It’s a brand new year and Refactor is BACK. We’ve got an incredible kick-off line-up, new catering, and we’re back at the gorgeous Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 25 March 2020, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Ngapera Riley

Ngapera couldn’t make it in November, but she’s raring to go this year! Ngapera is the Chief Executive Officer of Figure.NZ. She believes everybody should have access to good information, and that knowing how to find and use data is vital to solving our country’s biggest problems. She cares about everyone being able to take part in that, so we can collectively work towards a better future for Aotearoa. Ngapera works closely with Māori business and education efforts across New Zealand. She currently holds board positions with the InZone Education Foundation, Hyundai’s Pinnacle Programme, and Te Ohu Whai Ao Trust, which connects indigenous business efforts from around the world. She is also part of the working group Te Pokapu for the Maori Data Sovereignty Network advocating for Maori rights and interests in data. Formerly the Global Director of the World Class New Zealand Network for Kea, Ngapera has also worked for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Ministry of Health, University of Auckland, and Manukau Institute of Technology. Most of all she is a global citizen who loves to spread kindness, sing, cook and spend time with family.

Gemma Gracewood

Gemma Gracewood is a writer, a producer and director of TV, film and radio, a publicity and audience strategist, and currently the editor-in-chief of Letterboxd, the film social network. A Lower Hutt-born, South Auckland-raised Pākeha Gemini extrovert, Gemma's professional history starts with her literally delivering media to its audience, as a 10 year old Raleigh Twenty-riding newspaper-delivery person. She was one of the first graduates of AUT's Communications Degree, after which she created a news bulletin for MAX TV and held a long editorial director stint at Radio 95bFM. She's produced Kim Hill on RNZ's Nine to Noon, ridden the Beehive's underground travelator as a Government press secretary, sent a brass band up in a flotilla of hot-air balloons on one of several arts series she produced for TVNZ, driven NZ's fourth most popular folk-comedy duo on the wrong side of the road in Texas, created two award-winning webseries with chain-reaction machine genius Joseph Herscher, and toured the world singing other people's songs in the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. With audience front of mind throughout all her roles, publicity and audience strategy have long been Gemma's natural side-hustles. Her favourite saying used to be "you can sleep when you're dead!" but now that she has a four year old that's not funny shut up. 

Amritpal Kaur

In 2018, Amrit was one of the Finalists for New Zealand’s Emerging Leaders in Engineering (and the only woman) and in 2019 she was the Valedictorian for AUT’s summer graduation. Amrit graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering (Hon) Majoring in Mechatronics and Minoring in Creative Entrepreneurship. During her time at the university, she worked on interesting projects such as creating chatbots and a headset that enables communication for people with disabilities. Amrit recently started her full time career with Deloitte in the Platform Engineering team. She enjoys learning new things and pushing herself outside of her comfort zone  as she believes that’s where the growth happens. Amrit loves volunteering her time and skills hence is involved with SheSharp, EWB and the Women in Tech group within Deloitte itself.

We’re heading in to summer, and it’s time to buy tickets for the last Refactor event of the year! We’re at Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 20 November 2019, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Caroline Quay

Caroline has extensive experience in the high growth technology and innovation sector. She is Chief Investment Officer at Cure Kids Ventures, NZ’s predominant seed and early stage healthcare investment fund. Cure Kids Ventures invests in the commercialisation of innovations that have a potential to benefit child health.  She also holds strategic development and commercial advisory roles with high growth technology companies in the medical devices, biotechnology and agritechnology sectors. Caroline is a firm believer of NZ’s world class scientific research, technology and innovation. She is passionate about helping emerging healthtech companies in NZ successfully commercialise their technology to create a global health impact and a healthier tomorrow for the next generation.

Ngapera Riley

Ngapera is the Chief Executive Officer of Figure.NZ. She believes everybody should have access to good information, and that knowing how to find and use data is vital to solving our country’s biggest problems. She cares about everyone being able to take part in that, so we can collectively work towards a better future for Aotearoa. Ngapera works closely with Māori business and education efforts across New Zealand. She currently holds board positions with the InZone Education Foundation, Hyundai’s Pinnacle Programme, and Te Ohu Whai Ao Trust, which connects indigenous business efforts from around the world. She is also part of the working group Te Pokapu for the Maori Data Sovereignty Network advocating for Maori rights and interests in data. Formerly the Global Director of the World Class New Zealand Network for Kea, Ngapera has also worked for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, Ministry of Health, University of Auckland, and Manukau Institute of Technology. Most of all she is a global citizen who loves to spread kindness, sing, cook and spend time with family.

Lauren Peate and Alix Klingenberg

Lauren is the co-founder and CEO of Multitudes, a tech product that measures culture from passive data, without surveys. Multitudes was born out of insights that Lauren had from running Ally Skills NZ, a diversity and inclusion consultancy that teaches people how to use their voice and influence to stand with marginalised groups at work. A graduate of Stanford University, Lauren has previously been a management consultant with Bain & Co in San Francisco, interim COO of an eCommerce startup in Jordan, and a Fulbright Scholar in Morocco. In her free time, Lauren enjoys rock climbing, yoga, and long chats with friends.

Alix is the co-founder of Multitudes, and a software developer who has worked across a few of NZ’s fastest growing tech startups. She studied Philosophy then switched to Computer Science and started out as an Android developer before becoming interested in this whole cloud thing and moving to backend and infrastructure. Her day job is with Auror, a super cool startup working to stop crime in NZ, Aus and the US. In her spare time, she helps organise the .NET Auckland Meetup.

Wow, it’s time to buy tickets for the September Refactor in Auckland! We’re at Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 4 September 2019, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Hilary O’Connor

Hilary is a keen technology advocate and evangelist with a passion for innovation, and twenty three years’ experience in the IT industry. She joined Soul Machines, where she looks after the development of their Asia Pacific market, at the end of last year from Google where she worked for 4.5 years within their Cloud technologies business as Customer Engineering Lead, prior to that she spent 8.5 years at Microsoft, predominantly as Lead Technology Strategist. She has previously held consulting and, earlier on in her career, development roles, with companies such as Cap Gemini, Deloitte and Datacom.

