Judging Panel 2011

Matthew Bellingham - Convener of Judges

Matthew is a Business Improvement Director and the CEO of Hayes Knight NZ Limited, which is a multi-disciplinary accounting practice based in Auckland with a team of over 110 professionals.  Matt’s role in Hayes Knight sees him responsible for the strategic direction of the firm and overall performance, growth and profitability.  Matt is also the Managing Director of Knowledge Shop NZ Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hayes Knight. He has experience in planning, negotiation, valuation, mergers and acquisitions, business growth and financial restructuring, business restructuring and corporate governance. Matt sits on several boards as an adviser, and prides himself on being more of an extension to his clients businesses than your everyday accountant.  His passion is enabling ideas to be put into action.
 
Matt is also a trustee of North Harbour Stadium, vice President of the North Harbour Club and was the Chairperson of the Albany Business Association from 2003 to 2008. He also regularly presents business seminars and authors business assistance articles for a range of publications, and is Chairman of Judges for the Westpac Auckland North Business Awards.
 

Andrew Schnauer

Andrew is a partner of Schnauer and Co which is a well known law firm situated in Milford. Andrew is the fourth successive generation of lawyers within the Schnauer family. He obtained an LLB at Auckland University and then worked for six years in an inner city law firm. He then went on a two and a half year “OE” before returning to New Zealand and becoming a partner at Schnauer and Co in 2000.

Andrew acts for an extremely varied range of businesses and also has extensive experience with commercial and residential property. He is also developing a specialty in Trusts and Asset Planning. He has presented several seminars on various legal topics to the Navy; Real Estate Agents; the Auckland Property Investors Association; the Air Force; and to the public.

Chip Dawson

Chip Dawson is presently the President and Chairman of the NZ Software Association, Co-Chairman of ICT-NZ, Associate Board Member of NZTE Beachheads, Member of Auckland University Computer Science and Engineering Board, and Advisory Board member of Accelerating Auckland. Chip has been an active participant in numerous corporate boards, Managing Director of International Business Management Limited, Director of AintoG, and Pure IP, Chairman of Technology Advisors, the Mecca Group. As well as the north busines awards, Chip has also involved for many years as a judge of the Westpac Auckland West Business Awards.

Colin Harvey

Colin Harvey is recognised for making significant contributions to the New Zealand agricultural industry. For the past 22 years he has built Ancare into a company with significant market share across several animal health categories in the face of strong competition.

Colin has contributed significantly to industry affairs and in 2008 was made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit. He is a member of CRAG (Capitalising on Research & Development Action Group) a group sponsored to increase business R&D. He is also an active investor in a number of technology investments and a partner in the iGlobe VIF fund. Colin is a Board Member of Massey University Foundation and on the Advisory Board of the Massey Business School.

Gillian Taylor

Gillian’s experience in corporate strategy and senior management roles has given her an understanding about a variety of business issues and challenges.

She now shares that expertise, through Taylored Solutions Ltd (formed 2002), working with companies to develop strategies and relationships that deliver real, demonstrable value for parties involved. Her work supports internal partnering, alliances, partnerships, joint ventures and other strategic relationships.

Gillian runs a short course at the University of Auckland Business School; and has supported Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development as an awards facilitator and as a business mentor.

Heather Douglas

Heather Douglas is a co-founder of Home Business New Zealand. Since 2000, Heather has worked passionately to grow the HomebizBuzz web site www.homebizbuzz.co.nz) to provide a single source of information, tools and resources for home-based businesses throughout New Zealand, to provide cohesion in the home business sector and access to an active online community of home business owners, to support, motivate and inspire home business operators, to raise the profile, enhance credibility and recognition of the significance of the home business sector to the economy, and to provide a collective voice for a previously fragmented community.

In 2005, Heather was awarded the inaugural Vero Excellence in Business Support Award for the Individual who has made the Greatest Contribution to Business Support in New Zealand.

Jan Sedgwick

Jan Sedgwick runs a PR company specialising in corporate reputation management for technology companies. Her client list includes north Auckland companies like Navman and freight and baggage handling company BCS as well as ‘over-the-bridge’ based organisations like technology exporter Orion Health, Investment New Zealand and the Icehouse business accelerator. Jan has an extensive background in marketing programmes both in NZ and the UK and is a former journalist.

