A founding director of JacksonStone & Partners, David specialises in the executive search and placement of chief executives, general managers, and directors completing assignments across all market sectors. This includes working directly with the New Zealand Parliament and State Services Commission. He also serves as Asia–Pacific director for the CFR Global Executive Search alliance, of which JacksonStone & Partners is a member.

With over 20 years in the industry, David has completed assignments across all sectors and disciplines, working with both professional contractors and permanent candidates. Having a strong interest in the social and community sectors, he has also held various positions outside of the recruitment industry. These include an employment liaison and management role in the not-for-profit sector, as well as 13 years in the New Zealand Police.

David’s versatility stems from his ability to engage and collaborate with clients and candidates to as much as possible understand their needs and drivers. With a warm and accessible manner, he works alongside clients managing a high-touch, high-quality process that assists client to deliver on strategic goals by sourcing appropriate candidates for the position.

David is also currently on an advisory group for a local Wellington Charity and a sponsor of youth sports and a national youth theatre company.

Areas of specialisation: Directorships, chief executives, general management.
Years in the industry: 22

Andrew Watson of JacksonStone Consulting is a founding Director of JacksonStone & Partners. Andrew provides a wide spectrum of professional consulting and contracting resources to clients involving advising and supporting senior leadership teams through to operational line management. Assignments have supported public sector initiatives such as the set-up of new regulatory entities, the implementation of complex social services policy initiatives, business transformation programmes and large capital infrastructural investment projects.

Andrew’s experience began in internal auditing, marketing and project management before joining the professional services sector. Two decades on, he has an in-depth knowledge of the consulting market, having personally facilitated more than a thousand assignments at all levels in sectors that include finance, human resources, communications, legal, marketing and policy.

Focused on a high-quality client and candidate experience, Andrew is known for his consistency and efficiency, and a transparent and consultative approach. His warm, personable style has led to many long-term, successful relationships with both contractors and clients, where he ensures both parties’ needs and wants are met for high-quality placements and partnerships.

Areas of specialisation: Professional contracting in all corporate disciplines including programme, project and change roles
Years in the industry: 20

Principal consultant Basil Varouhas recruits across a full range of corporate positions within both the public and private sectors. These include programme and project management; business, process and policy analysis; change/transition management; communications; and HR / organisational development. Many of Basil’s clients require interim cover (e.g. for a staff secondment or parental leave) with a specialist skill set, on either an open-ended or a fixed-term basis.

Having launched his recruitment consultant career in Australia with one of the world’s largest recruiting firms, Basil returned to New Zealand in 1999 and has now worked in the industry for over 20 years. During this time he has completed a number of New Zealand public sector change transformation projects.

Highly experienced, consultative and thorough in his approach, Basil has a gift for engaging candidates easily to draw out their key skill sets and standout qualities. He loves ‘the journey of matching people capability with organisational need’, and he is known for ensuring clients have the pick of candidates to guide them to an informed selection.

Areas of specialisation: Professional contracting
Years in the industry: 22

Ella specialises in recruitment across the legal, accounting and finance areas. She is insightful and knowledgeable when it comes to both the skills and attributes a professional needs to succeed, and the nuances inherent in these roles. Ella’s Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Commerce (majoring in Accounting) led to her working as a tax consultant in the financial services industry for a Big Four accounting firm, and as a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. Her experience as a solicitor spans the private and public sectors, in practice areas that include commercial, conveyancing, property, trusts, wills, tax and litigation.

Ella likes to work in partnership with her client to find the best possible candidate that the market can offer, while helping shape and develop the candidate’s career to ensure the right fit for both parties. Her recruitment approach balances straight talking with an empathetic ear. She enjoys cutting through complexity and finding practical and timely recruitment solutions.

Developing meaningful connections with people is something Ella prides herself on. She likes to find out a person’s story and what makes them tick – so she is always keen to connect over a coffee.