Meg Kowalew

With over 13 years of work experience, Meg's professional background is quite versatile. Prior to her current role at Pushpay, she spent 4 years as a group category manager for Allegro.pl (Polish TradeMe, with 3.5m daily active users), dividing her time between product management and business development. Before Allegro, Meg worked for a cosmetic brand where she tried to understand the human behaviour of both consumers and shoppers in order to help retailers sell and present goods in their offline stores. This role is where Meg's fascination with psychology began and it led her back to University. Meg is now working as a Product Manager at Pushpay alongside a team of very talented engineers, designers and product people to build and improve a community apps product that facilitates strengthening connections and driving community engagement. In her spare time, Meg loves to read and take photos but most of all she loves to travel and is constantly suffering from not enough leave days.

Lucille Tachet

Lucille has always been passionate about computers and has known from a very young age that she wanted to become a Software Engineer. However, studying software engineering with very few women was quite a challenge. After graduating in 2016, she discovered the Go programming language and felt in love with it. She is now a Go back-end Engineer at Vend and can enjoy doing what she likes every day!

Wow, it’s time to buy tickets for the June Refactor in Auckland! Where did the time go? We’re at Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 12 June 2019, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Melissa Jenner

Melissa has spent the majority of her career working in some of the worlds largest corporations (like Microsoft and Barclays) and in some of the worlds biggest cities (like London and New York). Her career has spanned Marketing, Business Management, Strategy and Design as a Director and VP of global teams. She has been responsible for developing new products, services, restructures and business launches, and lived and worked through some of the worlds largest disruptions (9/11 in New York and the GFC in London). After learning all she could from large corporations she is now experiencing what it takes to design and grow her own business - START Now - focussed on designing sustainable futures for individuals and businesses. She is trained in Human Centred Design from Stanford D-School and has helped a broad range of businesses and leaders in NZ to integrate design led thinking into their business models. Her passion is now on helping people create sustainable pathways and careers that unlocks their full creativity and allows them to have maximum impact. She networks and consults widely and is a big believer in collaboration and keeping the business model small and scaleable.

Jess Keating

Jess Keating worked full time as a litigation lawyer for eight years, then ventured out into organisational development for 6 years with a focus on leadership. She returned to law in 2012, continuing the OD work part-time, and her work life is now a combination of commercial dispute resolution and leadership coaching/training with a bunch of different organisations and industries. A natural networker and problem-solver, Jess has been involved with several causes involving women (including an eating disorders recovery group and a charity to support single mothers). She is a huge supporter of women leaders in the workplace and as a self-confessed fan of the tech sector, is keen to see it (and other industries) become positive environments for such development. She has loved being a part of Refactor from its inception.  Jess has an unshakeable belief in being real in relationships and communities, and attributes this to her family and growing up in small northland town, Dargaville. She is currently working on a website called The Good Boss, telling the stories of regular NZ bosses, in their own words.

Lorna Proctor

Lorna began her career in the British Military as a 'non-techie' in a very technological environment. She left the forces to start a family and after a relaxing gap raising her two children she ventured in to adult education and computer training. Working with the local college in UK she established the first rural computer training centre with a turnover of 1000+ students per week. She then made the natural big step in to corporate and business systems training which has confirmed her skill at translating technical developer language in to end user English. She loves bringing the 'aha' moment to people and her training mantra is: 'learn first to make change happen'. She is currently working on bringing Business Agility 'aha' learning to New Zealand organisations.

It’s time for our third event in Whangarei. Last year was a sell-out, so you will want to be quick. We’re delighted to be welcoming Frances Valintine, Cassie McAdams and Tammy Auranen.

Thursday 16th May 2019, 6-8.30 pm
Whangarei Art Museum
The Hub, Dent Street, Town Basin

Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students – ticket prices are reduced this year thanks to Northpower’s commitment to the community. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!

Speaker profiles

Frances Valintine (CNZM)
Founder & CEO, The Mind Lab & Tech Futures Lab

Frances was raised on a farm near Hawera, Taranaki and moved to Auckland when she was around 14.  She is a keen adventure traveller and loves heading off the beaten path to venture into unknown places to get some head space.  

Frances has been a passionate educator and technologist for more than 20 years. In 2013 she founded The Mind Lab, to empower students and educators to develop applied digital knowledge and capability. In 2016 Frances launched Tech Futures Lab to support individuals, organisations and government to navigate the impact of technological advancement and cultural change in the workplace.  In the past 5 years her organisations have taught over 150,000 students, 4,000 teachers and worked with 250 New Zealand organisations.  

Frances sits on Callaghan Innovation and Dilworth Trust Board and is a selection advisor for the Edmund Hillary Foundation. She holds a Master of Education Management from the University of Melbourne.

Frances has received many awards for her work. She was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2018 recognising her lifetime of contribution in education and technology and named one of the top 50 EdTech Educators in the World in 2016 by EdTech International.

Cassie McAdams
Invesment Manager, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise

Cassie is inspired about fuelling NZ’s start-up ecosystem to compete on a global scale. She believes that all great ideas and founders need support and perspective - and of course adequate funding from the right investors to get there. 

Originally from Whangarei, Cassie has spent her 10-year career predominantly consulting at PwC and Deutsche Bank in Auckland and London. She holds degrees in Law and Science, and recently completed an MBA as an IE Foundation Scholar at IE Business School in Madrid. During that time, Cassie completed IE’s Startup Lab program and interned at Fundie Ventures, developing an interest in entrepreneurship and early-stage venture investment. 

Back on home soil, she now works in the Investment Team at NZTE, and regularly travels to Northland on a mission to help founders to build an investible proposition and raise capital.

