CIO

Movers and shakers: Paul Jepson of Earthquake Commission, Peter Fletcher of ACC and Scott Newton of The Warehouse

Auckland University’s Jamie Penno wins the Global Student Entrepreneur Award
Paul Jepson

Paul Jepson

Paul Jepson is now the General Manager at Earthquake Commission (EQC) following nearly six years as CIO at ACC. Before that, he was the CIO at Housing New Zealand.

Peter Fletcher takes on the CIO role at ACC, coming from NZ Post where he was group manager information technology. Before this, Fletcher worked in the banking industry, holding a range of roles including CIO at Westpac NZ and co-chief operating officer, IT production, head of GRB technology centre Singapore for Barclays.

Peter Fletcher
Peter Fletcher

Louise Francis is now research director at IDC New Zealand, stepping up from senior research manager - IT spending at the analyst firm.

Scott Newton steps into the newly created role of Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) at The Warehouse Group.

 Prior to joining The Warehouse Group, Newton was at Chorus where he was the general manager of strategy and business operations. He has also worked at Fletcher Building and Spark.

Scott Newton
Scott Newton

Reporting to Group CEO Nick Grayston, Newton will oversee the group's transformation and will be responsible for helping reduce complexity, drive performance improvements and strengthen the organisation’s health and capabilities.

Grayston says it is crucial that The Warehouse Group transforms its business to respond to the local and global retail industry’s disruption and intense competition.

“Our strategy is to fix the retail fundamentals and invest in our digital future to enable us to transform our business from that of legacy retailer to a data-driven, customer-focused organisation.”

“Scott’s experience will enable us to accelerate the pace of our transformation and focus on efficient execution,” says Grayston.

Julian Lambert, director at Potentia Limited, has launched a dedicated executive search and leadership consulting service within the group. “In line with the fast pace of change that is expected from technology businesses, the demands on leaders at the C-level mirrors this,” he says. “In addition to the historic requirements of these roles, modern technology and practices are augmenting the responsibilities complicating decision-making.  However, these new resources and skills must be incorporated for the business as a whole to navigate and execute effectively against strategy.”

Luke Turnbull joins Stellar Consulting Group as consulting director (Central/Southern Region), based in Wellington. A graduate of the University of Canterbury and Massey University, Turnbull started his career at ANZ Bank in Auckland and Wellington.

Moving to London in 2000, he was a business analyst at Reuters and Barclays before heading to South Africa where he held analyst and consultant roles at Standard Chartered Bank and Old Mutual. Most recently, he has been a senior consultant and practice lead at Principa Decisions, a data analytics, consulting and software company based in Cape Town.

Luke Turnbull
Luke Turnbull

Mercury Energy technical leader Grant Baty has moved to The Instillery as principal consultant.

“I'm really looking forward to working with The Instillery and continuing to demonstrate the value of public cloud to enterprise organisations,” says Baty. “Working with this highly skilled team means I’ll be in a position to help more Kiwi businesses realise the benefits of public cloud and produce some exciting products for customers… It’s going to be a great year ahead!"

Grant Baty
Grant Baty

Baty joins The Instillery with over 15 years’ of enterprise IT experience across both utility and health industries, specialising in cloud and automation for the past seven years. Most recently as the cloud and infrastructure manager, and head of the cloud centre of excellence at Mercury.

Kevin Angland, chief digital officer of Mercury, says he’s “really sad to be losing one of the rock stars of the ICT team at Mercury”.

“But it really is a good news story as he takes the skills and capabilities he has developed through leading Mercury’s transition to the cloud into a new consulting role with The Instillery.”

Kevin Angland
Kevin Angland

“We’re excited to have such an innovator join our team as we continue to deliver real business outcomes powered by business process automation, data lakes, AI and machine learning to our enterprise clients in a secure and agile fashion,” says The Instillery founder and CEO Mike Jenkins.

Mike Jenkins
Mike Jenkins

Jamie Penno, an Auckland University medical student, has won the Global Student Entrepreneur Award (GSEA), an initiative of the Entrepreneur’s Organisation (EO) which aims to support young Kiwi entrepreneurs.

Penno’s social media business F.D. Soul has an international following of over 152,000 which she uses to market her customised typewriter poems, hard copy book and creative writing works.

Jaime Penno
Jaime Penno

Penno’s New Zealand prize included thousands of dollars in cash, and business mentoring with a local entrepreneur. She will also head to Toronto to compete against the world’s best where she will have a shot at a prize pool worth almost $60,000 against finalists from more than 110 other cities around the world in the Ontario capital city.

Lester Binns, spokesperson for the NZ chapter of the Entrepreneur’s Organisation, says Penno’s ability to turn her passion into a business was a key factor in their judges decision to award her the title.

“Jamie was selected because she has taken something she loves and turned it into a business by using social media and online retailing in a unique model,” says Binns.

“We felt Jamie represented what we hope is the future for entrepreneurs – bringing something you love to the community and that is so positive for the community. Becoming profitable but not at the expense of your product, your passion or your values,” says Binns.

Lester Binns
Lester Binns

Penno says she award will provide her the chance to meet other like-minded entrepreneurs from around the world and learn from them.

“There's a surprising amount that can be learnt and applied to your own business just by listening to what and how other businesses are doing, even in completely unrelated sectors,” she says.

The annual GSEA awards are open to students enrolled in a tertiary institution, and who own a business which has been generating revenue for more than six months.

Deloitte New Zealand has appointed seven new equity partners and 10 directors, bringing the total number of equity partners across the firm’s six offices to 114.

Deloitte’s presence in the Central North Island, and in particular in the Māori sector, is bolstered by the admission of Lee Gray and Tamarapa Lloyd who have joined the Rotorua office. Marco Ciobo and Sonia Breeze have been appointed consulting partners in Auckland and are focused on New Zealand’s biggest city.

In the South Island, Heidi Rautjoki is an assurance and advisory partner in Dunedin along with two new partner additions in Christchurch, Richard Bailey in corporate finance and David Seath in risk advisory.

Deloitte New Zealand chief executive Thomas Pippos says the latest appointments reflect the firm’s ongoing investment in its people, its focus on diversity and inclusion, and its commitment to the continued growth of the New Zealand practice.

“Our investment in seven new partners reflects both the current demand for our services and our optimism for the future,” says Pippos. “They bring diverse experience to their roles and underscore our absolute commitment to delivering the highest level of service to clients across the entire country.”

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