Meet the Team & Key Advisors

Founding Member, Growth NZ Spokesperson

Brendan Vercoe is a founder and commercialisation specialist driven by a belief that New Zealand's future prosperity depends on building globally competitive, export-led businesses. Raised in Te Puke with deep ties to kiwifruit growing, he combines food science training and an Oxford MBA with hands-on experience turning research into revenue. He has commercialised Calocurb at Plant & Food Research, co-founded 2before Performance Nutrition, and now leads Kiwi Sorbet and Gut Comfort - creating higher-value global pathways from New Zealand-grown produce.

Founding Member & Board Director

Bowen Pan is a business leader with deep experience building global marketplaces, consumer platforms, and B2B SaaS products. He led the creation of Facebook Marketplace and held senior product roles at Trade Me, Facebook Gaming, Stripe, and Common Room. A graduate of Westlake Boys High School, the University of Auckland, and Stanford Business School, Bowen returned to New Zealand after 13 years in Silicon Valley. He is a board director at NZME, serves on the University of Auckland Business School Advisory Board. Through Growth NZ, Bowen is focused on building a vibrant economic engine to support a future New Zealand rich in opportunity, talent, and quality of life.

Founding Member & Programme Manager

Alyssa Laakmann is a founding member of Growth NZ. Her work spans large-scale transformation in financial services, venture-backed start-up’s, and economic policy engagement. Through Growth NZ, she brings together founders, investors, operators, and policymakers, both in New Zealand and across the diaspora, to address structural barriers to scale. She is focused on building the conditions for higher productivity, stronger wages, and globally competitive growth.

Founding Member, Secretary

A founding member of Growth NZ, driven by a belief that New Zealand’s long-term prosperity depends on global competitiveness, innovation, and sustained economic growth. Trained as a medical doctor, he later built experience in commercialisation, venture capital, and cross-border financing. His work spans startup formation, investment facilitation, and international business development, connecting founders, investors, and policymakers to turn ideas into action. Through Growth NZ, Henry works with leaders from diverse backgrounds to advance practical, non-partisan solutions and help build a more hopeful, opportunity-rich future for everyone who lives here.

Advisor

Anna is an experienced executive and board member with leadership experience in New Zealand and internationally.

She is an independent director at Dawn Aerospace, an angel investor and startup advisor, and has worked in senior roles across the public and private sectors, including for two New Zealand Prime Ministers and as chair of the New Zealand Electricity Authority. She holds postgraduate qualifications from Northwestern and Stanford Universities.

Advisor, Startup Ecosystem Leader & Angel Investor

Suse Reynolds is a leading figure in New Zealand’s startup and early-stage investment ecosystem. She founded AngelHQ in 2005, growing it into one of the country’s most active angel networks with more than 100 members and over $70 million invested into 150 high-growth companies. A founding member of the Angel Association NZ Council, she later served as Executive Director and then Chair, helping shape the national angel investment landscape. An active investor with more than 30 ventures in her portfolio and current chair of UNESCO-recognised startup Narrative Muse, Suse believes startups are central to lifting productivity, exports and long-term economic resilience. She supports policy settings that strengthen early-stage capital, back founders from day one, and position innovation as a core pillar of New Zealand’s future prosperity.

Advisor, Legal Scholar

Sam Blackman is committed to transforming New Zealand through technology, education, and entrepreneurship. Originally from Rotorua, he co-founded Nuvocargo while living in New York. Nuvocargo revolutionises trade across the US-Mexico border and was valued at USD$250 million at its last funding round.

Sam earned a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 2024. There, his thesis on reforming New Zealand's tax policy to lower barriers for entrepreneurial immigrants won the John M. Olin Prize in Law and Economics. His research, soon to be published in the New Zealand Law Review, examines how current tax rules deter global talent and offers policy recommendations to attract and retain entrepreneurs, thereby catalysing New Zealand innovation.