Areas of specialisation: legal, finance and accounting.

Ginny has extensive experience in appointing management, executive and governance roles in New Zealand and the UK. With a professional background in the law, she moved into executive search and recruitment in 2001, where, for 11 years, she was a senior consultant and then manager of a specialist financial recruitment firm in London. She returned to New Zealand in 2011 to continue her executive search and recruitment career, for a range of clients – from large corporate organisations to small, privately owned enterprises.

Ginny’s core strength is market and candidate research. She is excellent at finding and identifying high-calibre candidates for our clients, using traditional avenues and a range of cutting-edge technology and tools that allow her to foster relationships with professionals worldwide.

Areas of specialisation: Chief executive, senior management, banking and finance, governance appointments
Years in the industry: 18

Helen’s diverse portfolio includes executive leadership and policy recruitment within central and local government, senior appointments for professional membership and regulatory bodies, and recruitment across the tertiary sector. She works closely with clients to find candidates who will help their organisations grow and achieve their strategic goals.

After completing her Bachelor of Arts degree, Helen worked in educational bookselling before moving into educational publishing, commissioning many New Zealand academic textbooks that are still in use today. This strong educational focus in her career has given her a sound understanding of the structure and function of tertiary institutions and their relationship with local, national and international communities.

Mindful of the importance of first-rate service and quality, Helen is known for her consistency, attention to detail, and focus on the human side of the process. As she puts it, careful listening and good communication are key, along with flexibility, empathy, and an excellent understanding of a client’s individual and organisational goals.

Areas of specialisation: Public sector, policy, legal, regulatory, not-for-profit, creative industries, tertiary/ITP education
Years in the industry: 12

John works primarily with boards and senior management in both the private and public sectors. As part of the Finance, Accounting and Policy teams, his primary expertise lies in finding high-calibre candidates for financial sector and policy roles. A trusted client advisor, John provides the latest market insights to align recruitment strategy to organisational goals, helping organisations find and assess people who will advance their culture and purpose.

After first serving in the New Zealand Police, and later working with electricity operator M-Co, John began his search and recruitment career in 2004 with ANZ Bank, leading national recruitment across a number of its key business groups. Moving to Australia, he took directorships in search, recruitment and strategic consulting firms, focusing on banking and financial services. He joined JacksonStone in 2016, following his return to New Zealand.

This long experience has given John a nuanced understanding of the challenges in hiring at leadership level in contemporary business. An avowed ‘people person’, he is known for his personal and empathetic touch with candidates, his ability to build long-term relationships (exemplified by repeat business over the years with many clients), and his thorough commitment to delivering an end-to-end search or recruitment service.

Areas of specialisation: Executive search, financial services, policy, commercial markets, operations management (diverse areas)
Years in the industry: 15

John specialises in leading assignments for the recruitment of senior strategic and communications professionals for both the private and public sectors.

John has recently joined JacksonStone & Partners after 20 years of providing strategic and communications counsel to a range of public and private sector clients, including board chairs, chief executives and senior management. Prior to that, he spent 12 years in print journalism and journalism education. His media experience, along with two decades of providing strategic advice to organisations, often during times of crisis or change, means he has built up deep personal experience of what it takes to deliver high-quality, professional strategic counsel.

John’s engaging approach puts people at ease and encourages open and honest conversations with candidates. He works closely with clients to understand their specific needs, and to build trust and an enduring relationship. His experience provides insights that will help clients find and appoint high-calibre candidates.

Areas of specialisation: Senior strategic and communications professionals
Years in the industry: 2

Passionate about realising the potential in people, Leanne joins our Finance team after 17 years working in finance and corporate services roles in both the private and Local Government sector. Leanne has a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, HR and Commercial Law and a Graduate Diploma in Accounting from Victoria University.
Leanne is a Chartered Accountant and has spent most of her career in leadership roles, her experience spans several areas including finance, change management, FMIS, ICT, property, risk, HR and health and safety.