John Cunningham

John Cunningham and Chad Wilkie established Ignition Partner Limited in June 2002 to advise companies on strategies for growth from innovation, with an emphasis on Technology, IP, Structure and Capital Planning. John has been a director of Caltech Capital Limited since 1996 and non-executive Chairman since 1999. He is a director of several unlisted companies.

Ken Noble

Ken is presently Executive Chairman of Allied Medical Ltd a business he started ten years ago with his daughter Katie and then was joined by his son Blake.

The company is based at Interplex and is involved in the distribution of rehabilitation, orthopaedic and mobility products. As well as manual wheelchairs, the company also specialises in complex power chairs and employs technicians and engineers. He is also a director of Noble Holdings, a company that owns commercial and horticulture property.

Ken enjoys challenges and has been involved on board of trustees, community service clubs and chaired an industry association. He is is a business mentor in north Auckland and enjoys the contribution he can make to help emerging businesses.

Kris MacCauley

Owner of Alliance Construction Ltd, Kris has been involved with the Westpac Auckland North Business Awards for 10 years. He has over 20 years experience in the building industry, both here in New Zealand and overseas. His current role as Managing Director sees Kris interacting with numerous north Auckland businesses.

He is recognised locally as a motivated, confident, exceptionally trustworthy family man who contributes significant time and effort to the local community. Kris is a trustee of the North Harbour Club. 2011 will be Kris’ fith year as a Judge for the Westpac Auckland North Business Awards.

Nevil Gibson

Nevil Gibson is the Editor in Chief of The National Business Review, related publications and NBR Online. A journalist for 40 years, mainly in print and radio, he was appointed editor in 1989 when it was New Zealand’s only daily business newspaper. It reverted to weekly publication in 1991 and has a readership of 90,000.

He appears regularly on TV and radio, and has a business books column in Unlimited magazine. Outside positions include being an executive member of the Magazine Publishers’ Association and representing that body on the NZ Journalists’ Training Organisation (now part of the Communications and Media ITO).

Robyn de Bruin-Judge

Robyn is a co-founder and director of de Bruin-Judge Furniture. The company works closely with many of New Zealand’s award winning architects and interior designers to design and produce high-end kitchens, bathrooms, domestic and commercial fit-outs. She completed a Master of Public Policy in 2006, doing her thesis on business compliance issues. Robyn is a former member of the Ministerial Advisory Group on issues affecting small and medium enterprises (SBAG). She is a provisionally accredited member of the Institute of Directors and contributes to economic and manufacturing policy forums. She also contributes to tertiary programmes, most recently speaking on SME tax compliance at the Australasian Tax Teacher’s Conference at the University of New South Wales.

Ross Kennedy

Ross is director and owner of Business Facilitators Ltd, a business he set up to help business owners have a completely new approach to their business, and a whole new outlook on life. He says “It's about how you utilise time. We get busy doing things, we forget to determine if the things we are doing are the right things, to achieve all our goals”.

Ross has a background in agriculture training and consulting, and in the late 80s retrained in sales and marketing and has worked and coached in the small to medium business sector ever since. His specific business interest is franchise communication and management and retail. Ross is passionate about helping people achieve their personal and business potential, he currently facilitates growth in people and businesses as a distributor for Success Motivation Institute New Zealand.

Gary Monk

Gary Monk embarked on a career in the seafood industry, establishing Intersea Limited in 1983. He is a Shareholder and non-executive Chairman of Mathias International Limited. Director and non-executive Chairman of New Zealand Light Leathers Limited (NZLL), Director of Radio New Zealand Ltd, Founding members of the Bruce Mason Theatre, A founding Trustee of the St. Patrick's Day Golf Charitable Trust and a Trustee of the North Harbour Charitable Trust. Gary is a preview judge of the AIMES awards, and for 5 years Gary was a board member of the Force netball team and for 4 years he was a North Harbour Rugby sponsor and founding member of the North Harbour Stadium.

Gary also has time for a lot of community involvement – being  involved with- Takapuna Kindergarten, Hauraki Primary School, Diocesan School for Girls, Rosmini College and Takapuna Grammar, as a sponsor for the Centre for Business & Enterprise.