Steve Mitchell
Auckland

Steve Mitchell
CEO

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Assurity Consulting CEO Stephen Mitchell is responsible for all facets of the business, including the company strategy. Steve is an experienced leader with a passion for client centricity and quality delivery. Before being promoted to the role of CEO at Assurity, Steve held the position as GM of Auckland and currently still leads Assurity’s national Go-to-Market team, a role where he builds and delivers the strategic services and intellectual property assets underpinning the company’s proven growth strategy.

Prior to joining Assurity Consulting in 2018, Steve was NZ country Manager for CoreLogic NZ Ltd. This followed a twenty-year career with The Nielsen Company, with several senior leadership roles across the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa region.

Steve holds a degree in Economics and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Marketing from Massey University.

Garth Hamilton
Wellington

Garth Hamilton
Director & Co-Founder

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Assurity Consulting Director and co-founder Garth Hamilton provides advisory and oversees the corporate governance of the business.

Passionate about quality, Garth co-founded the company with Darren with a vision of improving software delivery in New Zealand and beyond. With a proven track record in executive management, Garth is the ex-CEO of Assurity and offers more than 30 years of experience successfully starting, growing, and leading IT services and software companies.

Prior to Assurity Consulting, Garth was the Deputy CEO and Wellington General Manager at Fronde (previously Synergy International), where he led the growth and development of Fronde’s software development business.

Earlier roles include NZ Country Manager for Progress Software, and Wellington General Manager for QED Software.

Garth holds and has held a number of Board roles, including Assurity, Fronde and Ericsson-Synergy.

His education includes a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Operations Research from the University of Canterbury. Garth also attended and graduated from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Executive Program.

Darren McTigue
Auckland

Darren McTigue
Director & Co-Founder

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Assurity Consulting Director and co-founder Darren McTigue oversee the corporate governance of the company. Together with Garth Hamilton, Darren recognised the absence of consistent quality standards in software development and delivery, directly leading to the 2005 establishment of Assurity Consulting. Since 2012, Darren and Garth have expanded the company mandate, focusing on quality and helping customers discover and improve the ways they work; introducing Agile approaches; and by 2016, building one of NZ’s largest Innovation/CX/UX practices. More recently, Darren held the role of Chief Commercial Officer at Assurity and led the establishment of Assurity’s Intelligent Automation division.

Darren started in IT in 1984 and brings a comprehensive understanding of the industry to the company, from business development and analysis, to project management and governance. He has started and led multiple successful businesses on the past two decades.

Prior roles include CEO of Synergy New Zealand (UK) Ltd, and Chairman of Hypr.

Darren attended and graduated from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Executive Program.

When not at work, Darren’s passion is being at sea with his family.

Alex Skinner
Christchurch

Alex Skinner
Chairman

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Assurity Consulting Independent Director and Interim Chair of the Board Alex Skinner supports Garth and Darren in overseeing the corporate governance of the business.

 

Alex is an experienced professional director with a passion for working with others to maximise potential. He is currently an independent director/trustee for Christchurch City Holdings, Quotable Value, Effectus, Plunket, and also Chair of the Board for Ōtautahi Community Housing Trust and Anchorage Trustee Services.

Prior to becoming a professional director, Alex spent 20 years at KPMG focussing on Audit and Risk; this included 12 years as a Partner.

Alex is a Chartered Fellow of the IOD, a member of the Chartered Accountants Australia and NZ, and a Chartered Member of ICAEW.

Alex is a family man with two teenage children, he is a keen cyclist but much of his spare time is currently taken up building a kit car with his son.

Katie Ham
Auckland

Katie Ham
GM, Auckland

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As General Manager for Assurity Consulting’s Auckland branch, Katie takes a people focused approach to ensure that all aspects of the branch’s operations are aligned and empowered to deliver for our clients. Katie joined Assurity in 2018 as the People Experience Manager for Auckland and was promoted to Auckland Branch General Manager in 2021.

Katie is an experienced leader of people and business operations. Her career started in Human Resources then evolved into people management and business operations management during her five years with PwC in London.  Immediately before joining Assurity, Katie held the role of Customer Service Centres Manager for Auckland Transport, where she managed a team of over 100 spread across 12 locations in Auckland.

 

Katie holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Management and Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, both from the University of Canterbury.

 

Outside of work Katie is kept busy with her young family and loves camping, travel, and following the performing arts.

Grant Robinson
Wellington

Grant Robinson
GM, Wellington

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Wellington General Manager Grant Robinson is accountable for leading the branch to deliver exceptional client outcomes in alignment with the Assurity culture and values. Grant feels privileged to have been part of the Assurity journey since 2013, prior to which he held senior leadership roles with IBM and Fronde.

 

Grant completed management studies at the University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Business in Johannesburg.

Grant enjoys keeping reasonably fit and attempting to improve his golf game when not spending time with family and friends around a bbq and delighting in his young grandchildren.

Chris Percy
Christchurch

Chris Percy
GM, Christchurch

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General Manager for Assurity Consulting’s growing Christchurch office, Chris Percy is responsible for all aspects of the branch’s operations, including our people, performance, and our customers. Chris is a seasoned leader who has a collaborative mindset when dealing with people and customers, putting them at the centre of everything he does. His duties extend to leading Assurity’s national sales team, delivering a consistent approach for every prospect and engagement – a hallmark of Assurity Consulting’s dealings with every client.