Leanne’s core strength is her caring nature and ability to build strong and effective relationships, she believes it is the people that create a successful and effective organisation.

Leanne also is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Directors and holds a number of governance roles. She is currently Deputy Chair for Cancer Society Wellington Division, a board member for New Zealand Riding for the Disabled and a Trustee for Chilton St James School.

Areas of specialisation: Accounting, finance and corporate services

Liz specialises in the area of human resources, helping a wide range of clients to build their HR teams. Her expertise covers the fields of talent management, organisational development and leadership, employment and industrial relations, health and safety, learning and development, and remuneration.

Before joining JacksonStone & Partners, Liz spent 12 years managing HR in a progressive agricultural organisation, providing thought leadership and tactical design, and delivering and overseeing initiatives across multiple global locations. Her experience spans diverse industries in the public and private sectors, including professional services and not-for-profit businesses. She is a member of HRINZ.

Liz is strong on respect, honesty, integrity and team spirit. She maintains the view that an organisation’s staff are its strongest asset, and her natural affinity with people means she is quick to understand the needs of both client and candidate. Her insights into the range of contemporary HR functions brings great value to her clients, and she can be relied on for sound, informed advice through the full recruiting cycle, from searches and evaluation to interviewing.

Areas of specialisation: Human Resources
Years in the industry: 15

Mary’s clients include hiring managers at all levels across the public, private and NGO sectors. She places professional contractors into a broad spectrum of disciplines including communications, stakeholder engagement, marketing, business analysis, public policy, project and programme management, change management, planning and human resources. Her speciality is hourly rate and fixed-term contracts of up to 12 months’ duration.

Mary has more than two decades’ experience in recruitment. Her approach was deeply informed early on by a very useful sabbatical spent within the HR management team of one of New Zealand’s largest employers. This experience led her to focus strongly on relationship management throughout the recruitment process: collaborating with clients and candidates to achieve shared goals and rewarding positions, and proposing contractors who add a huge amount of value even on short-term assignments.

She is well regarded for her professionalism and honesty, working efficiently and effectively to facilitate the recruitment process; as one satisfied client explained, she ‘provided exceptional and responsive assistance in every interaction’ and was ‘clear, honest and supportive’ to prioritise the candidate’s fit to the role.

Area of specialisation: Contracting
Years in the industry: 22

Nikki specialises in leading assignments for the recruitment of marketing, communications, customer and member experience professionals – both generalists and specialists. She joined JacksonStone after more than twenty years in senior cross-industry marketing and customer experience roles, largely at general manager level. Her experience is broad and spans brand and reputation management, marketing and communications, segmentation, market research, customer experience and digital. She knows the industry inside out and has recruited at all levels of a business.

Nikki has strong networks within the governance community across New Zealand. She developed these over more than ten years as part of the Executive Leadership Team of the Institute of Directors (IoD). This experience means she has a solid understanding of best practice board composition and competencies. She has strength in championing diversity and bringing diverse and emerging talent to the fore.

Her background in marketing gives Nikki a strong customer focus and a solutions mindset. This, combined with the networks she built at the IoD, means Nikki gets great satisfaction from connecting people in a way that brings value to both parties. Convinced that we perform best when playing to our strengths, she’s motivated by helping organisations and candidates find their sweet spot, where an individual’s talents are matched to an organisation’s culture, strategy and critical success factors.

Areas of specialisation: Marketing, communications, membership professionals
Years in the industry: Nikki has recently started in recruitment consultancy

Rachelle has recently joined JacksonStone & Partners to lead and recruit for our Māori specialist recruitment team. She will work alongside Anahera Matia.

Rachelle’s experience in recruitment is very broad, having recruited a variety of senior leadership roles in her time working for JacksonStone & Partner’s sister company, Madison Recruitment, and for our parent company Accordant, as the Group Client Solutions Partner.

