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Eric Tracey
Chair
Eric is currently the senior independent director and chair of the audit committee at both Chloride Group plc and Findel plc (listed companies), a non executive director and chair of the audit committee at NEC Group, a member of the advisory board for Governance for Owners LLP (an investment manager), the chair of the NZTE UK Beachhead Advisory Board, and advisor for a private equity backed company in relation to its banking situation.
Eric was a partner in Deloitte in London for 25 years until 2004. More recently he was the troubleshooting Finance Director at Amey plc and Wembley plc and (amazingly) 12th man for the New Zealand Black Caps in 2004.
Read Q&As with Eric Tracey
Watch Eric Tracey on TV3’s ASB Business programme
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Paul Axworthy
Paul Axworthy is head of IT and Communications for Johnson Matthey Plc, one of the worlds' leading and most technically advanced speciality chemicals and precious metals refining businesses.
Paul joined Johnson Matthey in 1987. Paul has spent his career managing IT in large international manufacturing businesses with a remit covering Europe, the United States, Asia and more recently countries emerging from the former Eastern bloc.
More recently he has become responsible for the development of Johnson Matthey's unified communications strategy in voice, video and conferencing including the provision of advanced technology to facilitate and encourage more flexible working models.
Johnson Matthey has grown rapidly in the last few years through strong organic growth and a number of strategic acquisitions. The enlarged business makes consistent investments in the new and innovative uses of IT.
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James Bennet
James has worked in the technology sector for 15 years with an extensive network in both global technology and start up firms. James is one of the founders of the European Technology Forum.
He has great connections with mobile operators and PTTs, both in Europe and in a wider field. He has also worked closely with hardware and software vendors selling in to mobile operators and fixed line operators.
James is Sector Director for technology at Ernst & Young in the United Kingdom and looks after global inbound relationships for United States tech firms and a number of United Kingdom plcs. His role within Ernst & Young’s technology group means he works very closely with the telecoms team on a range of consulting, corporate finance and regulatory issues.
Previously, James was Founder and Managing Director of the European Technology Forum, Europe’s premier network for the technology industry, which was acquired by CNET Networks in 2003. Prior to establishing his firm, James was European Marketing Manager for Price Waterhouse EMC.
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Bernard Cazenove
Commissioned in the Coldstream Guards in 1967, Bernard Cazenove served in the United Kingdom, Germany, Northern Ireland and New Zealand. He was the Aide-de camp to the Governor General Sir Arthur Porritt in 1971.
On returning to the United Kingdom Bernard transferred to the Parachute Regiment (TA) and joined Cazenove & Co, stockbrokers. He became a partner of Cazenove in 1982 and was responsible for managing pension and charitable funds. In 1996 he was appointed Managing Director of Cazenove Fund Management until retiring in 2004.
Bernard is a trustee of a number of army charities and St Luke's Hospital. He also advises charities on their investments. He is a member of the Court of Patrons of The Royal College of Surgeons, an Honorary Fellow of Darwin College Cambridge, Freeman of the City of London and member of the Worshipful Company of Dyers.
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Erik Dijkstra
As a true entrepreneur, with a farming background, Erik has an excellent knowledge of the agricultural retail business. He has set up amongst others a distributorship for Gallagher products in Europe, and has grown this business into a multimillion Euro operation with nine subsidiaries in various European countries. He has been responsible for creating a market share of more then 50 percent in various countries for Gallagher.
Erik is a board member, shareholder and consultant for various international start-up businesses. He has lead many takeovers or mergers in the small - middle size business area. Erik is a member of various public safety boards and is the chair of the Electric Fencing Association in the United Kingdom.
With 30 years of experience, working with agricultural related New Zealand companies, he has built an excellent knowledge of the interchange between New Zealand and European culture. Erik is also a generalist with knowledge of all business aspects. He is based in The Netherlands.
Watch Eric Dijkstra on TV3’s ASB Business programme
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Richard Excell
Richard Excell holds a number of senior roles in industry, academia, and government. He is an experienced and successful international chief executive, chairman and public company director across a wide range of sectors including Consumer Goods, Agriculture and Advanced Manufacturing.
His primary expertise after 13 years management with Procter and Gamble in Marketing, Sales and HR, is in corporate strategy and business development.
