About us

Kevin O'Sullivan

Chief Executive Officer

Kevin is the co-founder and chief executive of Nui. He is an experienced financial markets professional with a background in brokering and foreign exchange trading. A highly motivated entrepreneur, Kevin has a deep understanding of international trading markets, combined with experience in all aspects of business leadership, people management and strategic direction. Prior to co-founding Cream Trading and establishing the Nui platform, Kevin held a number of senior leadership roles with OMFinancial and Tuatara Management Ltd.

Dr. Bruce Maunder, PhD

Chief Operating Officer

Bruce is a co-founder of Nui. He is an experienced entrepreneur who has overseen the design and development of many software and electronic hardware projects. Bruce has a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Auckland.

Dr. Vladimir Managarov, PhD

Chief Technology Officer

Vladimir is responsible for the backbone of the Nui platform. His team ensures that every customer’s platform is designed and configured to support their needs. Vladimir specialises in creating complex web-solutions to successfully fulfil business needs and brings a clear view of time and resource allocation strategies. He has extensive experience in Europe and New Zealand, and prior to joining Nui held a number of senior development roles with Yellow New Zealand, Evanti and Raduga Internet. Vladimir has a PhD in mathematical modelling and programme complexes from South Ural State University.

Paul Grave

Independent Advisor

Paul joins Nui after a 20-year career at Fonterra, where he held a wide variety of key senior leadership roles, both in New Zealand and the United States. Paul was one of the founding creators of Global Dairy Trade where he played an integral role in the radical change to the way dairy products are traded across the globe. As Director of GDT, he oversaw GDT’s sustained growth, from a start-up business in 2008 to one that trades up to USD 5 billion in dairy commodities annually. Prior to running GDT, Paul was involved in commodity sales, both as a USA based Key Account Manager and also as the Product Manager for Fonterra’s protein portfolio.

Monique Bertazzon

Head of Finance

Monique is an experienced Chartered Accountant with a history of working in CA practice, Financial services, Ecommerce, Media and Telecommunications industries in both New Zealand and Europe. Monique more recently worked at NZME as their Finance Manager for Operations and prior to that worked in the UK for eBay and PayPal working as their Accounting Manager and later, Finance Manager for the EU. A strong finance professional skilled in Budgeting, Forecasting, Planning, Business Partnering, Accounting and Management.

Michael Vaughan

Business Development Europe

Michael is an experienced business development executive with a demonstrated history in key account management, implementing and integrating new technology into the sales process, coaching, team building, inbound marketing strategies and training delivery, combined with extensive Microsoft Dynamics CRM experience. Prior to joining Nui in 2017, Michael held senior business development roles with Certa and NCFE in the UK, and has also run his own financial services business. Michael has a Business and Management degree from Chesterfield College, Staffordshire University.

Contact Michael
+44 7555 187056
michael@nuimarkets.com

Jeppe R.S. Jøker

Senior VP of Europe

Jeppe is a strong sales professional with extensive knowledge of the European dairy trade industry and expertise in sales, logistics and primary industries. Prior to joining Nui, Jeppe was a key accounts manager at Arla Foods where he played a key role in developing and implementing the Arla Cheese online trading platform. Jeppe has a Marketing Management degree at the Business Academy in Aarhus.

Contact Jeppe
+45 22 95 91 71
jeppe@nuimarkets.com

Ashley Honey

Senior Vice President, Americas

Ashley has more than 15 years' experience in commodities, foreign exchange trading and treasury risk management. Prior to joining Nui in 2018, Ashley worked on financial markets projects with some of the world's largest corporations in both New Zealand and the United States including BNP Paribas, Ball Corporation, and Barclays Capital. Ashley has an economics degree from Arizona State University. When he is not focusing on developing Nui’s strategic business partnerships across North America, Ashley is an ultra marathon runner and has competed in a number of events in the US.

Contact Ashley
+1 602 380 2681
ashley@nuimarkets.com

Alfredo Holguin

VP Latin America

Originally from Mexico and dual citizenship Mexican and American, he currently lives in Rye, New York. Alfredo is a CPA (bachelors degree) from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico (ITAM) and also studied an MBA at ITAM.

Alfredo has worked in the Financial Industry for 30 years, working as a Trader and in Sales of Interest Rates and Foreign Exchange derivatives. Alfredo has worked in Mexico and in New York in some of the world’s largest Banks including, Accival-Banamex, Santander, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Barclays, Citibank and BNP Paribas. Alfredo has covered Mexican Financial Institutions, Corporates and Government entities, while working at Citibank in NY he worked along the Sales teams in South America (except Brazil and Venezuela).

He lives in New York with his wife of 31 years, has three children and enjoys playing tennis, paddle tennis, golf, watching football (American) and cooking outdoors.

Contact Alfredo
+1 914 646 7278
alfredo@nuimarkets.com

Marc O'Connor

Head of operations

Marc has over 15 years’ experience in the commodity futures markets, having worked for commodity trading advisors (CTA’s), commodity systems traders and hedge funds in New Zealand, Australia and Switzerland.

Marc was a member of the founding team of Cream Trading as their Business Development Director, and has recently re-joined Nui Markets from a short stint working on other projects both in New Zealand and abroad.

Marc has a Bachelor of Business degree with a double major in finance and management.

