Movac Leadership Jam

Serge van Dam is a hands-on Investor / Director of going-global Kiwi SaaS companies, such as: Re-Leased, Cogo and Tapi.

Originally an Organisational Psychologist, Serge is most interested in novel growth strategies, and has deep experience in B2B sales, marketing and distribution. He spent a decade as an acknowledged thought-leader in fintech, having been part of the leadership team at M-Com - the world’s leading mobile banking and payments platform - which was acquired by Fortune 500 company Fiserv in 2011.

Serge is an Operating Partner at New Zealand’s most successful venture capital firm - Movac - and is an advisor to various New Zealand Government agencies. He has previously been named New Zealand’s Angel Investor of the Year, organises / anchors several tech events, and co-hosts New Zealand’s most prominent startup podcast; Startup Theatre.

Serge grew up in Argentina, and lives in Wellington. When not helping grow tech companies, you will find him in the great outdoors, arguing over politics, playing cards or with a novel in hand.

Aaron’s career started in finance, then veered into marketing and product roles. Four technology businesses in, he’s still building and has learned the best work happens doing what you love and being appreciated for it. AskNicely customer experience software for service businesses helps frontline workers get recognition and rewards for serving customers right. Huckleberry voice AI-powered 360 feedback helps build professional reputations based on what colleagues say. Aaron is a proud Māori New Zealander (Ngāti Maru) building ambitious, Made-of-New-Zealand companies that make work better for people (especially those that under-represented and under-estimated).

Every founder's journey tells a story. Mine started with selling stickers in the Ukraine at the age of nine. Later, I fell in love with languages & studied how computers can understand us. Now I’m the Founder + CEO of @Thematic- a Y-Combinator-backed AI company, serving billions of users worldwide.

Janine co-founded Easy Crypto, New Zealand's leading cryptocurrency trading platform, established in 2017. She is a member of the Executive Council for FinTechNZ and recognised as a Women of Web3 Top 10 Changemaker, the Blockchain New Zealand Stand-Out Individual and Entrepreneur of the Year, and winner of the 2023 IBM Hi-Tech Awards for Inspiring Individual.

Michael is a fully rounded executive with more than 17 years' executive-level experience within larger corporate environments at a senior level. He joined Criteo early on and helped not only grow the company to more than 2.5K people and more than $1.7B in revenue, he also prepared much of the required work to help it scale and go public in 2013 on Nasdaq. 

Tom Wallace is the founder and CEO of Re-Leased Property Software. Founded in 2012, Re-Leased helps thousands of owners and property managers across the world run their property business in the cloud.

Vaughan Fergusson is a founder, investor and advisor to NZ tech startups. In 2009 he cycled the length of New Zealand, then came home and started Vend, the cloud retail platform sold for NZD 500 million in 2021. He is an EY Tech Entrepreneur of the Year, a Flying Kiwi in the NZ Hi-Tech Hall of Fame and a TEDx speaker. He likes to do hard things and important things: he has cycled around the world, run 1,000 km, and sets himself an impossible challenge every year. These days he and his partner Zoe run an eco-lodge in Raglan, where they host groups looking to get away and think freshly. He calls his philosophy Punk Capitalism: profit as proof you built something useful, not the point of building it.