Amongst his business portfolio of responsibilities, Richard is Chairman and a founder of Pegasus Bridge Investment Fund Limited, which is focused on the defence and homeland security sector. He has also, over the past 15 years, been an apolitical Senior Advisor to the United Kingdom and other international Governments in the development of Innovation Policy. This has covered knowledge exploitation, entrepreneurialism, tax treatment and skills/culture/regulations.
He has recently completed his four year term as Chairman of SET squared, the United Kingdom’s largest university/industry collaboration aimed at exploiting new technologies, with over £300 million of research funds. He also holds a number of trusteeships in both the University and private education sector. This wide portfolio of interests and expertise gives Richard a substantial number of high level international contacts in industry, government, and academia.
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Dr Elizabeth Hill
Dr Elizabeth Hill has over 20 years' experience working in the technology sector, focused mainly in the healthcare and life sciences. Elizabeth is currently Head of Transaction Support with Cambridge Consultants, supporting transactions and due diligence assignments for leading financial institutions across the globe in healthcare.
Since 2006 transaction aggregate values has exceeded $1bn including Expert Reports for successful Stock Market Listings. Previously, Elizabeth was developing technology opportunities in China for ICT, medical devices, biotechnology and in engineering and worked with United Kingdom, Scandinavian and United States companies to access the science and technologies in China.
Elizabeth has given talks in China, Canada, the United States, Taiwan and across Europe on technical due diligence, setting up start-up companies and technology convergence. She has held a number of non-executive and executive directorships including the United Kingdom NHS Health Authority, and is currently is a member of an independent healthcare council which advises financial institutions.
Elizabeth has also provided funds as a business angel and has invested in biotech, food and service companies.
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Richard Keyse
Having graduated from the University of Otago, Richard began his career in New Zealand before moving to Australia then the United Kingdom to further his IT career on the implementation of complex and large scale IT solutions.
Richard has led high profile programmes for many blue chip companies across a wide diversity of sectors, including National Mutual, Texaco Ltd, National Grid Corporation and British Telecom. Over the last 14 years he has delivered global solutions and new business lines into the finance sector including names such as SG Warburg, Merrill Lynch, Blackrock, Morley Fund Management, Instinet/Nomura and BNP Paribas. He has huge experience in the selection and management of numerous significant third party product and service providers and managed teams in over 15 countries across Europe and the rest of the world.
Richard is also a director of a health informatics company in New Zealand and a United Kingdom based company in the finance sector. He is based in London.
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Alan McCarthy
Alan McCarthy was Chief Executive of the Irish Trade Board before being appointed Honorary Consul-General for New Zealand in Ireland.
As head of the Irish Trade Board, Alan directed and managed a complex organisation which made a major contribution to Ireland’s export success in the 1990s and early part of this century.
In his role as CEO, he developed a widely informed view of key markets with a substantial network of high-level contacts. Alan also introduced a range of financial supports for industry, which accelerated export-marketing investment by indigenous industry.
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Anne Macartney
Anne is a catering and retail strategist with buying, marketing, operational and business development experience across all areas of the international travel retail market. This market is focused on the travelling customer.
Anne has operated at a senior level within a number of retail organisations including managing the purchasing function within Stena Line and headhunted by BAA as Global Buying and Merchandising Director for BAA World Duty Free from 1997-2003, growing sales from a zero base to over £1 billion in five years.
Since founding bespoke travel retail consultancy Adventus Retail Solutions in 2003, Anne has worked with a large number of banks and funds involved in purchasing large infrastructure companies (that specialise in catering or retail) delivering over 50 business reports in 28 countries. She has also set strategies and developed networks, which have helped a large number of brands to launch and expand into the global retail market.
Anne has consulted for a large number of companies within the travel retail sector including international airlines, global airport operators, UK supermarkets, blue chip consultancies, European motorway amenities and national rail companies, primarily on delivering customer-focused commercial benefits. Anne is based in London.
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Peter Methven
Peter Methven is a director of a number of companies in the marine industry, covering many sectors from leisure, including super yachts, to commercial and military.
Educated at a naval school then qualifying as a yacht and boat builder, Peter’s working career has been entirely in the marine industry. For the last 30 years one of his companies has operated an International Marine Consultancy advising and assisting marine companies with market development of their products.
