Our People.

Annalese brings to Strategy Collective extensive commercial experience and networks, both personally and professionally here in Taranaki. She has spent the past 13 years with Inland Revenue as a Specialist Investigator; and eight years prior in the hospitality sector. These roles have provided an excellent understanding and appreciation of business acumen and operations, budgetary and tax constraints, and staff management. These skills provide comprehensive business support to all existing and future clientele of Strategy Collective.

Craig Jones is the mind behind the madness that is the brand team. With outstanding skills in brand creation and corporate identity, Craig has helped dozens of high profile brands put their best foot forward when going to market. His eye for detail and creative flare have drawn the attention of multiple awards and nominations, including the prestigious Best Awards. CJ is passionate about finding effective design solutions for his clients. He leads a solution-orientated, high-performing team who feed off their clients' success.

Craig Macfarlane is Managing Group Director across 16 independent businesses and brands with operational investments in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom. His business investments predominantly encompass hospitality, including:

• Ozone Coffee Roasters (NZ and London);
• King and Queen Hotel Suites;
• Joe’s Garage cafes;
• restaurants Social Kitchen, Meat & Liquor, Monica’s Eatery and Little Glutton;
• bars Frederic’s, Ms White and Snug Lounge;
• cafes Lush Café and Gelato, Airspresso and Public Catering Company.

Craig also provides strategic business consulting as principal shareholder in Strategy Collective, a company specialising in people and culture, brand and marketing, and accounting and financial services across multiple industries, one being hospitality. One of Craig’s favoured models is providing key team members with investment opportunities to foster individual career paths and wealth creation. He employs over 300 staff across his business operations and believes the key to success is recruiting the right team members from the outset and retaining them through engagement and personal empowerment in the workplace. Clear strategy and robust core values nurtures a high degree of engagement particularly when coupled with continuous training and up-skilling allowing staff to be their very best. He has vast experience on both private and government appointed boards and is engaged to speak nationally and internationally about his career, experience and achievements to date.

• Degree in Business (double major in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations)
• HR generalist experience in recruitment and selection, organisational development, performance management, change management (restructure and redundancy), learning and development, disciplinaries, policy and procedure development and implementation
• Experience across industries including Retail (Key Lime Pie Salon and Vie Hairdressing), Oil & Gas (Kupe Gas Project), Government (Taranaki DHB), Hospitality, Insurance, Construction, Trades and Retail, Real Estate (Strategy Collective).

Emily brings to Strategy Collective vast experience in the marketing discipline spanning multiple business categories, including retail (Farmers, The Warehouse and Westfield); automotive (BMW and MINI); cosmetics ( L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline, Lancome); media (APN); charity (SPCA); fitness (Les Mills International); pharmaceutical (Pfizer); and, most recently, government (Auckland Council and New Plymouth District Council). She is passionate about getting the best from creative minds and working closely with clients to find the best brand and marketing solution. Having worked on many different campaigns her project management experience spans public relations, social media, experiential, events, sponsorship, print and TV. Emily believes that great content and great creativity generates coverage, awards and conversations for clients.

One of our talented accounts administrators, Dani admits to “loving that reconciling feeling” as she puts it. Born and bred in New Plymouth, she has spent a stint in Perth where she began her career in accounts. The lure of the mountain, sea and family brought her and her husband back to Taranaki where they co-founded Urban Earthworks—of which, of course, Dani looks after the books. Dani is Mum to two kids and is, interestingly, also a yoga instructor.

Kate has a strong background in recruiting and retaining top talent, as well as head hunting for technical and leadership roles. Passionate about learning and development, and equipping managers and employees with tools to increase productivity and effectiveness in organisations. Kate was a finalist for CIPD awards in the UK and has recruited over 300 people. She believes in investing in people and developing employees to be top performers.

Kimberley is an experienced “people” professional. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Human Resource Management and Commercial Law and is an internationally registered Change Management Practitioner.

Kimberley has held human resources roles in both the public and private sectors, working across the employee lifecycle in recruitment and selection, learning and development, and employment relations. Her strengths in organisational development and change management has seen her focus in more recent years on improving organisational effectiveness by developing and implementing people strategies and initiatives that drive better business results.

