What prompted you to seek work out of New Zealand?
I was playing basketball in the NBL and working at Trimble on handheld GPS/smartphone devices. I wanted new challenge outside of New Zealand and was presented with an opportunity to move to Boulder, Colorado. At the time the combination of location and smartphones was just developing. I had sense that eventually all devices would be location-enabled and my background in geography would have me well placed in the technology market.
Can you provide sketch of your current role?
I have been building the Emerging Business group inside of Esri (www.esri.com. We’re focused on helping entrepreneurs and early stage technology companies work with our ArcGIS platform. With the proliferation of location technology across all industries it’s opened new doors for us as company. It’s an extremely fun and exciting challenge to be innovating inside the company and in turn helping very passionate entrepreneurs.
What are its main challenges?
There are lot of directions we can go and thousands of startups to work with. My challenge is to help our team focus on the core tasks and in communicating clear vision for our direction. It’s also having the energy to listen to each entrepreneur’s idea. One rule we have is to be interested, not just interesting. Being interested takes lot more energy to be committed listeners.
How do you view New Zealand both as country and economic/business entity?
In the US many people value our attitude toward each other and our ability to work smart. Those are very endearing traits to have and something that inspires other people to collaborate with us. Recent trends in the tech world are swinging back to individuals who have entrepreneurial skills to build and prototype rapidly. It presents awesome opportunities for Kiwis to envision and make new products or services. Those who continue to collaborate with other entrepreneurs globally will likely find the most success. Leveraging the positivity around New Zealanders as whole gives our entrepreneurs an advantage. Economically I believe supporting entrepreneurs is critical for our growth. M