Tammy Auranen
Group Manager Digital, Northpower Limited

Tammy was born and raised in a small mining community in Northern Ontario, Canada. About 3 years ago, she had the opportunity to come to NZ for work, and quickly decided to make it her permanent home, based now in Northland. 

Tammy’s career has been in digital, technology and improvement based roles over the course of 18 years and spans many industries. Most recently, she led the IT and systems functions at Far North District Council, City Fitness Group and SunRype Products. She has recently been appointed to lead Northpower’s technology transformation from a mix of legacy systems to a strategic emphasis on digital.

Whilst in Canada she was awarded ‘Women to Watch’ by the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. She was selected for this award due to her leadership and influence in the local tech and business community, as well as her participation in local mentorship programs for women in technology – something she is passionate about.

A brand new year! A brand new Refactor! We're back at the amazing Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Tuesday 26 March 2019, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Sarah Jennings

Despite training in Biomedical Science and Computer Science, Sarah has found her way into Operations & Strategic Management at StretchSense Ltd. Sarah has been on her journey with StretchSense for the past five years and her roles have touched everything from production, research/design, intellectual property and project management - to her current role as COO. She thoroughly enjoys the mix of strategic planning and inevitable risk mitigation that occurs with a small, highly agile product-focused hardware technology company and is forever grateful she braved the jump from academic (biological) research into the technology sector.  

Melissa Firth

Melissa has over 20 years' international experience working with teams to conceive, design, build and manage user-centred digital products and channels. Before moving into leadership roles, she learned a lot as a producer, project manager and UX designer. Her most recent role was Chief Digital Officer at Te Papa, where she built the museum’s digital capability from a standing start; increased the public’s access to Te Papa’s collections through rapid digitisation and open IP policies; and established Mahuki, the world’s first culturetech accelerator. Prior to that, she was Head of Digital Business for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s commercial arm. Now, Melissa helps organisations with their transformation, product development and business model innovation challenges, and she has also co-founded Again Again, a convenient cups-as-a-service system for takeaway coffee without the throwaway. It’s the first non-digital thing she’s worked on in her life.

Tanya Kennard-Campbell

Tanya began her career working as a mental health professional in the UK. She has been a program lead at NIMHE England, led her own social enterprise, created mental health resources and spoken at numerous conferences on the subject of recovery and human potential. She started designing and delivering change programs for teams of health practitioners. Through this work she discovered how to effect change in leaders and teams, despite their deeply held behaviours. Now she loves nothing more than supporting leaders to be comfortable in their own skin, to bring the best out in their teams, to inspire loyalty, commitment and respect that reaches well beyond the workplace.

Wahoo! It’s the last Refactor for the year. We're so excited to welcome speakers Natasha Lampard, Uttara Nataraj and Vic Jack. We're back at the amazing Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 21 November 2018, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Natasha Lampard

Natasha Lampard (@tashmahal) is the co-founder and director of Webstock; co-founder of Lil Regie and creator of Extraordinary Tales of Strength & Daring. Natasha fell in love with the web and its possibilities in 1999 and has been working on it in various capacities, ever since. She now wears a number of hats including event manager, designer, writer, usability advocate and entrepreneur. She loves soup, the work of Joan Hickson as Miss Marple and the creation of delightful spaces - both online and IRL.

Uttara Nataraj

Uttara (Utts) is currently working as an Agency Development Manager at Google NZ, where she works with New Zealand's top independent agencies and their small to medium business clients, to help them grow using Google products. Utts is an Engineer by background (she studied Engineering Science and The University of Auckland) and prior to Google was working in Management Consulting at EY for six years across Sydney and Auckland. Over this time she worked on numerous projects across various industry sectors including: FMCG, Retail, Media, Real Estate, Airlines, Government and Power & Utilities. Utts is also a big advocate of mentoring and has been a mentor for the UoA Business School Women's Mentoring Programme for the past two years. On the weekends you'll likely find Utts exploring art galleries and eating her way around Auckland!

Vic Jack

Vic has a background in advertising and design from London and was part of the digital boom in the late 90’s where she worked as UX Designer. And advocate for life-learning she returned to University in 2014 to complete a Masters in Design. She works on projects that embrace systems thinking and sustainable business practices that provide real social impact. A future thinker, Vic has a comprehensive knowledge of nascent technologies that include blockchain technology, IOT, AI and machine learning. She is a strong advocate of decentralised technology that provides us with the mechanism to have increased control and sovereignity over our own data. She is the founder of Maslow, a boutique recruitment agency that focuses on attracting, engage and retaining women into positions of management and leadership inside the creative and tech industries.

Refactor has an amazing international line-up for August. We're so excited to welcome Lara Hogan and Deepa Subramaniam all the way from New York, and they will be joined by HYPR's Gillian Clark. We're back at the amazing Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. Read on to learn more or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 22 August 2018, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Lara Hogan

Lara Callender Hogan (@lara_hogan) is an engineering leader, coach, and consultant at Wherewithall. She is also the author of Designing for Performance (O’Reilly, 2014), Building a Device Lab (Five Simple Steps, 2015), and Demystifying Public Speaking (A Book Apart, 2016). Lara champions engineering management as a practice, having built and led engineering organizations as an Engineering Director at Etsy and VP of Engineering at Kickstarter. In her world tour to advocate performance to designers and developers alike, Lara has keynoted the Velocity Conference, presented at Google I/O, and given talks at companies like The New York Times to help shift them toward a culture of performance. While at Etsy, Lara co-created the initial physical device labs, and co-authored a tutorial and book for companies interested in building their own lab. Lara also believes it’s important to celebrate career achievements with donuts.

