Andrew Watson, a founding Director of JacksonStone & Partners, has recently taken on the role of Managing Partner. With his extensive background as a Principal Consultant, Andrew now spearheads the company, providing exceptional leadership and guidance.

Throughout his career, Andrew has been dedicated to offering a comprehensive range of professional consulting and contracting resources to clients. He excels in advising and supporting senior leadership teams, as well as providing operational line management assistance. His expertise has been instrumental in various public sector initiatives, including the establishment of new regulatory entities, the implementation of complex social services policy initiatives, business transformation programs, and large-scale capital infrastructural investment projects.

Andrew’s professional journey began in internal auditing, marketing, and project management, ultimately leading him to the professional services sector. Over the past two decades, he has acquired an extensive knowledge of the consulting market. Andrew has personally overseen more than a thousand assignments across various sectors, including finance, human resources, communications, legal, marketing, and policy.

Known for his unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality experiences for clients and candidates alike, Andrew focuses on providing consistency, efficiency, and transparent, consultative guidance. His warm and personable approach has fostered numerous long-term and successful relationships with contractors and clients. Andrew takes great care in ensuring that the needs and desires of both parties are met, resulting in high-quality placements and productive partnerships.

Areas of specialisation: Professional contracting, transformation projects, management
Years in the industry: 20

Ko Tararua tōku maunga
Ko Waikawa tōku awa
Ko Ngati Wehi Wehi tōku hapū
Ko Wehiwehi tōku marae
Ko Rachelle Russell ahau, nau mai ki a JacksonStone and Partners

Of Ngāti Raukawa descent, Rachelle is a Māori recruitment specialist, bringing more than 12 years of professional consultancy experience to her role. By discovering her own whakapapa, she helps employers understand and incorporate a Te Ao Māori perspective into their recruitment process.

Her kaupapa is to support organisations to diversify and to find great roles for Māori. She believes the first step when attracting Māori talent is to ensure the process is inclusive, Māori candidates are supported, and manaakitanga is shown. Relationships and connections are also crucial, and Rachelle maintains strong networks across her industry to bring together the right people with the right roles.

Whāia te iti kahurangi
Ki te tuohu koe
Me he maunga teitei.

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

Anastasia works within our Commercial Operations team as a Principal Consultant.

Anastasia’s core strengths are project management and candidate research. She is excellent at aligning the processes and deliverables in large-scale recruitment processes and ensuring a high-quality service is provided to clients. Anastasia is also highly effective at 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.

Anastasia’s Bachelor of Commerce (majoring in Marketing & International Business) led her to work across marketing, within a boutique recruitment firm. She has since made the switch to recruitment, with experience within agency and internal functions spanning across professional services and Big Four recruitment nationally and internationally. Her speciality is in proactive search where she is able to map out top-tier talent for her clients. Anastasia enjoys working alongside her clients and understanding their needs. Her recruitment approach is considered and consultative, with a focus on hard-to-fill vacancies.

Years in industry: 10

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.

Emma collaborates with consultants, directors and other research associates to deliver JacksonStone’s research services. She develops search lists for executive-level appointments, writes proposals and reports, and builds ongoing professional relationships with candidates.

With a Master’s degree majoring in History from Victoria University of Wellington, Emma has a strong research pedigree, and is an experienced associate with a solid track record in the staffing and recruiting industry. She is equipped for all aspects of executive research and recruitment, from executive search, bid writing and bid strategy to proofreading and presentations.

Matching high-quality candidates to ideal roles where they will thrive and drive success is what motivates Emma in her role. By looking past the traditional role–candidate fit, she ensures clients see a range of superbly talented and well-suited people – even some ‘unexpected’ candidates – so clients have an excellent choice of people to select for their team.

Areas of specialisation: Research, executive headhunting
Years in the industry: 10

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

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

Naomi is a recruiter of high-calibre policy professionals, from entry to mid-level, largely for permanent positions. She finds and assesses individuals for regulatory bodies and public sector policy roles. Naomi is highly motivated by the opportunity to make a difference through local and central government. She joined the JacksonStone team in 2021 and works closely with senior colleagues Simon Boyes and Helen Cox.

Her previous experience in general management and operations helps Naomi understand what it’s like to build a team from the ground up, as well as find the right candidate to fit an existing team. Having assessed an extensive selection of government policy and contracting candidates over the years, she has honed her specialist search skills, knows her way around a great database and is personally well connected.

Naomi brings a mix of pragmatism and strategy to assignments. She is comfortable with the fast-paced candidate short market, builds and maintains strong relationships and is an open and transparent communicator. Known for her genuine and thoughtful engagement, Naomi takes the time to listen, and delivers her absolute best to candidates and clients.

Areas of specialisation: Policy, regulation, search assignments

Years in the industry: 4

Nikki specialises in leading assignments for the recruitment of marketing, communications, stakeholder, customer and member experience professionals. 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, stakeholder management, 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 good 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 creating a win-win for organisations and candidates, where an individual’s talents are matched to an organisation’s culture, strategy and critical success factors.

Areas of specialisation: Marketing, communications, stakeholder, governance
Years in the industry: Nikki is in her second year of recruitment consultancy

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 Ella Guy, and supported by Lisa Norris, 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 at JacksonStone & Partners, often referred to as the go-to for everything operations.

Christian’s focus is on ensuring our consultants are highlighted as expert recruitment and search specialists. He does so by expertly completing client Request for Proposals (RFPs) and countless other corporate proposals. He is also responsible for all of our client advertising; print media and digital.

In addition to looking after our marketing supplier relationships, Christian also manages the bulk of our IT requirements. This includes implementing new software, updating and installing hardware, and managing jacksonstone.co.nz

Areas of specialisation: Management, Operations, Marketing, IT, 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.

Sam works with our Contracting and Communications teams to source and manage candidates.

Sam is diligent in all of his work and ensures our Contracting and Communications teams 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 his teams 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.

Emily works as an Administration Executive for our Accounting and Finance team.

Emily is a diligent, precise and customer focused team member, which makes her a valuable asset when supporting the Accounting and Finance team.

Emily builds good working relationships amongst internal and external stakeholders of JacksonStone & Partners and is a valued member of our team.

Kailin works with our Kaupapa Māori, Human Resources, and Finance Recruitment teams, ensuring they are run in an efficient, well-organised manner.

Kailin is relentlessly positive and a pleasure to have about the office. She takes on any task that comes her way and delivers results above expectations.

Kailin is a great asset to her recruitment teams, as well as the wider JacksonStone & Partners’ team .

Lucy works with our Policy team to support the administration function.

Lucy is a diligent, attentive administrator who assists Simon Boyes, Helen Cox and Naomi Widener with all of their administrative needs.

Lucy is efficient, precise and always eager to learn more. She is a fantastic asset to the JacksonStone & Partners team.

Sarah leads administration for our bustling contracting team.

Sarah 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, Sarah makes sure our processes remain robust and professional. She is also a valuable point of contact for our contractors and clients, providing them with exceptional customer service.

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

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.