QLBS.com’s team leaders have had international experience with some of the world’s leading brands. New Zealand’s clean and green lifestyle and its people’s history of innovation and their entrepreneurial spirit make it an ideal place to headquarter innovative companies.

Keith Phillips has spent the past 10 years growing, investing and taking to the international market a number of innovative companies. His focus is now on QLBS.com because he sees it as a global player. Prior to discovering New Zealand’s creative talent, Keith’s business career spanned Europe, USA, Middle East, Africa and Asia in roles including international marketing manager for Gillette and Managing Director of Apple Computers UK and Director of Marketing for Apple Computers USA. Keith has a Business Degree with triple majors in marketing, economics and business science. He also attended INSEAD’s advanced management programme for CEOs.

Steve Lewin has developed systems for the IT sector for the past 25 years, working with small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and large corporate entities throughout the world. QLBS.com was conceived out of those experiences and Steve’s pioneering of the ‘Universal Measurement’ system that enables best practice models to be captured and converted to an audit framework. Steve has an MBA and a Bachelor of Agricultural Science. He is frequently sought as an international speaker and was a key note speaker at the China High-Tech Expo Beijing Incubation Conference in 2003. More recently he gave presentations at the International Economic Development Council in the USA.

Margaret Mulqueen has been keeping a steady hand on the organisation and finances of companies since she helped Steve Lewin co-found Trident Software in the early 1990s, then Quantel Business Science, which is now QLBS.com. Originally from an academic/lecturer background and later commercial organisation roles, Margaret’s focus for QLBS.com includes maintaining key relationships with clients, working with Economic development agency managers, developing marketing and communications initiatives and keeping the business healthy.

Linda Kerkmann helps provide commercial direction and shares responsibility for the strategic development of QLBS.com. Linda has a Business Science degree (Hons), which took her into a management career with Unilever and then P&G (Procter and Gamble), where she was a Marketing Manager in the UK. Linda crossed into commercial operations after her arrival in New Zealand and helped restructure a graphics company into an interactive technology company that was later sold to Murdoch’s News Media Group.

Dr Morton has over 20 years of experience working on international economic issues in senior executive positions. She has designed and implemented a variety of projects throughout the Americas, including Monitoring & Evaluating trade policy, training on regulatory reform, trade capacity building, the impact of regional trade agreements, ICT sector development, municipal finance, and environmental regulation and the private sector. Previous positions included Principal Associate of International Trade and Investment Practice for Nathan Associates Inc; Vice President of the Institute of the Americas; Executive Director of the US-Mexico Business Committee for the Council of the America; Director of the Canadian American Committee for the National Planning Association; and as a Foreign Service Officer in Venezuela, New Zealand and Canada. Ms. Morton has all but the dissertation for a Ph. D. in International Political Economy from the University of Washington and received her BA in International Relations from Carleton College.

Andrew Kwek set up the Singapore beach-head for QLBS.com (then Quantel International) in 2003 before returning to NZ to work on projects for clients including Microsoft, NZTE and the South Waikato Economic Development Trust. In his past career Andrew worked in channel development for 3M Corporation and was General Partner and COO of a private equity firm. He worked with clients including Singapore Airlines, IBM, Compaq and Chan Brothers as well as government agencies such as IE Singapore and its Ministry of Education.

Louis Ormerod enjoys managing a software project from inception to release – and talking with clients about it. Client contact is important for this techie. As QLBS.com’s systems architect he leads its software development teams and is responsible for the development of applications and support systems for clients. His fields of special competence are client/server application development for distributed systems and fields of special interest include Windows application development for the WindowsCE operating system. Louis has a Bachelor of Science (electronics and computers) from the University of Auckland. He worked in the USA for NASDAQ listed Dendrite and then Symbol Technologies, returning with a young family to NZ as QLBS.com’s software development manager.