Marketing South 2022

As a seasoned marketing and brand strategist, Lee helps business owners scale and grow their companies through strategy-led marketing.

Lee has over 30 years’ experience working with countless businesses across a diverse range of industries including IT, tourism, manufacturing, wholesaling, health, education, services and online. Inspired by the word “Muritai” – Māori for sea breeze – she brings a fresh approach to marketing.

Lee is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. She was also a member of the Massey Business School Advisory Board for nine years and currently sits on the Ara Institute of Canterbury School of Business Advisory Board.

With a focus on fresh thinking, Lee and her team at Muritai Group transform complex marketing challenges into customised and highly actionable strategies that have the best chance of success.

A lover of all things sport (particularly skiing, rugby, league, darts, mtb and F1); Lee has also represented New Zealand in Dragon Boating.

An entrepreneur at heart with passion for the creative sector, Tanmay is a Kiwi-Indian who’s been deeply involved with the New Zealand creative industry for over 15 years. Working with various design agencies and organisations, his specialisation has been brand and identity work.

Tanmay has worked in a senior capacity on major rebrand & identity projects for iconic New Zealand businesses such as Fonterra, NZMP, All Blacks Experience, Crusaders, Bank of New Zealand, Genesis Energy, Colorsteel, Jazz Apples (T&G), Te Aho O Te Kahu (Cancer Control Agency), Te Pukenga (New Zealand Institute of Skills & Technology) and many more.

Being a Design Director Tanmay’s experience stretches beyond graphic design to working with many talented local photographers, marketers and producers on creating briefs, art directing photoshoots and making sure what's needed is captured on the day of the shoot. A skill set that helps Truestock as a team, work well with its contributing co-owners and clients.

Tanmay co-founded Truestock in 2021 with two other co-founders, Ovi Alexeenco & Daniel Leddy.

Penelope cut her marketing teeth in FMCG, working for some of the biggest names in the industry across global brand portfolios in consumer, trade and shopper marketing before joining Tourism New Zealand as Marketing Manager Partnerships for the Australian market.

With the emergence of Covid and a refocus on Domestic, Penelope took up the reigns as Consumer Marketing Manager on the NZ market and over the last two years Penelope and her merry marcoms team has delivered over 15 campaign iterations, 1 billion impressions, 55 million video views, 14 million website visits, 4 million referrals to tourism operators and $80 million in EAV, it’s been quite busy.

Penelope decompresses with sacrosanct daily gym classes and time with her young family and has cherished exploring more of New Zealand with her whānau over the last couple of years, but still has lots more to discover with them.

Anna is an unusual thinker who specialises in optimising tech products for best performance, marketability, acquisition and venture funding success.

In her work with startups and Fortune 500 companies in Australia, Europe and the United States, she has led product teams to numerous successes, highlights of which include thnx! (concept to A$5 million valuation in seven months); Tiny (raised US$4 million in 2018); TravelersBox (raised US$10 million in 2016); Tririga (acquired by IBM in 2011 for an undisclosed amount); and AdSpace Networks (raised US$20 million in 2007).

Born in Poland, she completed primary school in South Africa before moving to Brisbane, Australia at the start of high school. At the age of 13, she spoke three languages fluently and had mastered the art of being an outsider. This ability to observe and assess a situation from a fresh perspective, and apply critical thinking to create value, turned into one of her greatest strengths, resulting in accelerating a strong career in the technology sector.

Anna has worked with over 100 of NZTE’s best export brands, and a wide range of clients around the globe, including WordPress, IBM, Oracle, Unisys, AdSpace Networks, NICTA, RMIT, as well as a range of technology startups and early-stage ventures.

Today, Anna focuses on providing strategic product advice to a select number of clients, while running RAMMP, a SaaS product that helps brands achieve significantly higher conversion rates by cultivating brand loyalty.

Anna received a PhD in passenger experience design (airports) from Queensland University of Technology, completed interior design and architecture programmes at Parsons in New York and Instituto Europeo di Design in Milan, and holds a first-class honours degree in information technology and a University Medal from the University of Queensland.

First and foremost, Anton is the proud father of three beautiful tamariki, and husband to Jess. Born and bred in Ōtautahi but with whakapapa back to Te Rarawa, he links to the far north in Ahipara too. Anton owns and operates Hustle Group, an organisation comprised of Hustle Hospitality which has several local eateries, a catering company and a handful of food trucks; as well as Hustle Education which delivers workshops, online courses, and mentoring to many businesses and business owners throughout Ōtautahi. Also within Hustle Group is Hustle Events, which has an exciting event coming up in September, called Angitu 22.

Hustle Group also maintains strong community ties through their charitable trust, Angitu Charitable Trust, which has a particular focus on creating opportunities for rangatahi Māori to experience success as Māori. Hustle Group is focused on developing its people, sharing Māori culture and language with the community, developing intergenerational wealth, and building a great company that will live on for many generations to come.

Petra Baker has spent the past 30 years incessantly seeking answers to the questions of why and how. Her insatiable curiosity and thirst for understanding have led her on a unique journey from high-performance sport coaching into research, monitoring, and evaluation. Most recently Petra has found herself in the role of Insights Manager at Research First where her curiosity and diverse skill set allow her to harness cutting-edge practices to quickly analyse situations, people, and data to provide actionable insights. Helping others to understand both the why, and how to best utilise that information to create positive outcomes and actionable change.

Josh is a recent masters graduate from the University of Canterbury Business School. With expertise in quantitative methods, Josh has a passion for market research. As project manager, Josh oversees a wide range of projects, with the overall goal to achieve the most desired outcome for his clients. Since joining Research First in 2021, Josh has managed a variety of projects ranging from one-off projects to ongoings trackers, with clients spanning local councils, to infrastructure and the education sectors.

With over twenty years senior marketing experience, the last ten of which have been in the travel and tourism sector, Ken has held senior executive roles in New Zealand, Australia, USA, UK and Fiji.

For the past three years, Ken has lead the South Alibaba programme in New Zealand, working with DMOs and over 4,500 businesses to help them be more successful in the Chinese market.

Ken’s previous roles include being the marketing lead for Tourism New Zealand in North America and Europe, along with being the global marketing lead for Tourism Fiji.

Ekant Veer is a multi-award-winning Professor of Marketing at the University of Canterbury. He has been named as one of the Top 40 under 40 Business School Professors worldwide; an Ako Aotearoa Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award winner, and five times winner of the UCSA’s lecturer of the year award. His work looks at the role that marketing can play in driving social change and community well-being as well as the impact of digital technologies on consumer decisions, culture, and connections.

Samantha’s research interests examine intersectional environmental and social issues through a marketing and consumption lens. Broadly, this includes areas of marketing such as consumer behaviour, social marketing, advertising, and marketing strategy. She is currently engaged in projects that explore the relationship between consumer behaviours and their environmental impact such as meat reduction and flexitarianism, consumer adoption of plant-based meat substitutes, and the impact of climate change and consumer’s attitudes towards having children.