Extensive travel with worldwide contacts in the industry gives Peter a wealth of knowledge of all aspects of the marine industry. Peter is the Vice President of the International Council of Marine Industries Association (ICOMIA), a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. He is also a past president of the British Marine Federation, a role he held for an unprecedented three and a half years. Peter is based in Cheltenham, United Kingdom.
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Andrea Moiraghi
Currently partner of the law firm Studio Legale Moiraghi in charge of Management Consultancy and Corporate Taxation, Andrea has extensive experience of company set-up, management and personnel recruitment within the EU and overseas.
Andrea has a broad business and trading background encompassing financial, IT and HR management, acquired in previous roles as administration and finance director of multinational companies in Italy and abroad such as Prada America’s Cup and Blockbuster Italia S.P.A. He gained extensive know-how on Merger and Acquisitions and Audit with PriceWaterhouse, a leading global top-four audit firm.
Andrea possesses specific expertise on company start-up in different sectors from retailing through to manufacturing, gained in Italy and overseas.
Andrea also has a background specific to the New Zealand boating business, having served in New Zealand as Director of the Prada America’s Cup NZ Ltd, a fully-owned local company of Gruppo Prada, a leading Italian Luxury Group, attending two America’s Cup.
He is a statutory auditor and auditor of several public companies, with his experience including advising a range of industry sectors and manufacturing industries.
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Geert Van der Elst
Geert Van der Elst is Managing Director at Gelst, helping clients grow revenues across Europe by focusing on the consultative sale.
Gelst is based in London and Munich, with an outpost in New York. Typical clients include professional services firms, technology firms, venture capital firms and their portfolio companies across Europe.
Before founding Gelst in 2003, Geert helped Accenture’s Public Sector business grow across Europe, Canada, South-America and Africa by a compounded average of about 33 percent per year for four years, with an essentially stable marketing budget.
Fluent in Dutch, English, French and German, Geert has a Masters in engineering and an MBA (Columbia University).
He started his career at Agfa in the Graphic Arts industry in the United States and went on to grow global product groups from Agfa’s global headquarters in Belgium.
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Dr Mark Wade
Mark offers a unique range of experiences and competencies to bring sustainability thinking into the mainstream of major corporations and institutions.
Mark enjoyed a long career with Shell serving in a variety of posts. In 1997 he moved to the Corporate Centre of Shell International as a founder member of the Sustainable Development Group.
Mark relinquished his position as Head of Sustainable Development Policy, Strategy & Reporting early 2003 on moving to Shell Learning. Here he led the Sustainable Development Learning programme incorporating sustainability into all stages of the talent pipeline from graduate attraction to senior executive development.
Until his retirement from Shell in 2006, Mark was Shell’s Liaison Delegate to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
He is a member of the Supervisory Board of the European Academy of Business in Society and a Trustee of the Centre for Tomorrow’s Company. He is Chairman of the consultancy Future Considerations and serves on the Responsible Investment Advisory Board of the British Venture Capitalist Association.
He now works with senior executives in companies and institutions helping them understand the operational and strategic importance of sustainability and guiding organisational and individual change.
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Charles Ward
Charles Ward is Chief Operating Officer of Intellect UK, the industry body for the IT, telecoms and electronics sectors in the United Kingdom. Intellect is a membership organisation, which focuses on helping member companies become top performers, providing insights into vertical markets and supply chains. It also works with government and regulators to create the most favourable business environment for the hi-tech industry.
Charles has day-to-day involvement with Intellect UK’s 600 software and IT services member companies and is well informed on United Kingdom market conditions. Prior to Intellect, Charles worked for Compaq (previously Digital) and held a variety of marketing and sales roles in De La Rue, Johnson & Johnson and 3M.
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Mark West
Mark West is an experienced Retail Executive with a proven track record of identifying market opportunities, turning around failing operations and delivering sustainable value to a business. Trained at Harrods Ltd he rose through the ranks during a fifteen year period to the position of Distribution Director.
Upon leaving Harrods in 2002 Mark set up his own consultancy business, People Processes and Solutions Ltd, through which he has worked for many United Kingdom and European retailers.
Mark joined the Advisory Board in 2007 and since then has mentored and helped many New Zealand businesses in the United Kingdom including; First Light Foods, Comvita, Natural Kidsco and Trilogy.
