Chair

Jeremy Moon

“I believe design is the key to unlocking the future business potential of New Zealand. We’ve got a whole lot of design talent in New Zealand – the challenge is to plug this into businesses with good ideas and structures. The encouraging thing is that we’re getting consistently positive feedback from businesses about the approach.”

Jeremy is the CEO of merino outdoor clothing company Icebreaker. After graduating from Otago University with a Masters of Commerce in marketing, Jeremy established Icebreaker in 1995. Icebreaker clothing is now sold in 24 countries.

Icebreaker won the 2003 Design in Business award, and was listed on the Deloitte New Zealand ‘Fast 50’ for two years (2001, 2002).

Richard Cutfield

“From an investor’s perspective, design capability is possibly the most powerful driver of business growth and value creation. New Zealand design teams are more than capable of achieving stellar design, but our business community is not even coming close to exploiting this advantage.  This is a great opportunity.” 

Richard Cutfield is an executive director of Pencarrow Private Equity, an investment firm that specialises in management buy-out and investments in New Zealand businesses with strong growth prospects.

Richard is a vocal advocate for New Zealand companies to make design central to their efforts to build international markets. Not surprisingly, he represents Pencarrow on the board of three firms that use world-leading New Zealand design to differentiate internationally: Formway Furniture, Methven (Chairman) and Design Mobel Group.

Prior to joining Pencarrow in 1993, Richard spent 10 years with international accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Rick Wells

“If we are to compete with the rest of the world, design is critical. And that’s design in the holistic sense – product, brand, messages, supporting tools – everything we use to offer product to customers. Design is not just sketching drawings – it’s about businesses coming up with solutions to problems that they might not even know they have.”

Rick is the Chairman of Formway Furniture. He and a partner bought the 12-person, locally-focused company in 1981 and turned it into a global exporting business with over 200 staff by making design central to their business approach.

Rick is a member of the Furniture Association of New Zealand and has been involved with the New Zealand Furniture Exporters Group.

Mark Elmore

“Our experience at Fisher & Paykel shows the power that design can offer a business to grow internationally. And that’s beyond skin-deep – it’s being integrated into the strategic view of the company.”

Mark studied at the School of Design in Wellington before joining Fisher & Paykel as a graduate. He has been with the company now for 20 years, and is the industrial design manager. Among his achievements at Fisher & Paykel was leading the team that designed the international hit Dish Drawer. Mark has been a past judge of the design industry’s Best Awards.

Jonathan Custance

“Creating experiences is critical for every kind of business all over the world today. No matter what your product, service or market, you are delivering your customers an experience. That’s why design is absolutely critical. At its essence, design is the strategic process to differentiate those experiences.”

Trained as an industrial designer, Jonathan founded the multi-discipline design consultancy CUSTANCE in 1985. Today the highly aclaimed practice has offices in Wellington and Sydney and undertakes diverse projects covering interior design, product design and architecture, with a focus on design for the work environment.

Following playing a key role in negotiating the merger between NZSID and AID into the Designer’s Institute of New Zealand and contributing on council for 5 years, Jonathan was honoured with a fellowship in 1990.

Stefan Preston

Stefan recently stepped down from a five and a half year stint as Chief Executive Officer of Bendon Group. During that period he oversaw the development of markets in Europe, North Amreica, Australasia and the Middle East from Bendon's New Zealand base.

Before Bendon, Stefan held CEO positions at Ubix, and Pacific Retail Group. His first CEO role was at Whitcoulls Group. He has an engineering degree and a MBA from Stanford University. Stefan is now working on a combination of advisory roles as well as developing an active investment portfolio in design oriented companies.