About Lance

Independent consultant providing management, strategy, growth and valuation consulting to industrial, media and internet based businesses. I write here and have a Q&A column in idealog.

Company Affiliations

Founder and director of PowerKiwi, supplying Flower Power, Tree Power and carbon neutralised Green Power to Powershop, an online electricity retailer.

Director of Texmate NZ, an Auckland based electronics OEM designer and manufacturer and producer of meters and mini-PLCs, and Lingopal Limited, a Perth based mobile translation venture capital funded start-up.

Co-Founder of Pacific Fibre, which aims to connect Australia and New Zealand to the USA with a very high capacity Fibre.

Co-Founder of AllAboutTheStory.com, a marketplace to help editors fill the gap and quality journalists and feature writers sell their stories.

Co-Founder of MyTours, a do it yourself iPhone app tour creator aimed at Museums, cities and regions. Co-Founder of Groupy, which was later sold to Yellow.

Director of Cadimage, Councillor for InternetNZ.

In addition I have small investments in and have occasionally advised Vend, Taggle, Valuecruncher and Chanui Tea. I was also part of an informal advisory board for PlanHQ and advised on the sale to one founder.

Co-Founder of LTW Wiggs, a JV with LeeTerWal. We help NZ companies do large deals offshore.

Active Consulting

Part of Equip Design Integration, one of three accredited Design360 teams that perform the design assessment and planning phases of the Better by Design programme. Working with Ray Labone, Peter Haythornthwaite and Andrew Jones.

Consulting to Syft, PL Tech, and sporadically to a number of other and medium sized small New Zealand and Australian clients, in the media, e-commerce and entertainment industries.

Prior Work

In 2007 and 2008 worked with BHP Billiton Stainless Steel Materials in Perth, through Lodestone, a consulting group that specializes in operational improvement work. Led a team to help Kwinana Nickel Refinery add almost 10,000 tonnes of Nickel to their annual production, and another team to simplify and speed up improvement efforts at other BHPB Nickel assets. More recently led another team for almost 2 months in Mozambique consulting to BHP Billiton’s Mozal Aluminium smelter.

In 2007 acted as Head of Group Digital at Fairfax Media NZ, New Zealand’s largest media company.

Sole adviser to CEO Sam Morgan and Board Chair Richard Abbott on Trade Me’s sale to Fairfax Media for NZ $750m. Adviser to Trade Me since early 2004, helping with ongoing valuations, pricing, strategy and coping with growth. Led the analytics team at Trade Me at various times since 2004.

Site leader for 10 months on a successful business turnaround effort at BHP Billiton’s (BHPB) Bayside aluminium smelter in South Africa.

Consulted to a Lloyds Underwriter/Broker, turned around several small companies in New Zealand through restructuring and implementing financial controls, consulted at Mount Isa, and advised on strategy to a number of other companies.

Engagement manager for McKinsey & Company in Washington DC/ Projects at clients ranging from underfunded non profits to those with hundreds of billions under management across a variety of sectors.  Led the final stages of the 3-year, $US 5 million, McKinsey Evergreen research effort relating corporate performance and management practices.

Summer associate for Dallas private Equity Firm The Hampstead Group, and prior to that European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and founder of Panic Music in Montreal.

Various roles early career at Mobil Oil New Zealand and Mobil Oil Australia, including territory manager for the top third of the South Island, and a member of the team that rolled out EFT-POS at Mobil service stations in Australia and NZ.

Academic
Honours degree in Technology in 1989 at Massey University (Product Development).

MBA in Strategy and Finance at Yale University, 1998

McKinsey MMBA corporate finance faculty tutor, 2000.

Motorcycle Travel

Several major motorcycle trips, starting in 1996, including around Europe, Europe to Singapore, North and South America, New Zealand, Southern Africa, and big parts of Australia. 

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If you’d like to contact me then simply fill out the form or call the number on the contact Lance page. I am generally available for consulting work.