Deepa Subramaniam

Deepa Subramaniam (@iamdeepa) has spent 15+ years leading large product teams to collaboratively build innovative digital products with mass reach. She is the co-founder of Wherewithall, an advising company dedicated to helping tech startups and non-profits strategize, grow and execute with ease. Deepa is on the Board of Directors for DonorDrive which has helped worthy causes raise over $1 billion. Prior to Wherewithall, Deepa was Vice President of Product and Design at Kickstarter. Before Kickstarter, she was the Director of Product at Hillary for America where she helped lead product for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign focusing on online fundraising, hillaryclinton.com and bespoke policy and rapid response digital products. Before Hillary for America, Deepa led product at charity: water, a non-profit dedicated to bringing clean water to the developing world. She started her career at Adobe, first as a Computer Scientist and later as a principle product manager on Creative Cloud. She champions data-driven design iteration, achieving high-velocity team output in fast-paced environments, and building collaboration and joy into company culture. 

Gillian Clark

Gillian Clark (@gillian_clark) is the CEO of HYPR Innovation. She has spent her entire career in IT after giving up on the idea of being a Flying Doctor in Australia after realising she couldn’t stand the sight of blood or vomit! She needed something that involved less bodily fluids, and IT sounded pretty safe. Little did she know the horrors of some projects felt like she really was metaphorically cleaning up messes! After completing a Computing Science degree (having the dubious honour of using a Hollerith Punch machine to write her Cobol code), her career path went through a traditional route of programmer to analyst to IT Manager then to CIO and then out to Consulting. Gillian has always been searching for a better way to do things. Those messes kept on turning up, and she wanted to find a way to make them smaller, more manageable, or even not happen. She began a journey of discovery of a Lean/Agile mindset, taking her to SAFe® (one of 50 SAFe® trainers in the world). This way of working was so inspiring that she formed HYPR so she could share her experience with others, and has now helped over 90 companies develop better software. 

Refactor Auckland is going to be in a special venue for May! We're heading to the amazing Warren & Mahoney studio in Wynyard Quarter. We have an awesome new sponsor, LMAX. And we have three amazing speakers for you. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 30 May 2018, 6-8:30pm
Warren & Mahoney Architects
139 Pakenham Street West
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Anna Connell

Anna Connell (@annagconnell) is a digital creative and strategist at marketing agency Bettle and Associates and a commentator, columnist and writer. She writes a fortnightly column for newsroom.co.nz and commentates on politics, diversity and gender equality and social media and technology for various media including Radio Live and Radio New Zealand. She is also a member of the Auckland Writers Festival board. She has been the head of BNZ’s social media and content team and the Development Manager for Auckland Theatre Company. She is usually running about half an late for everything (but will be on time for Refactor!) and is definitely not as put together as this bio might imply. 

Brenda Leeuwenberg

Since completing her PhD in Anatomy and Biochemistry in the mid 90s, Brenda (@digitalharpy) has had nothing much to do with science. She jumped ship to ride the internet wave and never looked back. Bad metaphors aside, Brenda was one of the early internet entrepreneurs in NZ, and has been working at the forefront of technology-for-business and creativity since it was first a thing. Until recently she was the Head of Innovation for NZ On Air - responsible for funding of Digital Media projects and various other things, and also Director of Nomad8 - a leading Agile business consultancy. 

Lisa Wong

Lisa Wong (@HaikuGeek) is a Product Lead for Crown Equipment, productizing robotics technologies for materials handling. She holds a PhD in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, focusing on signal processing and machine learning. After her studies, she transferred her knowledge of biomedical signal processing to the world of mobile robotics. Today, she uses her experience to connect technologies, business needs and customer needs to create innovative solutions in materials handling. When she isn't at work, you can find her geeking out over the latest board games, or painting fan-art. 

It’s Refactor’s event in the North for 2018 in association with Tech Week, and thanks to our sponsor Northland Inc.! We have an extraordinary line up as we welcome Dr Michelle Dickinson from Auckland, Marie Slako from Melbourne and Adeline Salked-Blears from Kaitaia. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!

Tuesday 22 May 2018, 6:00pm-8:30pm
Mahi Tahi Room at The Orchard, Level One, 35 Walton St, Whangarei
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker profiles

Dr Michelle Dickinson (MNZM) 

Michelle is a researcher and teacher with a background in Biomedical and Materials Engineering giving her unique insight into how nature and technology can learn from each other for scientific developments. She is currently founder and Director of the social enterprise Nanogirl Labs Ltd where Michelle has created the character Nanogirl - a science savvy femaie who uses her engineering skills to solve her way out of challenges in life. Nanogirl tours around the world with a live science show and has created a Kitchen Science Cookbook, amongst other things, as a way to increase confidence around science, engage more public interaction with the subject and promote diverse role models in science and engineering. Awarded Member of New Zealand Order of Merit, Michelle was also winner of the Women of Influence award for science and innovation in 2016, the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award in 2015 and the Prime Ministers Science Media Communication Prize and the New Zealand Association of Scientists Science Communicators Award in 2014. She is also an honorary academic in Engineering at the University of Auckland. Michelle has made it her life mission to make science and engineering accessible for all. Michelle has spoken at a previous Refactor in Auckland.

Marie Slako

Marie was born and raised in Northland and completed a Master of Science in Geology at The University of Auckland. She has 15 years’ experience in geospatial science and technology, across multiple industries. Presently she is the Manager of Network Performance and Intelligence for AusNet Services in Melbourne. AusNet Services owns and operate the Victorian electricity transmission network, one of five electricity distribution businesses and one of three gas distribution businesses in Victoria. Marie’s role covers where and how electricity assets are performing, and the relevant systems and data needed to answer those questions. She is passionate about encouraging young women into the STEM disciplines and has set up a scholarship to do this with RMIT (a global university and Australia’s largest tertiary institution). She also sits on the RMIT Program Advisory Committee for their Geospatial degrees. Marie actively supported our first Refactor North from afar last year and this year is flying over to be a speaker.

