Export Excelerator Conference

Ray Connor – Former General Manager, asBUILT

Ray Connor has over 15 years of broad senior commercial experience leading award winning SME growth businesses; with a passion for Export focused technology businesses.  Ray’s background spans a diverse range of industries including IoT sensor development, manufacturing, supply chain and logistics management, food processing tools and technology, sound editing software development and franchise operations.

Ryan Sanders – Founder, Haka Tourism Group

In 2007 Ryan started Haka Tours with no tourism experience, but a desire to break away from the corporate world and to work in an industry he was truly passionate about. Haka Tours goes directly to the consumer online, bypassing the traditional travel agency and wholesaler market. Twelve years later, in addition to its adventure tourism range, the wider Haka Tourism group now includes a growing nationwide chain of up-market hostels, Haka lodges, international educational brand Haka educational tours – which operates in 12 countries globally – and new hotel brand, Haka hotels. Haka Tourism Group is aiming for a $100 million revenue business by 2025.

Panellist to be confirmed

Panellist to be confirmed

Michele Lam – Export Markets Manager, Villa Maria Estate

Michele Lam, Export Markets Manager, is very passionate about New Zealand wines and enthusiastic about sharing this with the rest of the world. In her current role, she supports Villa Maria’s global export teams from the NZ Head Office base. She is also the Market Manager for Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, India, Thailand and Philippines. 

David Banfield – Former Group Chief Executive Officer, Methven

David has spent over 20 years leading businesses and teams around the world. At a very early stage when working as Global Commercial Director and Southern European Managing Director based in Germany he was recognised for harnessing and celebrating International culture and in the process driving team engagement and performance. David has significant international experience, and has a passion for turning cultural and market understanding into commercial success. He is focused on developing world-class teams delivering world-leading products and services developed in New Zealand to discerning consumers around the globe. David and the team recently formalised their strategic goal to deliver 10 years of 30% CAGR in the China market by utilising an integrated omni and specialist channel approach.

Todd Graydon – Global General Manager, Blunt Umbrellas

Todd is a tenacious & entrepreneurial sales and marketing leader with many years of global brand building experience and an impeccable track record in seeding and growing Kiwi brands throughout the world. Todd was a foundation member of the 42 Below team and more recently Ecoya Home Fragrance under Trilogy International. He is currently the Global General Manager for Iconic New Zealand Umbrella brand BLUNT.

Vicky Taylor – Chief Operating Officer,  Smartfoods Limited

Vicky Taylor is a business leader with a wide experience across a range of roles and industries. Her core experience is in in consumer driven businesses across FMCG, Tourism and Hospitality. Building on my initial career in sales and marketing for leading FMCG businesses, she has developed a detailed understanding of global best-practice strategy, marketing and commercial processes in New Zealand, Australia, South East Asia, China and the USA. With Smartfoods, Vicky has focused on export growth to Australia then into South East Asia and China, with Vogel’s Cereals now ranked in the top 10 imported cereals sold on Tmall.

Blair McKolskey – Director, Pollen Group

Blair McKolskey is Managing Director of PLN Group and its family of furniture brands. With a background in financial services, Blair is an entrepreneur with an MBA in finance and has served past and present as a non-executive director to several notable investment institutions. He has also served as Chair of the Furniture and Cabinet Makers Association of New Zealand (FCANZ). Under his leadership, PLN Group has become one of the fastest-growing furniture and innovation groups in the New Zealand. The company exports more than 40% of its product which can be found in top companies around the globe including Google, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Citibank, HSBC and Disney.

Maurice Crosby – CEO, Jack Links NZ Ltd

Maurice Crosby is the CEO of Jack Links New Zealand Ltd whose business is the manufacturing and sale of Beef Jerky and a range of similar meat snacks. Jack Link’s exports in excess of 2500 tons of Jerky each year to America, Asia, Australia and the Middle East as well as servicing a growing demand in the NZ domestic market. Korea is a key growth market for Jack Links due to the Korean familiarity with Jerky and a strong growth in recent years of this category in Korean stores. The company has a modern production facility located near Auckland International Airport.

Panellist to be confirmed

Panellist to be confirmed

Chris Leonard –  Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at SnapComms

Chris Leonard is the CEO and Co-Founder of SnapComms,a world-leading provider of internal communications software. Chris has built a successful, fast-growing business based on three principles: unwavering commitment to customer service excellence; a genuine desire to push technology to the limit; and leading an industry in product innovation for effective employee communications. Having been involved with SnapComms from its inception has meant Chris has acquired substantial business acumen and broad capability within technology start-up and growth-phased environments.

Christine Fenby – Marketing Director, Vista Group Limited

Christine is the Marketing Director of Vista Group, which was founded in NZ in 1996 and listed in 2014. Vista provides software and additional technology solutions across the film industry sectors of distribution, exhibition, and consumer (moviegoers). Prior to joining Vista full-time in 2012, Christine provided consultancy services to a broad range of businesses including Vista. Her marketing career began at TVNZ, when following “halcyon days” working in television production, and completing tertiary study with The University of Auckland, she was appointed to roles that supported TVNZ’s then global commercial operations; her export services and international marketing career was underway and has progressed ever since. In both 2018 and 2019, Christine was included in the ‘Top 50 Women in Global Cinema’ organised by the film industry sector online media channel Celluloid Junkie and judged by an independent group of peers. Christine believes her role at Vista to be one of the best available in the NZ tech export sector.

Gavin de Steur – Customer Success Manager, UneeQ (formerly Faceme)

Gavin de Steur Manages Customer Success for digital human platform company UneeQ. He is originally from South Africa and has over 20 years of experience at an executive level across diverse enterprise and SME arenas, including both technical product / marketing management. He spent 10 years building a highly successful technology start-up company from scratch, four of which were spent as an executive in the company which acquired his high-growth start-up. He is passionate about working with customers and ensuring the successful implementation and use of the latest technologies available to a business/industry.

Cameron Ross – Director of Sales, Ross Roof Group

Ross Roof Group is a family owned and celebrating 75 years in roofing. Originally manufacturing concrete tiles they started manufacturing steel roofing tiles in 1989 and had JV manufacturing facilities in Europe and USA. Having sold these in 2010 they now manufacture solely out of NZ with sales offices in Europe, Dubai, Japan, USA and Argentina. They are heavily focused on export, which makes up 75% of their revenue, and have 20 staff located overseas. 10 of these are in the USA spread across multiple states with warehouses in California and Texas. Our USA sales now make up 20% of the business.