New Board for WherScape to Oversee Growth
Data technology company WhereScape has boosted its board with a number of new appointments, creating a sound governance
platform for the international business which is currently on an explosive growth curve.
Chair of the NZ-headquartered company is John Quirk, a director and partner at Howard & Company, where his work focuses on strategic investment and advisory. He also acts as a senior management advisor and
mentor to a number of companies at various stages of development, often via board representation and is an investor in
high tech, high growth companies.
CEO and co-founder Michael Whitehead is a data warehousing industry veteran who has spent more than a decade designing
and building commercial data warehouses in a wide variety of industries. Prior to founding WhereScape, Michael had Asia
Pacific responsibilities for data warehousing for Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Matthew Houtman co -founded Pioneer Capital, which recently took a stake in WhereScape. He has been an investor in,
advisor to and director of private businesses in Europe, the United States and New Zealand. He also has extensive
experience in planning and executing financings, acquisitions and growth strategies in many markets, primarily the
telecoms, media, technology and healthcare industries.
Rounding out the WhereScape board are two new appointments; US-based Mark Budzinski and Christchurch's Sarah smith.
President of WhereScape USA, Mark Budzinski previously held management positions at Intel, Sequent Computer Systems,
RadiSys, and Applied Microsystems. He holds an MBA from the Univ. of Oregon, a Master's Degree in Computer Science from
the Univ. of Southern California, a BS in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh Univ.
Sarah Smith is a chartered accountant, has extensive business and governance experience in both the private and public
sectors. She has held key financial and business development roles in a variety of businesses both in New York and New
Zealand.
As an independent director Sarah has 18 years' experience and currently holds positions as Chairman of Meteorological
Services of New Zealand (MetService), Director Christchurch City Holdings Ltd, Director EcoCentral Ltd, Director SLI
Systems Ltd and Director of The Lion Foundation. Sarah is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and is an
Accredited Fellow of the Institute of Directors.
WhereScape has also just added to its senior management team appointing Mark Otten as its CFO. Mark has extensive
international experience in the US, Europe, Asia and Australasia holding senior financial and commercial roles with
multinational companies including Ernst & Young, The Walt Disney Company and Polo Ralph Lauren. Prior to WhereScape Mark was the Chief Financial Officer for
EziBuy Ltd. and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
CEO Michael Whitehead said the new governance was critical for WhereScape as it moves into a new phase. "We are bringing
in some sound wins, like our most recent one, Tesco in the UK, and it's important for us to keep fine -tuning our
processes.
"We're running a robust and profitable business that is showing consistent year on year growth of between 15-20%.
Replacing our former advisory board with a governance-oriented board is a logical step for us."