Known for her positive, caring attitude, Rachelle has strong customer focus and a solutions mindset – for both her clients and candidates. For Rachelle it is most rewarding when a recruitment process is inclusive, candidates are well supported and manakitanga is shown. This allows Rachelle to find the best candidates in the market in terms of experience, te ao Māori understanding, and organisational fit.

Success for Rachelle is seeing Māori achieving results and taking on roles and positions where they can make an impact for all Māori.

Areas of specialisation: Senior leadership roles, Māori specialist roles
Years in the industry: 13

Simon provides an end-to-end search process to appoint chief executives, senior leaders and managers in the public sector and local government. He is also part of the team at JacksonStone that recruits government chief executives for the State Services Commission. Simon has made a number of parliamentary appointments, working closely with the Speaker of the House and officers of the Parliamentary Select Committee. Other areas of speciality include strategy, policy and legal.

With two decades in the industry, Simon is well connected in both central and local government. Given that he recruits for key roles and advises senior leaders, he is privy to politically sensitive information, but he is known for his scrupulous confidentiality.

He is an excellent and honest reader of people, which brings confidence and credibility to his work. Along with his networking skills, Simon has a mature understanding of the machinery of local and central government, which helps him achieve the best possible outcome for client and candidate. Appointing high-calibre people into critical roles gives him a sense of contributing in a very real way to New Zealand society.

Areas of specialisation: Senior government roles, strategy, policy, legal
Years in the industry: 24

Simon works with senior leaders, including chief executives and boards, across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. His assignments have been directed to senior leadership roles – such as general management, programme directors and business heads – in a range of sectors including health, science and research, as well as commercial entities. His focus is on rebuilding relevancy, market position, service delivery and customer-centricity.

Prior to joining JacksonStone, Simon spent many years in high-profile commercial organisations, including AMP Capital Investors. With his experience in senior leadership roles, including governance and strategic/business development, he is well placed to genuinely appreciate and realise the best for his clients.

Simon’s capacity for strategic and client-centric thinking is supported by his market insight and an astute understanding of commercial imperatives across several sectors. His natural inquisitiveness and sound judgement enable him to quickly build trust with a client and assess the nuances of their assignment. He takes pleasure in delivering effective and constructive results, the success of which can be measured by frequent repeat business.

Areas of specialisation: Chief executive, senior management, operational and business services, governance appointments
Years in the industry: 8

Tracy has specialised in placing professional consultants, contractors and permanent candidates in the Wellington market since 2005.

Working in the accounting and finance fields across public, private and NGO clients, she understands the market and skill sets required, and keeps abreast of contemporary practices and trends.

Having worked in New Zealand and overseas across many industries, Tracy believes her strengths lie in her ability to work with people, and her dedication and commitment to her clients and candidates.

She takes pride in being able to work with clients to interpret their needs and provide quality candidates to suit, whilst ensuring candidates get the career growth and challenges they desire and are placed into roles where they will succeed.

Working alongside Leanne Brockelbank and Ella Guy, and supported by David Jia, Tracy is part of a team which is exceptionally well connected and informed on the current market environment.

Areas of specialisation: Professional Contracting, Consulting & Permanent – accounting, finance, planning and performance.
Years in the industry: 16 years

Christian manages our Administration Team, in addition to our Marketing and IT functions.

Christian plays a key role in developing and implementing our marketing and communications plan – a role he carries out with passion. Ensuring our consultants are highlighted as expert recruitment and search specialists in their given sectors is his key focus.

In addition to looking after our marketing supplier relationships, Christian also manages the bulk of our IT requirements and sporadically works directly with the Directors on ad-hoc projects related to the business’ ongoing needs.

Areas of specialisation: Management, Marketing, IT Support, Executive search

MaryAnn is our Company Accountant, keeping the books in order.

