Movers and shakers: Simona Turin, Gavin Till and Edwina Mistry

Simon Turin will be joining Xero as GM of sales strategy and performance

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Simona Turin at the AWS Summit in Auckland.

Simona Turin will be joining Xero as GM of sales strategy and performance, reporting to Sankar Narayan, Xero CFO and COO. She will be working across the business to champion the development of Xero’s global sales strategy.

Turin is coming from Air New Zealand, where she is general manager, digital strategy and capabilities. Her previous roles include head of software delivery at Spark Ventures and New Zealand country manager of Wex, a provider of corporate payment systems.

Gavin Till takes on the newly created role of group technology manager at Ryman Healthcare. Till moves to the private sector after 12 years in local government, as CIO of Christchurch City Council. Vicki Taylor, programme and planning manager at the council, is acting CIO.

Edwina Mistry of the Manukau Institute of Technology has launched a forum that aims to provide mentoring, support and networking for women leaders in the school.

Rebecca Morris and Edwina Mistry at the inaugural Women Leaders at MIT forum.

The first Women Leaders at MIT (WL@MIT) featured Rebecca Morris, founder of Paradigm Shift, as keynote speaker.

“Diversity and inclusion is intrinsically good for business,” says Mistry, who is industry and community engagement manager, Faculty of Business and Information Technology, MIT. “It unleashes wider talent pools, diverse thinking, greater innovation, better decision-making and ultimately better returns.”

“I know my own career journey was supported by a couple of important mentors/sponsors who encouraged me to take one step further than I would have taken without that encouragement.”

Mistry won the top award for the 2017 CIO100's ICT-enabled community programme category, for her work on two programmes, Shadow Tech, where school-age girls spend a day with ICT teams; and JHACK, which encourages young students to consider a career in ICT by introducing them to programming through an exciting format.

Vista Group International has reached agreement with its long-term Latin American business partner Senda Dirección Tecnológica, SA de CV. to take a controlling 60 percent share in Senda.

Senda is being renamed Vista Latin America, and will continue to be run by its founders and managers Armando Mejias and Gustavo Ortega.

Senda is the reseller for Vista Group companies, Vista Entertainment Solutions and Movio and has been a Vista reseller since 2003.