Advisor, Founder Diaspora.nz, Partner & HO Ecosystem a16z

David is a seasoned growth strategist, investor, and community connector focused on helping Kiwi founders and leaders scale globally. He’s Partner and Head of Ecosystem at Andreessen Horowitz and was previously Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Blackbird Ventures in Aotearoa, where he supported early-stage founders and ecosystem initiatives.

Before that, he built and led communities at On Deck and held key international roles at AngelList, Carta and CoinList. David also hosts Diaspora.nz, a podcast and global platform profiling the most ambitious members of the Kiwi diaspora and bridging talent, ideas and opportunity back to New Zealand.

In Growth NZ he brings sharp strategic insight, a global perspective and deep networks, and facilitates our Diaspora Dialogs to connect NZ innovators with world-class thinkers and operators. 

Advisor, Director | ex-Meta, Grammarly, eBay

Maya worked at Meta/Facebook for almost a decade across product and marketing teams spanning advertising, VR, health, and privacy and safety. Since returning home to New Zealand in 2025 she is focused on nurturing and growing our tech talent pool and working with schools and companies to leverage technology effectively.

Advisor, CEO Outward Bound

Malindi is an Auckland based business leader with experience across consumer, financial services, and the not-for-profit sectors. Malindi has worked for global organisations, privately owned NZ businesses and established charities, with a track record of leading purpose driven growth and transformation. She is a co-founder and board member of B416, a non-partisan advocacy group campaigning for online safety reform in New Zealand. She brings expertise in strategy, leadership, and policy advocacy focused on long-term societal and economic outcomes.

Advisor, Climate-Tech Investor

Oliver Bruce is a climate-tech angel investor and member of the Simplicity KiwiSaver Investment Committee, backing Kiwi companies building globally disruptive solutions to decarbonise transport, heavy industry and strengthen climate resilience, including Carbonscape, Vessev and Foundry Lab. He previously worked on the investment team at Blackbird, helped launch Uber in New Zealand, and has delivered large-scale industrial projects in the Middle East. Oliver believes New Zealand can build world-leading clean technology companies if we better align capital, regulation and infrastructure to support scale. He champions practical reforms that accelerate climate innovation, deepen domestic capital markets and position Aotearoa as a global hub for sustainable industry.

Founder/Co-CEO of Tend, Entrepreneur

Cecilia Robinson ONZM is a serial New Zealand entrepreneur and founder of My Food Bag, Tend Health and Au Pair Link. She serves on the boards of My Food Bag, Tend and Pie Funds, and has been recognised as New Zealand Innovator of the Year (2024) and appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (2026). Cecilia believes New Zealand lifts wages and living standards by building more globally competitive companies, and that this requires practical, pro-growth policy settings that back ambition, enable scale, and make it easier for founders to build, reinvest, and go again.

Export-Led SME Founder

Chris Larcombe is a New Zealand entrepreneur and founder of Do Not Disturb Sleep Company, where he has transformed a traditional sewing business into a high-growth, values-led sleep wellness brand built on premium New Zealand wool and ethical local manufacturing. He believes New Zealand’s competitive edge lies in backing high-quality, sustainable products that command global premium markets rather than competing on cost. A strong advocate for transparent supply chains and value-added primary industry, Chris supports policy settings that help Kiwi manufacturers scale, export, and capture more of the value from New Zealand’s natural advantages.

Entrepreneur, Investor & Board Director

Guy Horrocks is a New Zealand serial technology entrepreneur who built much of his career in New York, co-founding one of the first iPhone app companies before founding Carnival Labs and Carnival.io, a mobile CRM platform serving global brands including Target and Expedia, culminating in its successful sale to Sailthru. A long-time connector of the Kiwi tech diaspora through New York’s Flat White Meetups, he is now Chairman of Kea and an independent director of NZME, New Zealand Mint and Jade Software. Guy believes New Zealand’s prosperity depends on building globally ambitious, export-led technology companies and strengthening our ties to world-class talent and capital. He supports founders to scale internationally from day one and make New Zealand a magnet for ambitious and talented people.