Movers and shakers: Stella Ward, Wayne Broekhals and Chris South

Stella Ward has been promoted to chief digital officer at Canterbury and West Coast District Health Boards.

Prior to this, she held two major portfolios in the Canterbury District Health Board (DHB). One is the information services group and the other is executive director for Allied Health, a joint position with Canterbury and West Coast DHB.  

Wayne Broekhals is now chief information officer of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu in Christchurch. Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu are the iwi comprised of Ngāi Tahu whānui,  the collective of the individuals who descend from the five primary hapū of Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe and Waitaha, namely Kāti Kurī, Ngāti Irakehu, Kāti Huirapa, Ngāi Tūāhuriri and Ngāi Te Ruahikihiki. His previous roles include IS manager role at Arrow International in Christchurch, group IT manager at Acland Holdings and GM IT at Cognition Education.

Chris South is now head of cloud services for Vista Entertainment Solutions, stepping up from strategic programme director. He is responsible for the design, delivery and operation of Vista's cloud-based offerings.

South has over 25 years of technology experience in both the UK and NZ, covering a variety of industries including investment banking, the public sector and healthcare.

He has run a number of IT services companies including being the CEO of Contrast Media, an Auckland-based mobile innovation company. He was previously the head of platform services for Network for Learning, a New Zealand crown-owned company serving the education sector where he led the team behind Pond.

Peter Macaulay is now vice president client relationship and strategic business at AGC Networks. He remains the chair of the IT and innovation committee at The Selwyn Foundation and  the CEO of consultancy The Number One IT Group. AGC Networks (AGC) is a global solution integrator representing major brands in unified communications, data centre and edge IT, cybersecurity and digital transformation.

Kylee de-Blecourt is appointed general manager Wellington at Potentia Recruitment. She joined Potentia as the business manager in November 2017 when the Wellington Office opened. De-Blecourt takes on this responsibility following the departure of Craig McGrory who is moving on to pursue his passion for developing workforce solution options.  

“Kylee’s background in the recruitment services domain in Wellington over the past seven years sets her up well to drive the business as we move into our next growth phase” says Potentia managing director Nathan Bryant-Taukiri.  “Her in-depth understanding of both our client and candidate customers provides an ideal platform to catalyse this growth through her wealth of experience and technology industry connections across both the government and private sectors.”

NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller has returned from Silicon Valley, where he joined a New Zealand contingent which met with leading US agribusinesses and  tech firms to learn about US agritech opportunities.

The United States has played a big role in trailblazing technology such as giant online retailers, social media apps and the growth of the cloud, says Muller.

“We all know that Silicon Valley is the leading technology hotspot in the world, so it was exciting and historic that Agritech New Zealand signed two landmark agreements while in the Valley.

“One was with the giant of fresh produce, Western Growers, whose members provide more than half the nation's fresh fruits, vegetables and tree nuts, including nearly half of America's fresh organic produce. The other was with Farm 2050, a collective of the global leading agri-venture firms and agribusinesses focused on accelerating innovation in the agritech sector,” says Muller.

“These partnerships will substantially speed up growth of agritech in New Zealand and will open the doors for New Zealand agritech companies to enter the US market, to access agri investors and for US agritech startups to access the New Zealand market.

“Combining two of New Zealand’s leading sectors, agriculture and technology, shows just how we can improve New Zealand farming, food production and health while also growing our exports. We are on the cusp of some massive and exciting tech changes in our lives,” says Muller.

Kordia has introduced Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams, allowing its customers to access voice and video calling built into the Microsoft Office 365 suite.

The development makes Kordia the first telecommunications provider in New Zealand to enable this functionality.

“This is a great development for all New Zealand companies who want to leverage the incredible collaborative power of Teams and Office 365,” says Mark Walton, Microsoft cloud productivity business leader.

“The challenge organisations face today is how to implement new ways to foster a modern culture of work to better empower workers, enable secure remote access across multiple devices, fuel teamwork and unlock employees’ creativity. And with Kordia now on board, the Teams and Office 365 tool kit has been truly optimised to empower Kiwi companies,” says Walton.

Murray Goodman, head of product at Kordia, explains that while Teams is incorporated in Microsoft Office 365 Premium and Enterprise 3 (and higher) licenses as standard, accessing the service depends on access to the appropriate infrastructure and configuration from your voice provider.

“Teams rolled out in 2017, but until now, its full feature set couldn’t be accessed by local subscribers. By introducing Direct Routing, we can unlock Teams and get our customers more value from their Microsoft licensing spend.”

Goodman explains that the new service allows clients to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Teams allowing them to take full advantage of Microsoft’s Modern Workspace, including its voice capabilities, while using the proven capability and quality of Kordia’s voice services.

“Whether using Skype for Business on-premises, Cloud Connector Edition or for those customers looking to transition directly to Teams, we’ve developed a solution that allows for rapid migration of voice services to create integrated collaboration solutions.”

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