The REANNZ team

Donald Clark - Chief Executive

Before joining REANNZ, Donald Clark was the Prime Minister's policy adviser on telecommunications, transport, economic development, state-owned enterprises, science & innovation and broadcasting. He has also advised ministers on the Government's ownership interests in the Crown research institutes.

Prior to that, Donald worked in Europe as a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He was also an early employee at technology start-up Ask Jeeves UK. He holds a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Edinburgh.

Donald is a member of the InternetNZ Council.

Marilyn Scannell - Office Administrator

Mazz originally trained and practiced as a teacher before joining the financial sector where she held a number of senior roles including development of the Insurance arm of a bank, establishment of the first help desk operations, quality assurance of large data transfer projects and numerous other project coordinator and management roles. She has tertiary qualifications in Education and Psychology. Mazz is also active in the wider community and holds positions of responsibility on numerous educational and community Boards. She has a wide range of interests including reading, the arts, travel, furniture restoration, community development, sailing, skiing and golf.

Mark Cordy - Deputy Chief Executive and Operations Manager

Mark Cordy joined REANNZ from telecommunications consultancy Amos Aked Swift (NZ) Ltd. He has more than 30 years experience in telecommunications having held a variety of senior positions within Telecom New Zealand. His expertise includes commercial and contracts negotiation, specification and evaluation. His technical skills include standards and practices, transport and data systems, and network management systems. Mark holds an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Canterbury.

Nicole Cherry - Corporate and Finance Manager

Nicole joined REANNZ from accountancy firm KPMG, after working with REANNZ in a finance and commercial advisory capacity for 2½ years.
 
Born and bred in Wellington, Nicole gained a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws from Victoria University. She has also spent time in Hamburg, Germany studying International & Comparative Business Law, then working in various finance roles for media agencies in London. Nicole is also a member of the management committee of the Wellington Community Law Centre, and on winter weekends you will find Nicole enjoying a game of hockey or sliding down a mountain with a snowboard or pair of skis on her feet.

Chris Litten - Member Engagement Manager

Chris is a graduate of the University of Canterbury who spent 4 years in Switzerland and 6 years in Sweden. He  worked for Biotech companies carrying out drug discovery. On returning to New Zealand he ran Industrial Research Ltd's "GlycoSyn" facility. Moving to the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, he was a Business Manager and finally a Regional Manager, responsible for nearly half of the Foundation's contracts with research providers. Chris brings client relationships skills, planning and a strong understanding of the New Zealand science system to REANNZ. He lives on the Kapiti Coast with his family.

Richard Stephen - Deputy Operations Manager

Richard has more than 30 years experience in telecommunications having held a variety of positions within Telecom New Zealand and Fujitsu. His expertise includes contracts preparation, specification, negotiation and evaluation. His technical skills include standards and practices, telecommunications network specification, architecture, design and construction for both fibre and high capacity microwave radio architectures and network management systems. Richard holds Electrical Engineering and PhD degrees from the University of Canterbury.

David Brownlie - Operations Specialist

David joined REANNZ from Datacom where he managed a team designing, implementing and running tools for enterprise systems management capability. He has also worked at Telecom Advanced Solutions and as a network and security consultant for a variety of organisations.  He was involved in the architecture and delivery of the global network for the New Zealand Dairy Board prior to the Fonterra merger. David graduated from Victoria University with degrees in Criminology and Social Policy.

Andrew McKegg - Operations Specialist

Andrew was most recently at EDS where he was Technical Lead of the Best Shore Network Engineering Team. He was involved in the global engineering and delivery of networking services for General Motors. He has also worked at Telecom Advanced Solutions as a Design Engineer and the Bank of New Zealand as an Infrastructure Specialist.

David Clough - Deployment Specialist

David has worked in the telecommunications industry throughout his career, including senior roles in sales, marketing, financial analysis, network construction, and network operations. These roles have been with national carriers and with niche operators. Recently, David has provided consultancy services to a range of projects, including strategic reviews for applicants to the governments Digital Strategy, certification of Number Portability for a number of telecommunication carriers, and has also assisted with the design of Transpower's next generation telecommunications national network. David has tertiary qualifications in engineering, quality and management.

Simon Oldham - Technical Project Specialist

Simon has spent the last 10 years in the IT Design and delivery world, designing and deploying networks, UNIX systems, storage arrays and the odd Microsoft server or 2, across New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.  Most recently with TelstraClear, Simon also spent 2 years managing the EDS New Zealand Network Operations team, supporting Fonterra globally.  In his spare time, Simon enjoys sailing, tramping and shooting.  Simon has an electrical, avionics and IT trade background gained during service in the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

Desi Ramoo - Senior Member Development Specialist

Desi immigrated to New Zealand with his family in early 2008 to work for BRANZ as a research scientist. At BRANZ he contributed to weathertightness and indoor air quality research where he was responsible for computational fluid dynamics modeling. Desi identified further research opportunities and obtained funding to lead his own projects in photovoltaics and ultrasound. He obtained his degree and PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Essex UK. During and after his PhD studies he developed mathematical and computational models to simulate semiconductor laser devices supplied by British Telecommunications.

Bill Choquette - Member Development Specialist

Bill is a member of our Communities Team. He comes to REANNZ with a background in eCommerce and education. As our Development Coordinator, Bill is helping to build the breadth and depth of KAREN’s membership and usage. On the weekends, Bill is often fishing for trout on the Hutt River, listening to music, or working on various handyman projects around the house.

