Vend grows New Zealand team with high-profile hires

Vend grows New Zealand team with high-profile hires

Auckland, New Zealand - 13 April 2016 - Vend are delighted to announce two new hires to have joined the team, Penelope Barton and Ludwig Wendzich.

Penelope joins Vend as a member of the executive leadership team in her role as Chief People Officer, after a contract at one of our key strategic partners, Xero. Heading up the People and Culture team, Penelope will be responsible for growing and scaling Vend’s unique culture and talent around the world.

Ludwig joins as Director of User Experience, responsible for ensuring the Vend product is easy to use, beautiful and continues to delight and deliver for retailers. Previously Ludwig spent two years in America as a Senior Front-End Developer for Apple. He is well known in the local technology and creative sectors as the founder of first the Barcamp and then Gather unconferences.

Alex Fala, Acting CEO: “We are delighted to bring in two great new talents to the team. People are our greatest asset, so having Penelope come on board as such a strong leader and voice on our executive team, and her experience in fast-growth hiring and scaling of culture is a great result for Vend.

“Ludwig changed the way that Apple designed their websites which is an amazing achievement, and he is a person that fosters great thinking and collaboration in any organisation. We’re very happy to have him join the team to help us continue to deliver world-class experiences for our customers through every part of the product and business.”

More on the hires:

Penelope Barton, Chief People Officer

With an HR background spanning SaaS, telecommunications, banking and not-for-profit, and hands on experience as a retail business owner, Penelope brings the perfect skill-set to Vend. Most recently heading up People Experience, Marketing for Xero, Penelope understands the SaaS and technology space from a people and recruitment perspective. Formerly Penelope has held positions at BNZ, Save the Children, and Chorus, where she was a senior manager in the demerger of Chorus and Telecom, the largest Private Public Partnership in New Zealand.

“I love to work with challengers - those New Zealand companies scaling SaaS in a competitive environment. The opportunity and the talent here is huge, and I can’t wait to be part of this story.”

Ludwig Wendzich, Director of User Experience

Ludwig is a designer who spent the last two years working for Apple’s marketing department as a front-end developer. There he helped the design and developer teams work together more effectively by translating Apple’s design language into systems developers could use to create more consistent marketing sites in much less time. He’s also the founder of Gather, Auckland’s creative web professional’s big day out, and Gather Workshops, an in-school programme that’s helping to make a career on the web a real option for young New Zealanders.

"I'm really excited to be joining Vend. I've been following their progress, and the size of the opportunity and global impact mean this is a great place to help make a mark back in New Zealand.”

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