Facilitator

Peter Wharton
Director, GSK Business Consultants (2001) Limited

The Profit by Design Workshops are facilitated by independent business consultant Peter Wharton.

Peter works with clients in strategic and business planning, business process redesign, organisational design, and program/project management.

He has provided business leadership and program/project management for companies such as New Zealand Dairy Group, Carter Holt Harvey, and Telecom New Zealand.

A key area of expertise is the creation of innovative change through the design and facilitation of collaborative design workshops. Clients include Air New Zealand, Tertiary Education Commission, NZTE (Better By Design), Westpac, Carter Holt Harvey, Innovation Waikato, Metservice and a number of smaller organisations.

In addition to his senior corporate experience, Peter also has hands on experience in running smaller businesses, and provides mentoring support to owners of small to medium size businesses in growth and transition planning.

Guest speakers

Speakers for this year's workshops include:

• Bryn Chapple, Design Manager, Shape Design Professor
  
• Jeremy Collins, Managing Director, Selecon Lighting
  
• Simon Fraser, Acting Head of Design, School of Design Victoria University
  
• Sarah Gibbs, Managing Director, Trilogy
  
• Peter Haythornthwaite, Director, Equip Design Integration Consultants
  
• Mark Pennington, Design Director, Formway Furniture Ltd
  
• Kent Sneddon, Head of Design, Methven Ltd
  
• Ross Stevens, Senior Lecturer, School of Design Victoria University
  
• Rick Wells, Chairman, Formway Furniture Ltd

Some speakers may change depending on the venue. 

Programme

To view the programme and speaker line up for your workshop please download the appropriate pdf:

Auckland Programme 

Wellington Programme

Christchurch Programme

Profiles

Bryn Chapple
Design Strategist & Advisor, Designer

Bryn is the founder and head of product design of Shape Design Limited. He led Shape's Auckland based design team between 1992 and 2005, designing products for manufacture in New Zealand and internationally, co-managing the business and new business development. From January 2005 to March 2008, Bryn headed the 10 strong in-house design team at Macpac Wilderness Equipment Limited in Christchurch, and sat on company's management team. His design projects included backpacks, technical outdoor apparel, sleeping bags and tents.

Bryn is currently working with New Zealand manufacturing and service companies, developing design strategies, building internal design capability and leading design and new product development programmes.

Jeremy Collins
Managing Director, Selecon Lighting

A former theatre and architectural lighting designer Jeremy has led Selecon from a New Zealand based local theatre supply company to a recognised world leader in the development and manufacture of theatre and display luminaires. Selecon’s lighting products are in daily use in the world’s leading Theatres and Opera Houses including the Royal National Theatre, London; Bolshoi Theatre Moscow; Sydney Opera House; Paris Opera. Selecon products also grace many museums and art galleries including the new Ethography Museum in Paris; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; British Museum, London; Madame Tussauds New York and the Hong Kong Art Museum.

Professor Simon Fraser
Head of the School of Design, Victoria University

Professor Simon Fraser is currently Head of the School of Design at Victoria University and was founding director of the Industrial Design programme in 2001. He has been involved in product design for more than 30 years in Europe and New Zealand, winning many international design awards. As Assistant Design Director at Porsche Design in Austria, he designed products ranging from medical equipment and mobile phones, to motor scooters and passenger trains, for clients including Audi, Volkswagen, Siemens, Sharp, TEAC, NEC and Samsung. Simon also lectured regularly for eight years at the Art Center College of Design in Montreux, Switzerland and in Pasadena, California, USA.

Simon was appointed member of the Government's Design Industry Taskforce and was subsequently invited to join the Better by Design advisory board to further advise on the execution of the initiatives identified in the strategy.

Sarah Gibbs
Managing Director, Trilogy

Sarah Gibbs began Trilogy with her sister Catherine de Groot in 2003. Listed on Deloitte’s Fast 50 for consecutive years, Trilogy exports to Europe, North America, North Asia and Australia. Sarah trained an accountant, and began her entrepreneurial career as a product manufacturer before launching her own natural beauty product company.