Adeline Salkeld-Blears

Adeline started her career in England as a Graphic Designer, but discovered a passion for web early on. After moving to NZ she began to specialise in user experience, and has since had a pivotal influence in some large and complex projects for well known organisations such as Tourism NZ, Maori TV and Air New Zealand. She is currently a UX and Design Consultant at Purple Shirt and Partner at MOSO. She is very experienced in design and user research and is able to bridge technological requirements and human-centred design principals. She is also an accomplished photographer and moved north in part to develop a permaculture food forest with her husband.

It's Refactor 2018! We have an extraordinary lineup for the February event, as we welcome meriko borogove from the United States, together with Carolyn Luey and Alexia Hilbertidou. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!  

Wednesday 28 February 2018, 6-8:30pm
Room WG308 at AUT, 2 Governor Fitzroy Place, Auckland CBD
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

meriko borogove

meriko played a key role in some of the most innovative technologies of the last 25 years. She spent 23 of those years at Apple, most recently as Senior Director of Engineering in the Special Projects Group. She was an early member of the QuickTime team, led the Mac graphics & media transition to Intel, and managed teams for the original iPhone. meriko was responsible for building the iPhone camera, turning it into a must-have capability beloved by everyday people and professional photographers alike. She is passionate about human-centric technologies, products, and diverse teams that work across the intersection of hardware, software, silicon, and design. meriko advises Sense Medical, ScanLAB Projects, and resists the patriarchy at every opportunity.

Carolyn Luey

Carolyn Luey is the General Manager, Enterprise Solutions and New Zealand at MYOB. She leads MYOB’s division focused on providing ERP and Payroll solutions for mid market businesses across Australia and New Zealand one of MYOB’s fastest growing divisions and she also leads MYOB’s NZ operations. She has over 15 years of experience in strategy, marketing, product management, business development and digital media across a range of industries. Prior to joining MYOB, she held executive roles at NZME as Chief Operating Officer responsible for operations across the digital, radio and print and Group Strategy and Operations Director responsible for strategy, technology, product and development of new businesses during the transformation to NZME. In addition, Carolyn spent 8 years at Telecom New Zealand in marketing, strategy and product roles.

Alexia Hilbertidou

When Alexia was 14 she was the only girl in her IT class and when she was 16 she was the only girl in her advanced physics class. Concerned about the lack of women in these future focussed classes Alexia set up GirlBoss New Zealand - an organisation which encourages young women to embrace male-dominated fields such as STEM, leadership and entrepreneurship. In just 2 years, GirlBoss has 8000 members and over 2200 GirlBoss Ambassadors across the country. Engaging young women, and other underrepresented groups into STEM fields is instrumental in improving outcomes and addressing inequalities within New Zealand. The first step is to show young people that they don’t have to look like Alan Turing or Steve Jobs or even Isaac Newton to have a stimulating and well-paid career in STEM. Alexia’s passion for future-focused education is why she was named the most influential woman under the age of 25 at the 2016 Westpac Women of Influence Awards and a 2018 Queen's Young Leader. 

It's Refactor time again! We have an awesome line-up to round out our year: Ruth James, Lisa Wood, and Steph Cooper. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!  

The event is presented in conjunction with our awesome sponsors AUT, Pushpay, and Catalyst, and our brand spanking new sponsor Vend!

Tuesday 14 November 2017, 6-8:30pm
Room WG308 at AUT, 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland CBD
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Ruth James

Ruth (@RuthJamesNZ) fell into the NZ tech industry by complete fluke when she arrive in the country ten years ago! Her first job was as a receptionist for a tech company (Fronde), since then she’s worked for a number of New Zealand technology companies and is currently the Happiness Engineer at Xero.

In the last five years she has become increasingly active in encouraging the next generation of Kiwi’s into the tech sector. She has thrown herself at every opportunity going where she can help enable, inspire and encourage school and university students to pursue a career in tech.

Lisa Wood

Lisa is Digital Transformation Change Lead at Air NZ, a role that has brought together three areas Lisa is particularly curious about - systems thinking, cognitive science and change. Previously an Agile Coach, Product Manager, Entrepreneur dabbler and Travel Consultant, it's fair to say she is a generalist. An insatiable curiosity about everything does make it challenging for her to keep focussed, but her ultimate goal in life is to make a positive difference in the lives of the people she encounters on her journey and to impact some positive social change.

Steph Cooper

Steph is a Lean|Agile Coach and has worked in technology for over 20 years. From an unlikely start as an art history graduate, Steph was drawn to the passion of folks who worked with technology. She was part of the Lean|Agile Practice at Assurity and has had stints with 2degrees on their Leadership Team after launch, and with Serko Travel as the Product Delivery Lead. Her superpower is helping groups of people to find focus and get stuff done together. And she hopes that one day we will live in a world where no-one uses the word ‘resource’ when they mean ‘person’.

It's Refactor time again! We have an awesome line-up to warm up the winter blues: Dr Rhema Vaithianathan, Bridget Beh, and Katherine Barrow. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!  

The event is presented in conjunction with our awesome sponsors AUT, Pushpay, and Catalyst!

Wednesday 28 June 2017, 6-8:30pm
Room WG308 at AUT, 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland CBD
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker Profiles

Dr Rhema Vaithianathan

Rhema (@RVaithianathan) is a health economist and co-director of the Centre for Social Data Analytics (@AUTCSDA) at AUT.  The Centre’s mission is  to solve hard social problems with innovative data analytics solutions.   Rhema is always looking for opportunities to use data to address intractable social problems.  At the CSDA she leads data scientists and researchers working on projects in NZ, the US and the UK, all aiming to deliver measurable social impact.  Rhema’s work often makes use of existing administrative data  that can be  transformed to predict certain adverse outcomes, like child maltreatment or chronic homelessness.  Recent work of note includes development of the Allegheny Family Screening Tool, a predictive risk model for child welfare implemented in the US last year, and impact evaluations of New Zealand’s Family Start, Teen Parent Units and Social Workers in Schools programmes.  As a researcher Rhema is known for pairing the best possible scientific methodologies with enviable human engagement:  “Data doesn’t change minds.  People do”.   