Vicki Lindsay - Communications Specialist

Vicki has 8 years experience in the communications field, first with the Tertiary Education Commission, then with the Ministry of Justice. Vicki is a graduate of both the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington and has a Masters degree in Education. Out of the office Vicki can be found house renovating, extending her green fingers or tweeting.

National Education Network trial extension project team

Laurence Zwimpfer - Implementation Manager

Laurence is a highly respected and experienced education technology consultant, who has worked with schools and other education organisations for over 25 years to deploy information and communications technologies. Laurence's background is in telecommunications engineering; he is a Fellow of the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand and was recognised in 2007 with the highest award of the Institution - the William Pickering Award for Engineering leadership.

Laurence played an active role in the establishment of KAREN, as the author of the NGI Steering Committee report in 2002 Collaborating at Speed: Innovation Infrastructure for a Knowledge Economy. During the last three years he has also led the establishment and development of The Wellington Loop, a cluster of Wellington secondary schools connected by a gigabit fibre network.

Andrea Jones - Schools’ Relationship Specialist

Andrea has worked in education for the past 8 years at the Ministry of Education and before that at Victoria University. At the Ministry of Education she worked with schools helping them to submit their roll data manually and electronically. Andrea is a graduate of Massey University and in her spare time likes to play a round of bowls with friends.

Our Board

Professor John Raine - Chair

John is currently Pro Vice-Chancellor (Innovation and Enterprise) and Head of School of Engineering at the Auckland University of Technology. Previous to this, John was Regional Chief Executive for the Albany campus of Massey University and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Enterprise and International) at the University of Canterbury. These esteemed recent positions are supported by a strong background in teaching and research in mechanical engineering, product and business development.

John is a board member of the Committee for Auckland Ltd, IPENZ, the Massey University e-centre Ltd, and the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. He chaired the Tertiary Education Commission PBRF Engineering, Technology and Architecture Panel for the 2006 Research Quality Assessment round and has been a member of the 2008-2009 PBRF Sector Reference Group.

Jane Taylor - Deputy Chair

Jane Taylor is a Queenstown-based barrister specialising in the areas of civil law and equity. Formerly a Chartered Accountant, her business background includes business and share valuations, corporate finance, insolvency and company reconstruction, and litigation support. Jane recently retired as a director of Scion (a Crown Research Institute) and was previously a director of Forestry Corporation of New Zealand and the Legal Services Agency, and is a former Chair of the Milford Community Trust. Jane is on the board of GNS Science Limited, a member of the Institute of Directors, the New Zealand Law Society and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand. She is a director and former Chair of the Lakes Leisure trust.

Gillian Heald

Gillian has held many leadership roles in education, including principal of Rangi Ruru Girls' School and co-director of Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti.  She is recognized internationally for her role as Guardian of the Secondary Futures project which looked at the future possibilities for secondary education in New Zealand. Gillian is currently the Executive Director – Education and Strategy for the New Zealand United World College Trust project.

Gillian has extensive experience in governance roles in education and the community. She was on the Executive Committee for Turning Point 2000 Canterbury; she was the recipient of the Institute of Directors’ Aspiring Directors Award 2002 and served on the Boards of Rutherford Den, Independent Schools Council, University of Canterbury Council, Aurora College Establishment Board (chair) and Canterbury Opera. She is currently a trustee on the University of Canterbury Foundation, the NZ Mathematical Olympiad Executive and the Christchurch Arts Centre Trust.

Gillian was awarded the MNZM for Services to Education (2010).

George L. Benwell

Professor Benwell is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Commerce) and Dean of the Business School at the University of Otago. After working as a surveyor, consultant and University of Melbourne academic, Professor Benwell joined Otago's Information Science Department in 1990.  He led the Department from 2001-2006 and served as the School's Dean of Research. Between 1996 and 1999, he was the University's Academic Director of Research. In 2007, Professor Benwell was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Dean.

Professor Benwell's research and teaching are mainly focused on spatial information processing and analysis, and land and health-related information systems. He currently holds a Bachelor of Surveying from the University of Melbourne, an MPhil from City University, London and a PhD from Melbourne.  George has been involved with research in Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Chile, Canada, Fiji, England, America, Malaysia and Tonga, and has published over 250 research papers and articles.

In 2001, he received the GJ Thornton-Smith Memorial Medal as a distinguished graduate of Melbourne University's School of Engineering Department of Geomatics.

Dr Graham Hill

Graham is an astronomer and astrophysicist currently lecturing in astronomy at the University of Auckland. He spent 29 years as a research scientist at the Herzbeg Institute in Victoria, Canada and served 12 years on a local school board (20 schools) at times as Board Chair and Chair of the Finance Committee.

Graham is an active researcher working in collaboration with colleagues at Brandon University, Canada and The Citadel, USA. His current speciality is in model building, data processing and the analysis of high resolution spectroscopy.

He is a former Board Member of the National Institute for Water and Atmosphere (NIWA) and Mighty River Power; and is a current Councilor on the Unitec Council. Previously he spent 6 years on the Board of the NZ MetService.

Mike Riley

Mike Riley is the Chief Executive of Endace, New Zealand’s own world leader in network traffic monitoring technology. Mike has over 20 years experience in the networking and security marketplace. Mike previously served as Vice President of Marketing and Strategy at Network Engines, Inc. (NASDAQ: NENG), a leading manufacturer of server appliances for the security and storage networking market place.

Prior to this, Mike was as Chief Marketing Officer at Sonexis Inc., Senior Vice President Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Artel Video Systems Inc. and General Manager, Europe, Middle East and Africa for Premisys Communications.

He holds a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Southampton, UK.

Updated 20 August 2010