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).

Rick Wells

"If we are to compete with the rest of the world, design is critical. And that's design in the holistic sense - applying creativity to the development of winning business strategies, unique products and services, inspirational physical environments, experiential brands and effective communications - everything we use to touch and satisfy the customer.  So design is not about sketching or drawings - it's about coming up with unque solutions to problems in a way that adds competitive edge to the business."

Rick was until 2005 the CEO and Chairman of Formway Group. He and a partner bought the 12-person, locally-focused company in 1981 and turned it into a $50 million global exporting and licensing business employing over 240 staff throughout Australasia with industry-leading license partners throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He did this by building a team-based design culture that was central to the Formway business approach.

From the unlikely mix of being a chartered accountant, entrepreneur and design enthusiast Rick has more recently estabilished Design Outcomes. Under this umbrella Rick works as an independant director and business mentor for SMEs committed to a global niche leadership journey through the application of design. His efforts in bringing design to business have been acknowledged with receiving the DINZ 'Design in Business Award: Outstanding Individual 2008' and an ONZOM (for services to business 2009).

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 America, 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.

Brett Hewlett

Brett was appointed CEO of leading New Zealand healthcare company, Comvita, in September 2005.

He has significant international business development experience, having worked in a number of roles in emerging and developed markets such as the eastern Mediterranean, the United Kingdom and Europe. He served 15 years of a 20-year career overseas with world leading food packaging company, Tetra Pak, and previously ran his own strategy consulting company. Brett has also been an active angel investor.

Brett has an MBA from the internationally renowned global business school, IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and holds a Bachelor of Food Technology from Massey University.

Geoff Suvalko

"It never ceases to amaze me how much latent talent and enthusiasm live within the companies I've worked with over the years - and with the right leadership and frameworks how easy it is to unlock and align that talent around generating new possibilities and resulting economic value"

Geoff has practised as a designer for the last 20 years across a wide variety of companies and design disciplines as a Partner and Creative Director of Designworks. More recently, Geoff has shifted his focus to enabling business transformation through integrated design-based thinking.

Thoughtfull is his new venture - a collaborative-based design consultancy providing companies with both the vision and the capability to transform their culture and business.

Geoff's work over the years has achieved global recognition and design accolades for innovation projects for Air New Zealand, to branding strategies for businesses like Beauty Engineered Forever (B_E_E) and Voyager, New Zealand's Maritime Museum. 

Geoff has a Masters in Design Strategy and innovation Planning at IIT Institute of Design, Chicago.