Bridget Beh

Bridget is a Software Engineer at Serato, a world-leading music software company. She currently works on Serato DJ, a cross-platform native desktop application and was part of the team that launched Pyro, an iOS app that automatically mixes music. Prior to Serato, Bridget completed internships at Orion Health, First NZ Capital and Google. She is a keen FutureInTech ambassador and in her free time you can find her jamming on various musical instruments.

Katherine Barrow

Katherine (@katbarrow) is the Experience Director at Pixel Fusion.  She works at the intersection of customer experience, technology and business strategy, helping businesses apply design thinking and innovation methodologies across their channels and products.  She has an eclectic background, having worked in tourism and teaching before joining the design and tech industries 7 years ago.  She’s passionate about the importance of empathy and ethics in the tech industry, and the responsibility that we have to shape the world consciously and inclusively.

Welcome to the first ever Refactor North! We're bringing Refactor to Whangarei. Join us for an awesome evening of inspiring talks, where we'll hear from Lillian Grace, Jane McKenzie, and Philippa Mannagh.

Wednesday 5 April 2017, 6:00pm-8:30pm
Distinction Hotel, 9 Riverside Drive, Whangarei
Tickets $20 (which includes canapés and your first drink) – open to all

Speaker profiles

Lillian Grace

Lillian (@gracefullillian) is CEO and Founder of Figure.NZ, the first organisation globally to assert everyone can use data in their thinking, and to build the systems, software, relationships and trust to enable this. Figure.NZ provides a data publishing service to organisations with data, standardising it and making it truly usable for everyone regardless of skill level. Lillian is on the recently established Data Futures Partnership Working Group, on the Expert Advisory Panel of the Open Government Partnership, as well as on the board of the NZ Innovation Partnership and of NZ’s Centre of Research Excellence Te Pūnaha Matatini. Previously Lillian was at Academy Award-Winning Massive Software, and at think tank The New Zealand Institute.

Jane McKenzie

Jane is the Head of Corporate IT at RefiningNZ.  She's had the opportunity to work across many industry sectors and she has been part of and witnessed from the beginning the pace of technology and the progression of workforce cultural re-calibration. Her path to this role started in Dunedin as an Information Systems student and stepped through various application development, PC Support, training, engineering, IT architecture and management and programme leadership roles up the country to Northland. Here she can commute to work from Manganese Point to Marsden Cove by boat every day.

Philippa Mannagh

Philippa Mannagh's idea to dive into the world of social media management birthed from a quiet night in with the hubby, noticing then trends in America and a passion to network with people and other businesses online from the comfort of her own family home. Her desire to connect women in business through story-telling, social media and networking drove her everyday mum-juggle to a freedom lifestyle that would ensure she could be at the sidelines of school sports days and even work from the beach when desired.  Four years later, she now works with companies, local business, individuals and organisations to better themselves online and to help them to find their voice. Philippa's business today was built purely from her Facebook Business Page and her then, three fellow Mums in Business chatting around her coffee table multiplied quickly into a community of over 550 online women eager to support each other through this busy time of their lives, finding more flexibility and permission to have the best of both worlds. 

Welcome back to Refactor for 2017! We have an awesome line-up to kick off the year: Nicole Ferguson, Alysha Delany, Rochelle Ivanson and Sian Simpson. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!  

The event is presented in conjunction with our awesome sponsors AUT, Pushpay, Microsoft,  and Catalyst!

Wednesday 15 March 2017, 6-8:30pm
Room WG308 at AUT, 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland CBD
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker profiles

Nicole Ferguson

Nicole (@nicolerferg) is Chief Executive at REANNZ, the Crown-owned company that owns and operates the specialised, high-performance telecommunications network for New Zealand’s education, research and innovation communities. Initially trained as a Chartered Accountant, REANNZ was one of Nicole’s first clients when she took up the role of Senior Accountant at KPMG NZ in early 2008. Two and a half years later she decided to join them permanently, and, aside from a brief stint at Inland Revenue, has been with REANNZ ever since – the first five years as CFO, before stepping into the CEO role in November 2015. During that time, Nicole's developed a strong passion for tech and innovation, and become a staunch advocate for women and diversity in STEM industries - including recently driving the trial of a blind-hiring process for a number of executive roles. And she's picked up a number of insights along the way, on being a non-techie leading a high-performance tech organisation.

Alysha Delany

Alysha is a partner at MBM, New Zealand’s largest independent media agency, and has been pivotal in its growth, focusing the agency around technology led communications including data and analytics, digital insights, marketing automation, search marketing and digital PR with the overarching objective to deliver client business success through the power of media and technology. It took a long time for Alysha to find her passion, after working in IT, Strategy and Marketing roles before entering the advertising industry ten years ago, but this combination has been perfect for the role that she now loves.

Rochelle Ivanson

Rochelle (@ri) recently left a career in the fast paced world of advertising to work in the even faster paced local startup, Pushpay. In her spare time she organizes one of New Zealand's largest technology and design conferences, Gather.

Sian Simpson

Sian (@siansimpson) is the Global Community Manager of the Kiwi Landing Pad in San Francisco where she helps take NZ technology to the world. Sian started the well known and loved Sales and Marketing Jam (NZSMJ) which brings US start up and technology experts to share their experience and networks with Kiwi businesses. The KLP is supported by leading organisations, such as Air New Zealand, Vodafone, BNZ & NZTE. Sian is also a video director, interviewer and content strategist for media, technology and startup clients whom she works with in the US. In her spare time she mentors up and coming young entrepreneurs, and is currently setting up a youth innovation centre on the North Shore of Auckland where young people can achieve their excellence and learn about the future of work and connect with industry.

We have a great speaker line-up for the final Refactor event of 2016: Anna Curzon, Jessica Venning-Bryan, Emily Melhuish and Lisa Miles-Heal. Read on to learn more about them or grab your ticket now!  