Before joining Assurity, Chris enjoyed a 20-year career with market intelligence firm Nielsen, during which he lived in 5 countries and set foot in just over 70 countries.

Chris performed senior roles in both emerging and mature markets and helped teams achieve outstanding results in often complex and challenging environments. He finished as CEO of Nielsen Pacific business, where he led a team of over 600 people, oversaw a major transformation, and improved customer and employee satisfaction.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Management from Lincoln University.

Aron Chantelau
Wellington

Aron Chantelau
GM, People & Capability

Linkedin

With a passion for supporting people to be their best at work, Aron leads a People & Capability team bringing to life Assurity’s vision of ‘Brilliant people: Connected, enabled, unleashed’.

Prior to this role, Aron led Assurity’s growth as a Senior Recruitment specialist. He was promoted to General Manager in 2017, typifying the company’s recognition of potential.

Before joining Assurity, Aron held global recruitment roles based in London and Wellington focused on the technology and management consulting sectors. He has some 15 years’ experience in talent-focused roles.

On the weekends, you’ll find Aron skiing on the slopes, playing tennis, and spending time with family.

Justine Denize
Wellington

Justine Denize
GM, Delivery Excellence

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As General Manager for Delivery Excellence, Justine is accountable for ensuring we achieve outstanding results for our clients.  Joining Assurity in 2012, Justine’s background in consulting in both Business Analysis and Software Testing provided a strong platform for understanding the challenges and opportunities our customers face.

Justine has been part of the Wellington Branch Leadership team since 2014 and in that time has held leadership roles in Practice, People, and Delivery. Prior to joining Assurity, Justine enjoyed a career consulting for IBM, Unisys, and HP.

Justine believes that excellent delivery is achieved through building strong relationships, having great people who ‘walk a mile’ to ensure they know their customers, and working with integrity.  She believes that applying this approach to every aspect of delivery – from commercial negotiations and building a team through to the final invoice – is a formula that ensures we can be proud of the work we do.

In Justine’s words, “Our goal is to provide confidence in delivery, by embedding rigorous governance and ensuring an excellent client engagement experience, alongside delivering outstanding results.”

Outside of work, Justine enjoys travelling, which more recently has meant road tripping around Aotearoa.   She’s also a keen ‘urban walker’…. especially if there’s a good coffee at the end of it.

Russell Ewart
Wellington

Russell Ewart
GM, Test & Assurance

Linkedin

As General Manager of Assurity’s testing and quality assurance practice, Russell is responsible for leading, defining, and delivering our service offerings nationally. Russell also drives the direction and development of the Assurity Cloud Platform that delivers innovation on quality services.

 

Russell is an experienced IT Delivery Consultant, having specialised in strategic quality change on large-scale programmes in the Banking, Financial Services, Telco, and Government arenas. Before immigrating to Aotearoa New Zealand, he enjoyed an IT career across Europe with Deloitte Consulting & Daimler Chrysler before settling on these shores. He is passionate about delivering successful outcomes through co-design, collaboration, and placing people at the heart of change.

Russell is a passionate fisherman when not spending quality time with his family supporting their equine pursuits.

Benjamen Walsh
Wellington

Benjamen Walsh
GM, Value & Innovation

Linkedin

Benjamen brings an entrepreneurial and practitioner background to Assurity. He is an experienced business analysis and agile team leader, prince 2 practitioner, certified scrum master & product owner, and a student of design thinking. He is passionate about aligning digital products and services with the customer journey.

 

Benjamen has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry, both locally and internationally, in private and public sectors (and a couple of NZ-based start-ups). His background includes work on large programmes including global Service Management at Sony Ericsson Global, Service Management and Regulations at Hackney Borough Council, Dynamics 365 at NZ Trade and Enterprise, Enterprise Analysis at Z Energy, Compliance and Contact centre at Genesis Energy, Design the Career system strategy at TEC and Careers NZ. Go Google at New Zealand Racing Board and the roll-out of ERP and CRM at the Te Kōhanga National Trust.

Benjamen loves great coffee, travel, and music and has a sound engineering diploma from a production studio in London.

The magic of people

People are at the heart of everything we do. With more than 200 consultants across our Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch branches, we're ready to serve our clients day in and day out. From day one of joining Assurity, our people become part of an organisation dedicated to creating lasting benefit through challenge, growth, care, collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

Tina Burn
Wellington

Tina Burn
GM, Business Services

Linkedin
Cassandra Ong
Auckland

Cassandra Ong
GM, Marketing

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Lou Bell
Christchurch

Lou Bell
Senior Recruitment Consultant

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Steve Griffin
Wellington

Steve Griffin
Strategic Business Development

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James Ormsby
Auckland

James Ormsby
Business Development Manager

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Jacob Creech
Wellington

Jacob Creech
Principal Agile Consultant

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Angela Roper
Auckland

Angela Roper
Client Solution Manager

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Tish Williams
Christchurch

Tish Williams
Business Development Consultant

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