graduate School) Gillian Dobbie. "As Silicon Valley is central to the ICT industry, we are delighted that Jeff Rodman is able to participate in this session and share his experiences with our students,"

“It has never been a more exciting time to be joining the ICT industry as the impact of digital transformation and ideas like the workplace of the future continue to reshape the way we work, regardless of industry," says Rodman, on his presentation. "When people ask me what is creativity, I often talk about blue sky ideas. More often than not, blue-sky ideas don’t always tie to existing ideas or the way people think. Part of the fun is translating these ideas into something that brings value to the users."

oDocs has been awarded “Best Start Up - Social Impact” at the Talent Unleashed Awards in Sydney, as judged by a panel including Sir Richard Branson and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The Auckland social enterprise builds physical iPhone attachments to help optometrists perform eye exams with smartphones, giving them tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in their pockets for a few hundred dollars.