The event is presented in conjunction with our awesome sponsors AUT, Pushpay, Microsoft,  and Catalyst!

Wednesday 16 November 2016, 6-8:30pm
Room WG308 at AUT, 55 Wellesley Street East, Auckland CBD
Tickets $25 – open to all

Speaker profiles

Anna Curzon

Anna Curzon (@anna_curzon) is the Managing Director of Xero New Zealand and a key member of the global sales leadership team, responsible for driving relationships with government, financial institutions, enterprise and promoting the small business economy.  Prior to Xero Anna led Internet Banking at ASB and Digital First at Spark and brings deep experience of online, financial services and operations to Xero.

Jessica Venning-Bryan

Jessica (@jvenningbryan) has spent 15 years advising organisations like Lion, the Electoral Commission, Seafood NZ, Saatchi & Saatchi Global, and the Sustainable Business Council on how to engage customers with projects and brands. From beer to electricity, voting systems to employment, she’s delivered projects in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the UK. She is currently GM Brand at Flick Electric Co., and was part of Flick’s founding team. Jessica is also on the Board of PledgeMe, New Zealand’s first crowdfunding platform; and is the Founder and Trustee of Cultivate Mentoring Lab, a not-for-profit that partners early to mid-career women with experienced mentors to help them grow their confidence and progress equally at work.

Emily Melhuish

Emily (@kanocarra) was that one kid at school who was obsessed with anything and everything horses. Throughout high school, she became more exposed to the wonders of technology and decided to pursue a career in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, specialising in power electronics and machine learning. Emily also works as a full stack web developer for Trade Me Motors. With a passion for both hardware and software, Emily hopes to combine the two to make technology smarter and more sustainable. When she's not buried under books in the engineering library, she can be found on the soccer pitch, in a kayak, blowing up circuits, working on her car, designing websites or crafting a decadent dessert.    

Lisa Miles-Heal

Lisa is GM and CTO at Unleashed Software, a Takapuna HQ'd technology company that provides a SaaS inventory management solution to medium sized businesses around the world. LMH (as she is known) is a passionate supporter of young people following a career pathway in IT, women succeeding in business generally and great coffee and macarons. She has a range of skills, from marketing to project management, operational execution and strategy - and above all being your genuine and awesome self!.

Our next Refactor event is on Tuesday 16 August 2016.  We're at a brand new venue, AUT, and the event is presented in conjunction with our sponsors Microsoft, Pushpay and Catalyst!

Tickets $25 – open to both women & men

Speaker profiles

Priti Ambani

Priti (@envirotarian) is co-founder at The Next Billion, an impact-driven enterprise founded on the belief that by gathering our collective resources to invest in women, we can positively impact/change the world for the better. The company is set to launch Globally Spotted - a discovery platform for smart and innovative women led business from the world over.
Priti is an engineer and began her career 11 years ago in environmental design. Over the last 6 years, Priti has sought out and landed opportunities on global teams, to grow early stage startups, for-profit and non-profit entities creating impact through digital collaboration and crowds. She is a zealot for the digital and crowd economy and for helping organisations that are keen to harness the productivity of the Internet to solve societal challenges. Most recently, Priti began working with the core team at Tech Futures Lab, helping Kiwis be better prepared for the exponential technologies and careers in the 21st century.
Priti was born and raised in Mumbai, India. She moved to Auckland with her husband and sons in 2015 after 13 years in the United States. Priti is a lover of the outdoors, traveling and from-scratch cooking!  

Irene Direnko-Smith

Irene graduated with a degree in computer science but has spent the last 12 years doing technical sales and strategic consulting. Her diverse experience ranges from establishing and implementing sales strategy for software start-ups like Thematic through to enterprise solutions selling for large multinational technology companies. Irene has a very strong record of success and believes that greater gender diversity in ICT sales would lead to more profitable and sustainable industry.    

Nicki Raistrick

Nicki (@nicki_raistrick) is a leader in Digital Innovation and transformation with nineteen years’ experience working with global organisations. Creating high performing teams with permission to think differently and a focus on value creation is a key strength. Recent achievements include establishing the Digital Innovation Lab for Fletcher Building, creating innovative & smart digital solutions for the construction industry; and for Spark Ventures, setting up the Delivery Teams and the Strategy and Planning function which was responsible for bringing five companies to market in under a year.

Our next Refactor event is on Thursday 19 May 2016. It's presented in conjunction with Techweek AKL, and our sponsors Catalyst and Microsoft!

Refactor tickets $25 – open to both women & men

Speaker profiles

Claudia Batten

US-based Kiwi Claudia Batten (@claudiabatten) will openly admit she is digitally obsessed. From her roots in commercial law, she has been a founding member of two highly successful entrepreneurial ventures. As part of the founding team of Massive Incorporated, a network for advertising in video games, she helped pioneer “digital” as a media buy. Massive was sold to Microsoft in 2006, where Claudia then spent 3 years scaling the in-game network. In 2009 she co-founded Victors & Spoils, the first advertising agency built on the principles of crowdsourcing. After two years in market, V&S was majority acquired by French holding company Havas Worldwide. In 2014 Claudia cofounded Broadli with Ale Lariu and Mary Abraham to redefine how we use digital connectivity to power networking. Broadli can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/broadli. Claudia was most recently appointed to run North American operations for NZTE, supporting New Zealand business as they grow internationally into that market.

Dr Siouxsie Wiles

Dr Siouxsie Wiles (@siouxsiew) is an award-winning scientist who has made a career of her twin passions for bioluminescence (think glow worms and fireflies) and infectious diseases. In a nutshell, Siouxsie and her team at the University of Auckland make nasty bacteria glow in the dark to understand how superbugs make us sick and to find new medicines. Siouxsie also has a keen interest in demystifying science for the public; she is a keen blogger, podcaster, artist, curator and media science commentator and has won a hat trick of prizes for her efforts, including the Prime Minister’s Science Media Communication Prize and the Royal Society of New Zealand Callaghan Medal. 

