Speaker Bios

Steve Bonnici
Managing Director of Urgent Couriers Limited.

Urgent Couriers was formed in 1989, specialising in on-demand courier services. It has offices in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand and is the largest privately owned courier company in New Zealand.

It was whilst studying for an MBA in 1997 that Steve first started thinking about the environmental impact of the family's courier company. Intrigued that of a two-year course, only a weekend was devoted to environmental management; Steve took the challenge to identify the most obvious environmental impact in his business seriously.

When Urgent Couriers embarked on its first sustainability report Steve believed that its key sustainability issue was the 1100 tonnes of CO2 that the fleet emits each year. However the study focused attention on the sustainability of the company's contractor fleet and its high turnover.

Steve started as a contracted courier and understands the pressures that individual contractors face each day. Initiatives that Urgent Couriers has introduced to maintain the viability of its contractors will lead to a reduction in turnover and an increase in service standards, which in turn should provide a better bottom line for the organisation.

Urgent Couriers joined the Auckland Environment Business Network in 1997 and was invited to be a member of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development (NZBCSD) in 2000. Since joining the NZBCSD Urgent Couriers has been an active participant in a number of projects including Sustainability Reporting (Urgent Couriers' first report was published 2001), Climate Change Opportunities, Youth Employment and Sustainable Supply Chain.

Steve is married with one son. He is a keen cyclist and competed in the 2004 Iron Man challenge.

Rob Fenwick
Founder of Living Earth Limited

Rob is a founder of Living Earth Limited, a nationwide organic waste recovery and composting company with operations in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Rob was appointed Chair of the Business Council in October 2004.

He is chairman of the Crown Research Institute, Landcare Research and deputy chairman of TVNZ.

Rob is a founding member and executive councillor of the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development.

He was the founding chairman of Ngati Whatua's successful broadcasting company Mai FM Ltd, is chairman of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, a trustee of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), a director of Environmental Defence Society (EDS) and a trustee of Motutapu Island Restoration Trust. He is a member of Chapter of the Order of St John.

He was one of North & South Magazine's NZers of the Year in 2001.

Rizwan (Riz) Khaliq
Global Business Executive for IBM's Digital Communities initiative

Rizwan (Riz) Khaliq is the Global Business Executive for IBM's Digital Communities initiative. The focus of the initiative is to leverage bleeding edge technologies to address to post-9/11 security concerns, optimise government operations as well as to address the digital divide by extending the reach of the internet though broadband. Riz has been with IBM for more then five years, prior to his current position, Riz was the Global Wireless Solutions and Marketing Executive for Public Sector and also held a position of Business Development Executive in Stockholm, Sweden for IBM's Wireless/ Pervasive business in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) region. Before joining IBM, Riz was with the US Foreign Service and served as Commercial Attaché at the US embassies in Demark and South Africa. Riz also carried out temporary assignments in a number of international markets, including Kenya, India, Pakistan, and Germany.

Riz has received numerous awards over his career, including "Gold Medal Award" for Distinguished Achievements in Foreign Services from US Secretary of Commerce, The Secretary's Award from US Department of State Secretary and the highly regarded "Thomas Jefferson Star for Foreign Service" from the United Stated President George W. Bush. Riz holds a Masters of Arts in International Transactions and Bachelor of Arts from George Mason University. As part of the Masters program, Riz attended St. Peters College, Oxford University with the focus on international trade from the European prospective.

Maneesh Tripathi
Service Product Line Executive Global Technology Services - IBM ASIA PACIFIC.

Maneesh has a current role of Service Product Line Executive for Security Services and Business Continuity and Resiliency Services for Asia Pacific - Global Technology Services. Maneesh is also the Global Technology Services Transformation executive. Maneesh has performed many Asia Pacific and country roles in IBM. His last role was the Operations and Portfolio Executive for ITS Asia pacific, reporting to the ITS AP VP managing the business operations, services delivery, Business Controls, Customer satisfaction, operations, and channels for a business of USD 2.4 billion. He also had a Dual role of an Offering and Portfolio Executive, managing the overall Offering/Services portfolio of Services.

Before this (2002-2004) he was the Business Segment Executive for Resilient Business Infrastructure, Business Continuity Services (IBM) for Asia Pacific region working for the ITS group in IBM Global Services located at Singapore. In this role he managed 23 Data centres and BRCS centres all across AP. The Security and Business Continuity line generates a revenue of nearly USD 200 million. He has a matrix delivery team of 108 people all across AP managing this annuity stream.

His core skills and expertise lie in managing an SBU on revenue and profitability and his technical skills lie in Sales management, Technology Services, IT strategy, IT Infrastructure design, Business Continuity Consulting, Rapid Recovery Design, Security Policy Review and re-design and project management. Has experience in transacting large value business deals in targeted segments generating revenue and profit for the organisation.

Maneesh Tripathi has worked as the e-business Principal and Offering executive for the e-business practice at IBM India. He led and closed various e-business Projects including IDC, Portals, Security Project and Payment Gateways with complete delivery of projects as per IBM methodology. Has also led the ERP Practice for India handling projects as a Project executive for the Practice.

Today he manages and executes a business through a pan AP team having about 550 annuity contracts and projects worth USD 200 million in Business Continuity and Security Services with leaders in Japan, China, Korea, Australia and all ASEAN countries. He has work/project experience in about 12 different countries.

Maneesh has a PhD in Humanistic Sciences from Preston University, Wyoming U.S. and an MBA in Business management and marketing. He has also done Engineering in Electronics and Telecommunication from Jabalpur University, India.

Alan Register
Enterprise Account Manager for Cisco New Zealand

Alan Register is Cisco New Zealand's Enterprise Account Manager. He has over 20 years experience in the telecommunications industry and has spent the last seven years at Cisco specialising in Voice over IP (VOIP) technology and communications applications. He is responsible for managing the deployment of IP Telephony and associated applications with major Enterprise clients.

Gary Coman
Director of Product Technology for Cisco Systems, Asia Pacific

Gary Coman is the Director of Product Technology for Cisco Systems, Asia Pacific. His team of Product Managers and Consulting Engineers, manages Cisco's product portfolio and works with companies in Asia Pacific to understand specific market requirements that drive the development of new and existing products for the future.

A thirteen year veteran of the Information Technology industry, Mr Coman has held various positions with Cisco Systems in Asia, Europe and North America. Prior to joining Cisco he managed Systems Engineering for GeoTel Communications, served as Director of Telecommunications for PCServiceSource, and led Voice Operations for Fidelity Investments' Call Centre and Branch Networks.

Mr Coman holds advanced degrees in Finance and Computer Science from the University of Central Florida.