Kimberley has a passion for helping others to succeed and, with her well-developed business acumen, she is ready to help you drive your “fit for purpose” people and culture strategy.

Born and bred in Taranaki, after attending Francis Douglas Memorial College Jeremy studied Industrial Design at Victoria University of Wellington. He went on to become a freelance graphic designer and eventually ran his own creative firm. Many will recognise Jeremy from The Block NZ where he and his partner (Cat) claimed the People's Choice Award. This experience inspired him into two years as a kitchen designer and to also pursue his favourite pastime of jumping on the tools and renovating anything in his home that you can swing a hammer or a paint brush at. Now, as one of our senior designers, he loves that no job is the same—being able to explore everything from illustration to digital and being involved in the early idea stages of a new company and seeing it grow.

Taranaki born and raised and busy mother of two, Tracy joins our team in the finance department as our Account Manager. Tracy has worked within the banking and construction industries and has also recently graduated with a Diploma of Business and Diploma in Accounting Technician where she earned the award for best performing accounting technician.

Nicky brings bucket loads of passion and drive to achieve business outcomes through the the creation and evolution of effective organisational culture. As a hands-on People & Culture leader, she loves to work across all levels of an organisation to bring positive and lasting impact. Nicky has vast People and Culture experience across multiple industries: FMCG (Lion & The Body Shop), banking (Reserve Bank of New Zealand), corporate and professional services (Beca & New Zealand Post). Her areas of expertise include: - Designing people and culture strategy - Organisational change and design - Coaching - Leadership and team development - Performance management and employment relations - Diversity and inclusion - Engagement and retention Nicky has just returned to New Plymouth after 13 years of travelling and working around New Zealand, UK and Australia. Having grown up in Taranaki, Nicky has returned home to be closer to family and friends and enjoy the second-to-none lifestyle that Taranaki has to offer.

Nat is that driving force keeping many wheels spinning both within Strategy Collective and within the family of hospitality businesses that we work closely with. Born in Taranaki, she grew up in Northland before attending the University of Otago where she completed a BA and PgDip in Communications and Media. She has worked in a variety of jobs across an array of industries from hospitality to Maori tourism and university recruitment in North America. More recently she’s worked as PA and operations coordinator in the oil, gas and construction industry in Australia. Eventually, Mt Taranaki and the prospect of lush scenery and living next to the ocean lured her home and to join the Strategy Collective team where she loves the opportunity to work with a great team filled with creative thinkers. Outside of the office she enjoys spending time with her fiancé and puppy exploring the region’s outdoor offerings. When she’s not discovering new walking treks you’ll find her cycling or skating along the Coastal Walkway.  

Will Ockhuysen is a Graphic Designer originally from New Plymouth who has been traveling and working abroad for the past four years, managing to visit 40 countries. Will has worked in a variety of design roles in Auckland, New York, Edinburgh, and Vancouver. Working globally has taught him how to adapt quickly and given him a wide range of skills and influences. Will was awarded a Gold Pin at the prestigious Best Awards for his university project, becoming the first person at Whitecliffe College Of Arts And Design to achieve this.

Scott is one of our accountants helping clients make sense from their dollars. After graduating from Otago, he spent his early accounting years specialising in Xero, enabling businesses to move over to the, then, new software. After becoming Chartered in 2013, Scott moved to Wellington to become a financial accountant at Summerset Group NZ, before taking off to the UK to work in private healthcare ... and to take advantage of cheap European travel. He balances his accounting work with a love for the outdoors and has hiked in the Andes, Himalayas and a good number of New Zealand’s great walks. When he can’t be in the wilderness, Strategy Collective's great people, coffee and assortment of taxidermy keeps him in his element.

Hayden is our resident marketing strategist and wordsmith. A Massey University graduate in marketing and philosophy, he brings a broad background of marketing spanning the sectors of education, music, publishing, not-for-profit and participation sports. He joined us in 2017 from Auckland where he founded leading running fitness provider, TempoFit. He has authored several running books and, needless to say, always keeps a pair of trainers at the ready.