As Company Accountant, MaryAnn manages the financial systems on behalf of JacksonStone & Partners. Her meticulous attention to detail is critical to the business and her professionalism and sharp wit is highly valued by her colleagues.

Eva works alongside MaryAnn Spillane in our Accounts Team.

Eva works closely with our ever-growing team of contractors, assisting them with time-sheeting, onboarding and ensuring they are paid on time. Eva’s attention to detail is unrivaled, and she is a valued asset to our team.

Eva also works alongside MaryAnn on improving our financial systems and in providing excellent financial reports.

Lorna leads the administration for our busy Commercial Operations team and is our Event Coordinator.

Having previously worked in the recruitment industry, as both a consultant and as an administrator, Lorna ensures our Commercial Operations team is run in an efficient, well-organised manner.

Lorna is also our Events Coordinator, with primary responsibility for the management and running of all staff events and client functions.

Naomi works with our busy Contracting team to source and manage candidates.

Having previously worked as a recruiter sourcing nursing staff for a large not-for-profit, Naomi has a strong understanding of the recruitment process and is an effective Candidate Coordinator.

Naomi’s ability to quickly identify and screen talent in the New Zealand candidate market is a huge asset to JacksonStone & Partners.

Aiden leads administration for our bustling contracting team.

Aiden works to make sure our leading contracting team can focus on sourcing excellent people for a wide variety of positions. Detail-oriented and results-driven, Aiden makes sure our processes remain robust and professional. He is also a valuable point of contact for our contractors and clients, providing them with exceptional customer service.

With his sharp-eye for detail and good-hearted nature, Aiden is a great asset to JacksonStone & Partners.

Anahera provides administration support for our Commercial Operations team.

Anahera’s whakapapa links are to Ngāi Te Rangi and Tainui iwi and Ngāi Tukairangi hapu.

Anahera works closely with our General Manager Māori, Rachelle Russell, and our Human Resources consultant, Liz Ruscoe. From working with these consultants she has a thorough understanding of HR, te ao Māori and everything in between.

Anahera is proficient, attentive and a valuable asset to JacksonStone & Partners.

David works as a Recruitment Coordinator for our Accounting and Finance team.

David is a diligent, precise and customer focused team member, which makes him a valuable asset when supporting the Accounting and Finance team. David also assists the Contracting team to ensure that the workloads of this busy team are covered, which makes him a key point of contact for both contracting and permanent clients and candidates.

David has a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in English Language and Literature, as well as a Masters in Human Resource Management. His HR studies and experience in several office environments have made him strong people-oriented person. He builds good working relationships amongst internal and external stakeholders of JacksonStone & Partners and is a valued member of our team.

Kyle leads the administration for our Policy Legal team.

As well as his work with the Policy Legal team, Kyle works closely with our Chief Executive, David Hollander, on managing the administration of Te Kawa Mataaho Public Service Commission appointments.

He is also our digital and print media advertising coordinator, working with our Manager, Marketing & IT, Christian Howatson.

Kyle is always first to volunteer for any ad hoc projects and help out his colleagues when their workload is too high.

Sam leads the administration for our Communications team.

Sam is diligent in all of his work and ensures our communications team are supported in everything they do. He is personable and collaborative, with a commitment to client and candidate management. Sam is creative and detailed, ensuring he is always across everything happening in the communications team and is happy to assist to achieve the best results.

Sam also manages the administration of any multiple-role assignments JacksonStone & Partners is awarded, such as change programs and re-structures. You can trust Sam to be the point of contact for all roles, and ensure that roles are administered timely and consistently.

Helen is our fantastic receptionist who ensures our front office operates effectively and professionally. She is the friendly, welcoming face of JacksonStone & Partners

Getting all our Consultants to the right place, at the right time, with the right people is no mean feat – and Helen accomplishes this with a positive manner and meticulous care. Beyond her management of the front-office, Helen is always willing to jump in and assist with whatever is needed, and is deeply valued by her colleagues.