Peter Haythornthwaite
creativelab Limited, equip design integration consultants

Peter Haythornthwaite has been the recipient of many national and international awards for product, graphic and environmental design and his work has been extensively and internationally published and exhibited. As two times president of the Designers Institute of New Zealand, Peter was instrumental in the development of the Best Design Awards, and communicating the value of design to business and elevating the standing of the design profession.

Peter is currently, in addition to being owner of the design consultancy peterhaythornthwaite//creativelab, an adjunct-professor of design at the University of Victoria, Wellington. With his partner in equip design integration, Ray Labone, he is active in undertaking design assessments for the NZTE Better by Design Design360 programme. He is on the advisory board of the Design Management Institute (international).

Mark Pennington
Design Director, Formway Furniture

Mark Pennington is a consultant designer who has worked and taught in many organisations around the world. He was first invited to consult to Formway in 1982 and is now both a company director and a retained consultant designer. An integral part of the company’s design success, Mark’s accomplishments include participating in the design of Formway’s ZAF and LIFE chairs and the FREE system workstation — all three of which have won prestigious awards in Australasia and abroad.
www.formway.com

Kent Sneddon
Head of Global Group R&D Design, Methven

Kent is a product of Wellington Polytechnic’s the School of Design in the early nineties.  After a short stint with respected designer Peter Haythornthwaite, followed by a nine year career culminating as Lead Designer, Future Products with Fisher and Paykel, Kent took on the mantel of head of Methven’s global group R&D in 2006.

His philosophy in design is grounded in observing, listening, understanding, solving problems and providing desirability, developing a vision for the client or a company and guiding them to a future not just provide them with a short term answer. Kent feels that design projects are a complex tangle of processes, markets, commercial reality and the most complex of all; the people we interact with, how we collaborate, influence and ‘sell’ the concept not only to our fellow designers but our marketing teams, our management team and finally the consumer and the experiential expectation.

Kent’s work at Methven has earned him the 2007 Best design silver award and the 2008 Australian international design award for Satinjet Tahi concept and Kiri. Service to the design community has seen him judging the 2007 and 2008 Dyson awards.

Chris Staynes
Director, Scott Technology

Chris Staynes commenced his career with appliance manufacturer H. E. Shacklock Limited in 1973 as a cadet, gaining experience in product design and production engineering. In 1980 he transferred to Fisher & Paykel Auckland as a Senior Product Design Engineer returning to Dunedin in 1984 as Product Engineering Manager.

In 1986 Chris was appointed General Manager, Fisher & Paykel Range & Dishwasher Division, a role he held until his retirement in late 2006. During his time as General Manager, the Range & Dishwasher Division was transformed from a locally focussed manufacturing operation employing 300 staff to a design focussed, high technology plant with 750 staff supplying the international market with products such as the revolutionary DishDrawer® dishwasher.

Chris is currently a Dunedin City Councillor as well as a Director of Scott Technology Limited and the Otago Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Ross Stevens
Senior Lecturer, School of Design at Victoria University

Ross has been a practising industrial designer for more than 20 years. He has worked with companies such as Fisher & Paykel, and Plinius Audio, and international designers and companies including Philippe Starck, Thomson Consumer Electronics and B&W loudspeakers. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the School of design at Victoria University and has just completed his Masters of Design focusing on the way consumer electronic products age through use. In the 13 years that Ross has taught design, his students have won international awards in the LG, Braun and Osaka design competitions.

Ross and Simon are the co-founders of the highly successful Design Led Futures programme at VUW in collaboration with leading companies such as Fisher & Paykel and Methven in New Zealand or Nike Inc. headquartered in USA.
www.designledfutures.com

Rick Wells
Managing Director, Formway Furniture

The Managing Director of Formway Furniture, Rick Wells and a business partner bought the 12-person, locally-focused company in 1981 and turned it into a globally-focused business with over 200 staff by making design central to their business strategy.

Rick is an executive member of the Furniture Association of New Zealand and has been involved with the New Zealand Furniture Exporters Group. He is a member of the Government-appointed Better by Design Advisory Board and a trustee on the Dowse Foundation.
www.formway.com