Mel Rowsell

Mel Rowsell (@melrowsell) works with organisations to co-create kick-ass organisational cultures. Mel has over 20 years experience in the Human Resources field. Her last five years at Vend provided her the opportunity to play around with what works to build and scale a successful culture within the fast-moving tech sector. Mel is a holistic and creative thinker with a mindful approach to life.  

What's Techweek AKL?

A first of its kind in Auckland, Techweek AKL is an unmissable cluster of events hosted by various international and local keynote speakers, accompanied by a breadth of relevant, trend-focused topics.

It’s the new calendar event that focuses on reshaping our world through design, innovation and technology. The theme ‘Reshaping our world’ will be interpreted through social, cultural, technological, environmental and political lenses. To find out more visit techweek.co.nz 

Techweek AKL is proudly presented by Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED).

Our next Refactor event is on Wednesday 30 March 2016. It's presented in conjunction with the awesome Codemania conference, and our sponsors Catalyst and Microsoft!

Refactor tickets $25 – open to both women & men

Speaker profiles

Katherine Daniels

Katherine Daniels (@beerops) is a senior operations engineer at Etsy who got her start in programming with TI-80 calculators back when Geocities was still cool, and these days has opinions on things like ‘the cloud’ and ‘devops’. Before escaping to the world of operations, she spent a few years doing R&D and systems engineering in the corporate world. She lives in Brooklyn with a perfectly reasonable number of cats, and in her spare time can often be found rock-climbing or hand crafting knitted server koozies for the data center. She is co-author of O’Reilly Media’s Effective DevOps. 

Nicola Gaston

Dr Nicola Gaston (@nicgaston) is Deputy Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, a New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence. Her group has worked extensively on quantum-mechanical simulations of the melting behaviour of metal nanoparticles, which has developed our fundamental understanding of the low melting temperature of gallium. They are currently focused on methods for the theoretical description of 'superatoms'; nanoscale atomic mimics made out of metal clusters of atoms, which exhibit quantum size effects and can act as building blocks for nanostructured materials with designer properties. Beyond her scientific research, Nicola is a prominent science communicator and advocate for women in academia, and was the President of the New Zealand Association of Scientists in 2014 and 2015. Along with many public addresses and articles, Nicola has recently published "Why Science Is Sexist". 

Jo Brothers

Jo Brothers (@jobrothers) is an indie author of 11 books and a public speaker on the topics of digital, social media and spiritual wellness. Jo pioneered in the social media space for Air New Zealand, establishing social media channels and growing an active community of 1.5 million with a Klout score of 89+. Jo was invited to Google I/O in 2013 to present at the Google Sandbox as Air New Zealand were one of the first companies in the world to build a site using G+ Social Sign (www.airnzfairy.com). Jo developed the popular Social Media Breakfast series and brought leading keynote speakers to New Zealand including Randi Zuckerberg, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Dancy, Teddy Goff (advisor to Hillary Clinton and Obama) and Ross Dawson, a futurist.  Jo is currently Head of Digital & Social Media at Westpac. 

What's Codemania?

Codemania is a full day of information and inspiration from software practitioners at the top of their game. Speakers Katherine Daniels and Nicola Gaston will also be presenting at Codemania.

Find out more

Our next Refactor event is on Wednesday 24 February 2016. It's presented in conjunction with our sponsors Catalyst and Hapara!

Tickets $25 – open to both women & men

Speaker profiles

Tash McGill

Tash (@tashmcgill) is a strategist and writer who has been passionate about digital since first hearing the tone of a dial-up modem while posting her first weblog. She wants to change the world by helping people to think differently, so fervently believes no matter how technology and digital tools may change, we will use them first and foremost to communicate our stories. She believes integration and collaboration is the vital way forward to reimagining our digital futures. 

Serena Chen

Serena (@sereeena) is a physicist turned Editor-in-Chief at HVNGRY, an online magazine for teen girls (and boys) wanting more from mainstream media. By day she's a designer at BNZ Digital, helping make their website elegant and accessible. By night she enjoys reverse engineering puzzles, programming projects, and rocking out to Kanye. 

Kate Hannah

Kate (@knhannah) is a cultural historian by training, interested in how we depict and understand trauma and memory, in the history of the public perception and interpretation of science and technology, and in bridging the gulf between C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures.’ By inclination she talks fast about lipstick, food, books, kids, and making the world a better place. Right now, she’s the executive manager of Te Pūnaha Matatini, a new New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence for complex systems and networks, which means she’s a historian in a physics department.

Our next Refactor event is on Wednesday 11 November 2015. It's presented in conjunction with our sponsors Catalyst, Microsoft, and Hapara!

Tickets $25 – open to both women & men

Speaker profiles

Sophie Stanley

Hailing from a sheep and beef farm near Taupo, Sophie shares her depth of industry knowledge as Head of Rural at start-up SaaS company, Figured (Xero's farm financial management add-on). For a number of years Sophie worked in the rural banking sector, and in 2013 was awarded the prestigious Nuffield Scholarship, which enabled her to travel globally, researching the intersection of cloud technology and social media within agriculture. Upon returning from overseas, Sophie joined Figured as one of the founding team members.  She is a finalist for this year’s Westpac Woman of Influence Awards in the Rural category. 

Mandy Simpson

Mandy has more than 20 years experience in financial services in New Zealand and the UK. As NZX's Head of Operations she leads the team responsible for the real time services at the heart of New Zealand's capital markets. Prior to joining NZX Mandy was CFO at Fronde, a Wellington headquartered technology services company. 

Nat Dudley

Nat is the Solutions and Experience Lead at Vend, where she spends her days helping make life better for independent retailers. She also works with Figure.NZ helping to make open data accessible and fun for all New Zealanders. In her (elusive) spare time, she works with conferences, events and companies to make NZ's tech sector more inclusive.