Mike Petersen, Independent Chairman

Independent Chairman

Mike is a Hawke’s Bay based farmer and company director with a strong background in international markets and trade from his various governance roles in agribusiness.

Mike is well connected across the New Zealand farming and exporting sector and has a deep appreciation for the world of international trade, rapidly changing consumer habits, and B2B marketing models.

Mike has spent the past 6 years as New Zealand’s Special Agricultural Trade Envoy, a role which he finishes at the end of this month. In this role, Mike has travelled extensively to advocate for open markets and promote international trade.

Mike currently has independent governance roles with ANZCO Foods Limited, Kelso Genetics Limited and Totally Vets Limited. He sits on the advisory committee of Dryland Carbon and holds a cluster of directorships in farming in the East Coast region.

David Ross

Chair

David is a chartered accountant, professional director, venture capital investor and expert forensic witness. He is the chair of KODE Biotech, Rialto Distribution and a Trustee of the NZ Arts Foundation, and has previously served on the boards of Konnect Net NZ, Lifestream International and Rex Bionics. David started the Rialto Cinemas chain and the Sky Arts channel, while co-owning Sky’s Rialto Channel, and is a noted philanthropist and supporter of New Zealand business.

Duncan Milne, MAgSc

Director

Duncan has over 40 years’ experience in the global agribusiness sector in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. He has extensive experience in commodity trading, risk management, global food sales, brand management, R&D, greenfield start-ups, M&A, restructuring and governance. Duncan is a director of Ratahiwi Farms, Intergrain, and Hodder and Taylor, and was founding shareholder and a past director of Open Country Cheese Ltd.

Ian Proudfoot

Independent advisor

Ian is the Global Head of Agribusiness at KPMG where he leads KPMG’s consumer/industrial markets and agribusiness activity, providing a wide range of audit engagements across various primary sector industries. He is a leading expert in the agricultural business sector, with a deep understanding in how technical innovation and current market forces will shape agricultural initiatives moving forward. Ian regularly provides insights into upcoming agribusiness trends for numerous international media outlets.

David Robertson

Independent advisor

David is a director of Eleven, a Wellington-based strategic consultancy that specialises in providing businesses with the clarity and pathway required to become high-growth human-centric businesses. He has more than 25 years’ of expertise in business, brand and marketing strategy, new technology strategy, product development, communication planning and implementation, and practical people leadership. Prior to Eleven, David launched and grew two successful businesses in New Zealand, was part of the foundation team of a San Francisco tech start-up, and re-shaped and repositioned a London-based integrated communications agency.

Rebecca Swinson

Chief of Customer, Product and Delivery

Rebecca works closely with customers and our technical team to define and deliver platform improvements to meet the varying needs of our customers. She works to understand the desired business outcome for each customer, then works to ensure platform changes are implemented in a way that enables this. Prior to joining Nui, Rebecca led business transformation initiatives for a number of large organisations across a number of sectors including finance, electricity, telecoms and FMCG sectors.

Dion Peters

Platform Director

Dion heads the development of the back-end and infrastructure of the Nui platform and is responsible for ensuring the business logic is robustly implemented. His background is in the scoping, design and development of web-based big data software. He has had a varied career with companies specializing in mobile data technologies and GPS tracking systems. This included a technical role in the RNZN with responsibility for information and communications systems. Dion brings a wealth of experience to Nui.

Bianca Sequeira

Quality Analyst

Bianca has a lengthy background in testing trading and banking software. She is experienced in automation testing and has a thorough understanding of SDLC. Bianca is an expert practitioner on the Nui Markets Platform and is ultimately responsible for the platform’s quality assurance. She has a B.E. in Computers and a Diploma in Business Intelligence.

Alex Engelbrecht

Platform Developer

Alex joined Nui in 2016 as a full stack developer. Now specialising in front end development, Alex leads the feature development for our tender module. He enjoys a challenge and is known for implementing novel solutions. He has particular interests in AI and cyber security. Outside of Nui, Alex takes interest in maths and physics and has many technical hobbies such as electronics and robotics.

Tim Van Der Hulst

Senior Developer

Tim is a Senior Back-end Software Developer with a passion for creating modular, scalable and well tested software. He has extensive experience working with various startups in New Zealand including Grabone, PredictHQ, Devoli, etc. Tim has a degree in Computing and Mathematical sciences from Waikato, New Zealand.

Wim Mertens

User Interface Designer

Wim is Nui’s user interface designer and is in charge of developing the design and usability aspects of the platform. Wim has more than 20 years’ experience in traditional print design, digital design and front-end development. Originally from the Netherlands, he was responsible for the Dutch-e-commerce branch of Yves Rocher. Before joining Nui, Wim worked with multiple clients across Europe and Australasia, including the Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs. He was also employed at Foster Moore International and worked on the design and development of their globally acclaimed electronic registration software.

Joanna Castellano

Marketing Coordinator

Joanna is passionate about everything digital. She started as a freelancer in the Philippines and came to New Zealand to study and pursue digital marketing. With experience in web content development, social media management, market research and developing marketing strategies, she is keen to see what the future brings for Nui.

Venessa Darroll

Senior Business Analyst

Venessa is a senior business analyst passionate about sustainability. She has more than 20 years’ experience in business analysis and management consulting across a wide range of businesses and project types. Venessa has a project management certification and is currently wrapping up her thesis for her master’s in Business Management and IEMA Certificate in Environmental Management.